This Book Will Change Your Life - A Tree Born Crooked by the Steph Post.

We suppose we could tell you how A Tree Born Crooked by the Steph Post evoked similar feelings in us as Justified does, but maybe you would expect that, given the blurbs and her Facebook posts, and our great love for the show. But what does that mean? It means that Post writes a deeply nuanced portrait of a place and the people who live there. That there is an ongoing dance between humor and dread that can leave you dizzy. That her language feels as lived in as the characters themselves. And that the characters, as well as the places they live and happen upon, are not truly all that familiar to so many of us. We don't know trailers and younger brothers named Rabbit. Much less small-time crooks with big time senses of self. Further, we may not know crime novels at all, though A Tree Born Crooked is so much more than that, a story about relationships, and how anger and pettiness, regret and distance, can so profoundly fuck things up, it can feel easier to just stay away. So yes, we can say that too. But really, what we want to say most, well besides what a great, new talent Post is, and how excited we are to see what comes next from her fertile lit brain, is that Post's book did for us what we want all books to do, it made us want to read more, Elmore Leonard and Daniel Woodrell and Donald Ray Pollock and Bonnie Joe Campbell, because we suspect that we will find kindred spirits and kindred voices, and now we want to consume those voices too. A Tree Born Crooked did that for us, and it just might for you as well. What it will certainly do, is change your life, if only for a moment at that.