Lawrence Naumoff is the author of six novels, including A Southern Tragedy in Crimson and Yellow (2005), A Plan for Women (1997), Silk Hope, NC (1994), Taller Women (1992), Rootie Kazootie (1990), and The Night of the Weeping Women (1988). He’s won a National Endowment for the Arts Discovery Award, a Whiting Award in Fiction, a Thomas Wolfe fiction award, and the Walter Raleigh prize for the best work of fiction in North Carolina for the year 2005. His books have been published in Finland, England, Spain, Holland, and Germany. Naumoff teaches creative writing at UNC in Chapel Hill.
-
Rootie KazootieA Novel
“What do I want you to do? You really want to know? I’ll tell you. Just look me in the eye and tell me one thing. Just do it. Tell me whether you and Cynthia have made love. Tell me. Go on.”
“The answer is no.”
“You swear?”
“I swear.”
“I believe you,” she said quietly, and for a moment Richard thought it was over until she turned around and screamed at him, “THEN WHY DON’T YOU MAKE LOVE WITH ME?”
Rootie Kazootie:A Novel -
Rootie KazootieA Novel
He and Cynthia stumbled toward the other side of the room as the entire front end of the tractor broke through the splintered door and entered the house. As it did, the muffler, coming out above the hood, hit the top of the doorway and snapped off.
Oh, help, Caroline thought.
“HOLY SHIT,” Richard screamed.
“STOP HER,” Cynthia yelled at him.
It was an unsettling sight, to put it mildly, for Cynthia to see the front end of a 6,000-pound tractor rolling across her Oriental carpet, the very carpet she had chosen so that all the colors complemented each other and the old pine floor, the deep earth-brown and tan and the reds and yellows, and now, a green, wheezing and roaring monster with oil dripping sat on that rug.
Rootie Kazootie:A Novel -
Rootie KazootieA Novel
“It’s just that I hate being alone,” Caroline said. “I hate being poor, as well, and damn it all, here I go again back where I started. I hate going backwards. It takes so much out of you to get where you want to be. One person can’t do it nowadays, you know? It’s just too hard. You’ve got to have someone else. That’s what makes me so mad about that thing he’s run off with. She doesn’t need him any more than we need another hot day this summer. You know? She just doesn’t.”
Rootie Kazootie:A Novel
“Through fresh vision and sprightly energy, Naumoff spins farce and ghoulish imagery into a web of analysis of why contemporary love stands so little chance. His surreal surface humor does not mask his despair. The novel crackles with metaphors and parables . . . Vivid imagery and a sugar-coating of humor help both to smooth and to enhance this cautionary tale’s provocative disquietude. Naumoff presents it so vibrantly that it yields shocks of recognition.” —The Boston Globe [Taller Women]
“Captures with stunning realism the fears and dreams of his small-town characters as they tear each other apart emotionally. A painful but compelling tale of anger, desire and need, with an insight and sensitivity that borders on genius . . . essential reading.” —Time Out [on Rootie Kazootie]
“Vicious, brilliant, harrowing and hilarious. This is a tragedy on an almost operatic scale, but it is also a wild black comedy; the worse the nightmare gets, the more you laugh. The most frightening scenes are the funniest.” —The Independent [on The Night of the Weeping Women]
Selected Works
- Print Books
- Find your local bookstore (via IndieBound)
- Print Books
- Find your local bookstore (via IndieBound)
- Print Books
- Find your local bookstore (via IndieBound)
