Cry Me a River

by T.R. Pearson

Book Overview

In Cry Me a River, his sixth novel, Pearson writes of murder and its consequences in a small Southern town. By the book's end we of course know who did it and why, but the greater pleasure lies in Pearson's humorous investigation into carnal relations, sexual jealousy, men and women, the mean, the low-down, and the dead.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805022007
• ISBN13: 9780805022001
• Release Date: January 1993
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 258 Pages
• Weight: 1.20 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 6.3" x 9.3"

Customer Reviews

Strange Things Can Happen In A Regular Town

T.R. Pearson's sixth novel, Cry Me A River, is a hilarious tale of a murder mystery that happens in a small southern town. Pearson writes this story using nothing but humor and laugh out loud comedy. He gives very descriptive details and uses a clear painted picture to tell his story to readers. He allows his readers to get comfortable and fit right into the story. You can never loose intrest in this book, with his sense of humor. The narrator keeps the tale going and you can become drawn into the story while learning about the people in this small town. The narrator reveals the story and the hidden truths of the town, telling it as though he were not a part of the story. He speaks about the jealousy, lies, hate, and lonliness of the people in the town. While unraviling this murder mystery, we get to learn about the strange people in this town, like the brothers who debate and battle about who is the bigger porno star, the two sisters who give oral gratification to men while they are driving, and the wife who cuts up and dispenses her husband, who is a local town whore. This book may be fiction, but it does not sway far away from the truth. Pearson brings this book with not only humor, but with much truth and closeness to reality. If you enjoy murder mystery's than you will definetly enjoy this book brought to you with comedy and immediate laughter.

A Well-Told Story of Human Existance and Interaction

T.R. Pearson offers a fresh and entertaining approach to describe the nature of human relationships. The novel itself is a story--a story ment to be told to someone casually, over a drink, serving as a best defence against boredom. Although the narrator is the main character, the participant in his story, he seems detached, almost alienated from the world and people around him. He is the observer, the stranger caught in the world he doesn't quite understand. As the novel progresses, he discovers not only the people around him, but himself and the place where he belongs.The novel is centered around the murder, its causes and consequences in a small Southern town. However, this center serves as a background for the net of distinct and sharply observed characters. The simplicity and naiveness of each is tragicomedic; the layers of every character so skillfully unveiled, reveal their essence, their quest for acceptance and belonging, their fight against loneliness (the narrators sister-in-law for example finds her "aristocratic" roots and changes her behavior accordingly). The author suggests that every event in the monotonnous routine of the town--murder, unfaithfullness, jealousy, hate, gossip--serves as an enterntainment. The narrator as well as a set of his unforgettable characters--the old couple who runs off together, the neighbor with his aerobic practices and records, the young couple at the movies--are stunned by their surroundings. They don't know what to do with themselves; quite literally they have been placed into the world they don't understand and didn't choose. In the realtionships, contacts, and interactions, they try to hide their loneliness and their alienation.The reader could recognize and realte to their struggle, as every character resembles the battle of identity and individuality--an ongoing process in every society. As the author simply puts it, "...we were after all, under the surface of things, a community of passionate people who sometimes salughtered each other for love (2)." Whether it is a unsingnificant town in the South or a cosmopolitan center of the world, we are looking for the place to fit in, for the place to belong, the place which we may call our own. The author introduces a concept of "transformation" in several chapters. The person is transformed or waiting for someone to be transformed. As a result of this transformation, he/she gains a different perspective, a different or new outlook, and is viewed and interpreted differently by others. Such was the transformation of the narrator's stepfather, and transformation was expected from Red by her lovers. The notion of transformation is the destination of the search for identity and freedom. To be transformed means to find at least one aspect of individuality and stability; in a way it is the acceptance, the placement in a particular section or stream of life.The story is skillfully constructed; it is ente

