This is from the book Arkansas by John Brandon and was published under McSweeney’s fiction category. I haven’t read the entire book, but I plan to in the future. The first chapter caught my attention because it opens with a character named Swin Ruiz, born in Tampa and spent the majority of his life observing the people around him, especially adults in his neighborhood; which is what we have been encouraged to do throughout this semester.
As the story progresses Swin’s background unfolds. He excelled in academics and event received a scholarship to Vanderbilt. At Vanderbilt, he submitted a paper from one of his classes that he wrote in high school. His high school teacher sent it to Vanderbilt, so the department had it on file and because of this Swin received a D in the class and lost his scholarship. The reader also finds out that when Swin was 12, his father drowned, very shortly after his father’s death his mother remarried. Swin believes his mom was having an affair with the guy while his father was still alive. During college, Swin turned into a kleptomaniac. During this time, Swin started an abroad organization for students and would collect fees from them. This organization ended up being a scam. When Lindsay, a girl who helped him start the organization, caught onto the scam and confronted him about it, he fled. He bought a truck with the fees he collected from the organization. He left Nashville and moved to Little Rock, where he created a new identity for himself. In Little Rock, Swin became a regular at a dive bar and started a friendship with the owner, Hondo. One day at the bar Hondo said to Swin, “I’ve concluded something. You’re cut out for breaking the laws of the land. You know, professionally.” After this, Hondo proposes that Swin take a job which entails making runs to Memphis. The reader doesn’t know the purpose for making these runs to Memphis, but the reader does know it’s for something illegal. So, Swin accepts Hondo’s job offer and becomes a criminal. It ends with, “He found that a person with cash in Little Rock lived worse than a poor person in Vanderbilt.”
I thought this was a good way to capture the reader’s attention by focusing on one character, but not revealing too much. It reminded me of what we talked about in the beginning of this semester; how an author needs to decide what to leave in and leave out. John Brandon is very detailed in his description, but the trips to Memphis are very vague. I also liked the ending; it suggests that people when become so desperate for money, they risk losing their intellect in the process. I’m excited to keep reading.
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