Smonk

A popular Southern grit-lit author, Franklin took a bizarre turn in his second novel, which is like a Peckinpah Western scribbled over by O’Connor and Hannah, or HBO’s Deadwood on acid. The story is set in an Alabama town and follows a malady-ridden, one-eyed dwarf, and a teenage prostitute as they embark on a violent jumble of glorious depravity. Franklin cranks up the Gothic tricks to eleven here, cleverly skewering the South’s contradictory attitudes on violence, sex, and religion. A lightnin...