Innocence In A Small Southern Town

T.R. Pearson's sixth novel, Cry Me A River, is a brilliant tale that is abundant with sensitivity and intelligence. Pearson takes the reader on a journey that begins in a small Southern town and ends with a solved murder. During this journey, Pearson invites us to study a town that is rich with jealousy and love. Thae narrator's fellow police officer is the man who is murdered. After the crime, the narrator is determined to piece together clues and solve the crime. However, the narrator has a tendency to find sympathy for people who are under the influence of jealousy. During the narrator's "quest for justice," the reader will learn a lot about the victim, the town, and the relationships between the men and women who occupy it. By the end of the novel, Pearson has not only solved the crime, he has captured and described the corrupt innocence of this small Southern town. "Cry Me A River" is an intelligent novel that's main success is in its portrayal of relationships of the innocent yet corrupt citizens of the town. Pearson succeeds at capturing the reader early on and taking them on a journey that is a sheer delight.

mayhem and mystery

T.R. Pearson's thoughts of the late twentieth-century life in the Southern states are clearly characterized by his bleak humour and by his unique style of story-telling. In his "Cry Me a River", Pearson, like many other Southern storytellers keeps his listeners on the balls of their feet. Pearson does this by making all of his meanderings extremely interesting, while making sure that all the roads ultimately lead back to the main event. "Cry Me a River" is a wonderful illustration of this tactic. It is a detective novel whose revelations never quite add up to absolute certainty or a clear-cut conviction, but something even better --justice. "Cry Me a River" deals with the account of a policeman (Mendle) who is shot to death outside a small town west of Virginia. One of his colleagues not named who is the character, begins a search for the killer. The story is a mystery according only to the loosest of definition; instead though, the narrator unfolds long stretches of comical stories of his fellow citizens. Some readers enjoy trying to weed out the sense and serious matter in these sentences. Yet, there may be others who do not find this game to be funny at all. "Cry Me a River" begins with the image of a woman who "hadn't been born into loveliness though plainly she'd compensated, could manufacture well enough what she needed of seduction, fabricate what she required of charm" (2). Pearson then continues to digress into numerous funny tales of murderous rage, bloody wrecks, domestic battles, and unforgiving cops. Yet, when this woman's image reappears as a creased Polaroid in the secret hiding place of the wallet of a dead man, it almost seems that we as readers have been secretely carrying it around too. Pearson's novel is a tale of crime and punishment. "I'd not however, had much call to see too many murdered ones since locally we weren't given ourselves to that variety of mayhem" . This mayhem however deals with the fact that if the story is not good enough, you simply make one up. This is what the narrator does in fact throughout the entire novel. Pearson's rambling seems to tell us the whole story, but not the whole truth. The way in which I was able to deal with his picaresque style is through his funny writing. A number of very funny moments and sharply obscene scenes emerge. The account of the dangling of a car-thief off the bridge, the descriptions of varioius murders from the narrator's past and of the uncomfortable Christmas he spends with his brother's family have their own minimal means. Other pieces like the coctail parties of his gay neigbor, or the fighting over porno movies are even funnier in their own way. Despite all of this joking and comedy in his work, Pearson is still able to suggest the serious manner in his work. In the end, both the narrator who is responsible for an unnecesarry death and his tale remain unsatisfying. "Cry Me a Rive

Cry Me A River

T. R. Pearson's "Cry Me A River" has convinced me it's time to sell the television. I'd forgotten how delightful it is to fall in love with the characters in his books and laugh until my sides ache at his genius presentations. I tried reading the excerpt about the graveside "...twenty one gun sendoff" to my sister over the phone but just couldn't get through it from choking with laughter. I can't imagine this will ever make it to audio unless it's done by a computer. If you want to take your mind on a 'who-done-it' that makes you cringe, gape in awe and puzzlement, laugh out loud and at times nearly (or actually) gag, this will lead the way.. Every nuance of the people and places comes through so well--I could nearly smell the stale rye on Ellis's breath and half expected to hear the Ledger delivered at the front door. "Cry Me A River" made me the kind of homesick for friends, family and a place to live that is available only by reading about them from a safe distance. I didn't want to turn the last page.