Synopses & Reviews
One fateful decision pushes a soldier from a life of stifling order to a life of freedom as doomed as it is thrilling Macrae, a nice kid from a small town in Tennessee, joins the army only because the boys he grew up with enlisted before him. But when military life doesn’t suit the young dreamer, he goes AWOL, and his wanderlust leads him to New York and a partnership with a charismatic hustler named Charlie. Soon the toxic chemistry between the two makes trouble for both, and the stakes of their petty crimes increase. When the partners find themselves on the run and back in Tennessee, Macrae must come to grips with the man he’s become. Engrossing and unforgettable, Save Me, Joe Louis is a powerful psychological study, and a tour de force by an American master at his best.
Review
“A remarkable read . . .” — The New York Times Book Review “Bell is, quite simply, a virtuoso novelist.” — The Philadelphia Inquirer
Synopsis
Two small-time thieves get in over their heads in this literary thriller from the "virtuoso novelist" and author of Soldier's Joy (The Philadelphia Inquirer).
Not quite at home in the backwoods of Tennessee, and even less suited for the service, drifter Macrae lands on his feet in New York City in the 1980s. There, he teams up with a petty thief named Charlie, and the two hit on a scheme to rob people withdrawing money at ATMs.
Caught up by their surprising success, they move on to bigger crimes. But as Macrae feels a growing discomfort with the increasing violence and danger of their hardscrabble existence, he wonders if he's in too deep to make a clean break.
With a tightly orchestrated and harrowing conclusion from "one of our most talented novelists . . . This meticulously observed story nevertheless grips us with its lucid prose, its keen psychological insights and the author's respect for his troubled characters" (Publishers Weekly).
"A remarkable read." --The New York Times Book Review
"Bell seems to know intimately the seedy sides of New York, Baltimore and the ex-urban south of housing developments and shopping centers abutting old, dying farms. He renders each locale exquisitely and seems as familiar with street jive as redneck vernacular." --Los Angeles Times
"Ripe for translation to the silver screen." --Library Journal
About the Author
Madison Smartt Bell (b. 1957) is a critically acclaimed novelist. Over the last two decades he has produced more than a dozen novels and story collections, as well as numerous essays and reviews. His books have been finalists for the National Book Award and the PEN/Faulkner Award among other honors. Born and raised outside of Nashville, Bell’s fiction is often set in the South, or in New York where he lived as a young writer. Bell and his wife, poet Elizabeth Spires, currently live in Baltimore, Maryland, where they are the codirectors of the writing program at Goucher College.