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    Nitro Mountain
    Nitro Mountain
    Nitro Mountain
    Audiobook6 hours

    Nitro Mountain

    Written by Lee Clay Johnson

    Narrated by T. Ryder Smith

    3/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    An astonishing, even shocking debut--darker than a bad night in hell--that is written with both humor and heart by "a writer with abundant and scary gifts and consummate skill." Set in a bitterly benighted, mine-polluted corner of Virginia, Nitro Mountain follows a group of people bound together by alcohol, small-time crime, and music. There's Leon, a hapless bass player who can embroil himself in trouble just by getting out of bed in the morning. And his would-be girlfriend, Jennifer, who's living with Arnett, the town's most dangerous thug--and hoping Leon will help poison him. And there's Arnett himself, a psychopath for the ages--albeit so charming and deranged, so strikingly authentic, that he arrests the reader's attention at first sight and holds it fast. His mirror image, a singer-songwriter named Jones, has his own moral issues, though at least he's trying to be a good man. The bright if battered soul who pulls us through this story is Jennifer, struggling heroically to survive the endemic hopelessness and violence that have surrounded her since birth. Relentless? Yes. But nothing remotely gratuitous: only the pain and misery that inspire so much of the music these people love more than life itself.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherRecorded Books, Inc.
    Release dateMay 17, 2016
    ISBN9781501911484
    Nitro Mountain

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    Reviews for Nitro Mountain

    3/5

    19 ratings2 reviews

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    • 2/5
      I got 100 pages in and had to quit. Considering the book is just over 200 pages, and couldn't begin to interest me is surprising. Some have said this book was hillbilly noir, but that is also how Daniel Woodrell's books are described. There is not even a passing resemblance between the two authors. This was white trash noir that happens to take place in Virginia. The characters are boring, and stereotypical of small town, white trash, drug addict, fuckups. None of them are interesting, likable, or really have any redeeming qualities. But the biggest complaint I had with the book was that the story was boring.My second biggest complaint and this is becoming a trend, is that apparently to get a book published these days you first need to get an MFA, and then write a "gritty" story. Don't worry about punctuation or flow of the story, don't worry about writing something interesting, instead do something out of the norm, in this case, don't have chapters. Like many books I have read, I look at all of the praise heaped upon them and wonder "Did we read the same book"?
    • 5/5
      Lee Clay Johnson's Nitro Mountain is a dark and violent look at the underbelly of rural Appalachia. It grabs you by the, uh, throat and brings you along on a joyride you won't soon forget. The writing is very good and allows the reader to experience what at times are conflicting feelings. The characters are likable even when you don't like them. Johnson accomplishes this by showing the humanity within each character so that at the same time we are disapproving of their action we can also understand, from their perspective, why those actions make perfect sense. Characterization this nuanced can be unsettling yet it is what makes this an exceptional novel.I would highly recommend this to anyone who likes darkly comic thrillers. Also anyone who likes character-driven fiction with a gritty feel should consider this as well. Reviewed from a copy made available through Goodreads First Reads.