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A review by edalferro
The Bayou Trilogy: Under the Bright Lights, Muscle for the Wing, and the Ones You Do by Daniel Woodrell
5.0
This collection is fantastic. I was blown away. Daniel Woodrell has such a wicked way with language and I found myself re-reading passages out loud just so I could let the words out into the world. His characters are flawed and funny and real; I could not help but root for some of them even as they were heading down a clearly marked path to destruction. In the interest of full disclosure, I bought this book because I had picked it up off a table in Green Apple Books and was reading the back when a bookishly-cute boy saw it and said, 'Read it. Seriously, it will change your life." I took him at his word and am so glad it did.
A favorite passage: "The dark of the nighttime streets was carved by lights of many hues and varying constancies; the red from the Boy O Boy Chicken Shack was a quick flick of the wrist and the green from Johnny's Shamrock a steady stab, while the rainbow in Irving's Cleaners was a slight but constant scrape. Streetlights and porch lights helps to slice away at the blackness, but the night had heart and stood up under it all well."
A favorite passage: "The dark of the nighttime streets was carved by lights of many hues and varying constancies; the red from the Boy O Boy Chicken Shack was a quick flick of the wrist and the green from Johnny's Shamrock a steady stab, while the rainbow in Irving's Cleaners was a slight but constant scrape. Streetlights and porch lights helps to slice away at the blackness, but the night had heart and stood up under it all well."