Citrus County (McSweeney's Rectangulars)

by John Brandon

"There shouldn't be a Citrus County. Teenage romance should be difficult, but not this difficult. Boys like Toby should cause trouble but not this much. The moon should glow gently over children safe in their beds. Uncles in their rockers should be kind. Teachers should guide and inspire. Manatees should laze and palm trees sway and snakes keep to their shady spots under the azalea thickets. The air shouldn't smell like a swamp. The stars should twinkle. Shelby should be her own hero, the first hero of Citrus County. She should rescue her sister from underground, rescue Toby from his life. Her destiny should be a hero's destiny"--From publisher's web site.

• ISBN13: 9781934781531
• Publish Date: 1 July 2010
• Publish Status: Out of Print
• Out of Print: 12 April 2021
• Publish Country: US
• Imprint: McSweeney's Publishing
• Format: Hardcover
• Pages: 224
• Language: English

Reviews

[jamiereadthis]

With John Brandon, get ready to spend time with criminals. But get ready too, to strip away everything that defines them as criminals, to write in everything that makes them whole, interesting, broken, fun, doomed, ordinary, earnest, cruel, largehearted people. No one gets written off, no one gets cut any slack. We spend time in the woods and get just what was promised: the subversion of expectations, the wild incongruities of humanity, the cigarette before the firing squad shoots you down. It’s scary and funny and helpless but ultimately hopeful, and it gives you what is instead of what should be.

“He was a kidnapper and might soon become something worse, but he was still a kid too. He could feel himself as a kid with a ripening heart who looked forward to things, who borrowed his schemes from the same old shelves as everyone else, who loved dumbly like people were meant to.”

I had said before I was withholding that fifth star for John Brandon’s next. He’s got it. He earned it with this one. Following big in the footsteps of Arkansas, this is just exactly my kind of thing. I couldn’t put it down and it ends in just the right way.

First read December 2011

* * *

September 2012:

I wish I had given this four stars the first time just so I could give it five now. This is crazy in just my kind of way. If Elmore Leonard ever cedes the throne of Florida crime fiction, I think Brandon is in line as heir.