Give Us a Kiss

A Novel

By: Daniel Woodrell, Pinckney Benedict - introduction

Narrated by: Brian Troxell

In this dark, southern noir, a writer drifting through life escapes his failed marriage and back to his family home in the Ozarks where he finds himself in the middle of a blood feud between his own family and the brutal Dolly clan.

“My imagination is always skulking about in a wrong place.” And now Doyle Redmond, thirty-five-year-old nowhere writer, has crossed the line between imagination and real live trouble. On the lam in his soon-to-be ex-wife's Volvo, he's running a family errand back in his boyhood home of West Table, Missouri—the heart of the red-dirt Ozarks. The law wants his big brother, Smoke, on a felony warrant, and Doyle's supposed to talk him into giving up. But Smoke is hunkered down in the hills with his partner, Big Annie, and her nineteen-year-old daughter, Niagra, making other plans: they're about to harvest a profitable patch of homegrown marijuana.

Doyle takes just one look at Niagra's flattering red boots before joining his brother's scheme. Of course it means dealing with the law and maybe worse—the Dollys. A legendary clan of largely criminal persuasion, the Dollys have been feuding with the Redmonds for generations. Now they want a piece of Smoke's cash crop, even if it means killing to get it. Doyle is fast realizing that yes, you can always put the country back in the boy ... but sometimes that's not smart.

Critic reviews

"Woodrell knows deeply the subjects he writes on . . . Most important, he knows the voices of his people, and he never sounds a false or condescending note."—Pinckney Benedict, Washington Post

"He celebrates blood kin, home country and hot sex in this rich, funny, headshakingly original novel. Woodrell is a ladystinger of a writer."—Annie Proulx

"Slick, sparkling, stylized....takes on a mythic quality."—The New York Times Book Review

"A backcountry Shakespeare....The inhabitants of Daniel Woodrell's fiction often have a streak that's not just mean but savage; yet physical violence does not dominate his books. What does dominate is a seasoned fatalism....Woodrell has tapped into a novelist's honesty, and lucky for us, he's remorseless that way."—Los Angeles Times

"Woodrell is a marvellous writer."—Roddy Doyle

I love the characters he creates.

What made the experience of listening to Give Us a Kiss the most enjoyable?

I've loved Woodrell's books since they first came out in print and have enjoyed the audiobook versions even more to my surprise. For me they are the rare audiobooks that I have listened to more than once.

Who was your favorite character and why?

I can't choose just one. I like them so much because they each remind me of characters, good and bad, that I know or know of from my home county in the Ozarks.

What about Brian Troxell’s performance did you like?

He did a good enough job that I stopped noticing anything in particular about his voice and was absorbed in the story. I would hear the characters' voices as he read and not his. To me that's perfect.

If you could rename Give Us a Kiss, what would you call it?

Inheritance Hollers

Any additional comments?

I can't imagine anyone who gives Daniel Woodrell's books a listen being disappointed and I recommend them to everyone I can.