Smonk

The Rabelaisian Western has arrived.

Its grotesque anti-hero, Eugene Oregon Smonk, is a man with a purpose, that of raising as much Cain and killing as many people as possible for little or no reason. But from the first, this dwarfish decadent seems to be riding hell-bent toward a well deserved finale. Somewhere in the murky neverland of western Alabama, other aberrant personages are working their own way through a constantly darkening world. One particularly purposeless group, the garishly uniformed Christian Deputies, ride dementedly about seeking true evildoers only to find perversity gone wild. Again and again, their trails cross that of the elf-like redhead Evangeline. Throughout her few years, she’s sought her origin through tawdry bordellos and back alleys. The search leads ever nearer to an explosive confrontation with the monster Smonk. Franklin’s tale is like one told by a mad illusionist—yet hauntingly unforgettable. —Bill Garwood