7.6 /10 1 Votes
Originally published 15 March 1999 Genre Fiction | 3.8/5 Goodreads | |||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
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Similar How the Hula Girl Sings, Demons in the Spring, Hairstyles of the Damned, Bluebirds Used to Croon in t, The Boy Detective Fails | ||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||||
Tender as hellfire trailer
Tender as Hellfire is a debut novel by Chicago author Joe Meno. Released by Punk Planet books in 1999. Meno limns a near-fantastical world of trailer park floozies, broken-down '76 Impalas, lost glass eyes, and the daily experiences of two boys trying to make sense of their random, sharp lives.
Contents
Plot summary
Dough and Pill are brothers bound by more than blood. The anguish of their past, the terror of their present, and the uncertainty of their future all underscore the only truth that is within their grasp: each other. For beneath the cruel surface of their trailer park community lies a menagerie of odd characters, each one strange yet somehow beautiful, including Val, the blowsy bottle-blonde who shows surprising maternal instincts when the boys need it most, and El Rey del Perdito, the "Undisputed King of the Tango," a widower who dances nightly, imagining his wife in his arms, as Dough peers through the window contemplating a love that seems not to die. Surrounded by the strange and displaced, Dough and Pill must navigate through a world of constant pain and confusion. Finding beauty in unexpected places and maintaining reverence for hard-won scars, these two brothers learn, finally, that even broken things can be perfect.