Dirty White Boys

Stephen Hunter’s crime fiction masterpiece, Dirty White Boys, begins with a sentence lovingly detailing the villain’s genitals. 

I assure you this opening is in no way gratuitous or prurient; it signals that we’re in for a wild ride, informing us that only “…three men at McAlester State Penitentiary had larger penises than Lamar Pye….” 

Pye is one of the great literary villains of all time – racist, crude, violent, and cruel… and smart as a whip. And the tone here is pitch-dark hillbilly noir. If you’re brave enough to read this book it will live in your imagination for… show more.

From its shocking first paragraph to its explosive conclusion, Dirty White Boys is a daring, almost insanely ambitious tour de force. Loosely inspired by the saga of Bonnie and Clyde, the book follows a ragtag band of escaped convicts on a wild multi-state crime spree. In his later books, Hunter may become a bit too caught up in the minutiae of firearms, but here he’s focused on characters and human drama. This book showed me that I had to up my game and aim higher. 

Another recommendation from my father, this book has the best opening line I’ve ever read! It’s a gritty, hard-boiled prison drama featuring realistic and largely detestable characters that you can’t help but root for. What stood out to me with this book is how the characters evolved over the course of the book. I personally related to the meek, perpetually terrified artist, who went from being a scared new inmate to the top boy, all through the life lessons he learned from the people around him. It isn’t always pretty, but it’s a hell of a good read!