The Death of Sweet Mister

The Death of Sweet Mister

Shug Akins is a lonely, overweight thirteen-year-old boy. His mother, Glenda, is the one person who loves him -- she calls him Sweet Mister and attempts to boost his confidence and give him hope for his future. Shuggie's purported father, Red, is a brutal man with a short fuse who mocks and despises the boy. Into this small-town Ozarks mix comes Jimmy Vin Pearce, with his shiny green T-bird and his smart city clothes. When he and Glenda begin a torrid affair, a series of violent events is inevitably set in motion. The outcome will break your heart. "This is Daniel Woodrell's third book set in the Ozarks and, like the other two, Give Us a Kiss and Tomato Red , it peels back the layers from lives already made bare by poverty and petty crime."-Otto Penzler, Penzler Pick, 2001 "[Woodrell] has achieved near mastery of style: language, plot, characterization and theme mesh with a seamless power."― Michael Anderson, New York Times Book Review "A fiery, poetic, hair-raising novel."― Bret Israel, Los Angeles Times "The plot, tawdry in the abstract, is transformed by Woodrell's gallows humour and his rendering of Shug's voice, part Huck Finn, part Holden Caulfield."― Bharat Tandon, Times Literary Supplement (U.K.) "A dark, disturbing beauty of a story . . . Woodrell throws down sentences that will leave you amazed."― Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain Daniel Woodrell  is also the author of eight novels including The Maid’s Version, Winter’s Bone , and The Death of Sweet Mister, as well as the collection  The Outlaw Album . He is the recipient of the PEN West Award, and five of his eight novels have been selected as New York Times  Notable Books of the Year. Three of his novels have been adapted for film, including the Oscar-nominated Winter’s Bone. He lived in the Ozarks near the Arkansas line with his wife, Katie Estill, and died in 2025.