Tomato Red

A Novel

Contributors

Read by Brian Troxell

By Daniel Woodrell

Foreword by Megan Abbott

Formats and Prices

On Sale
Apr 24, 2012
Publisher
Hachette Audio
ISBN-13
9781611135053

Format

A sharp and funny addition to Daniel Woodrell’s collection of “country noir” novels, featuring anti-hero Sammy Barlach and Jamalee Merridew, her hair tomato red with rage and ambition.

In the Ozarks, what you are is where you are born. If you’re born in Venus Holler, you’re not much. For Jamalee Merridew, Venus Holler just won’t cut it. Jamalee sees her brother Jason, blessed with drop-dead gorgeous looks and the local object of female obsession, as her ticket out of town. But Jason may just be gay, and in the hills and hollows of the Ozarks that is the most dangerous and courageous thing a man could be.

Enter Sammy Barlach, a loser ex-con passing through a tired nowhere on the way to a fresher nowhere. Jamalee thinks Sammy is just the kind of muscle she and Jason need.

  • "Dan Woodrell does for the Ozarks what Raymond Chandler did for Los Angeles."
    Richard Eder, Los Angeles Times
  • "A shimmering novel, rich with insight...a pleasure... Zooms on the rocket fuel of Woodrell's explosively original language."
    The Washington Post Book World
  • "Woodrell's storytelling is as melodic, jangly and energetic as a good banjo riff.... Sammy Barlach's story is a tragedy, but the telling of it is a pleasure."
    Valerie Sayers, The New York Times Book Review

Daniel Woodrell

About the Author

Daniel Woodrell is also the author of eight novels including The Maid’s Version, Winter’s Bone, and The Death of Sweet Mister, as well as the collection The Outlaw Album. He is the recipient of the PEN West Award, and five of his eight novels have been selected as New York Times Notable Books of the Year. Three of his novels have been adapted for film, including the Oscar-nominated Winter’s Bone. He lived in the Ozarks near the Arkansas line with his wife, Katie Estill, and died in 2025.

Learn more about this author