REVIEW:

It would be all too easy to gloss over the title of this novel, but it’s one well worth a pause for reflection. “Razorblade Tears.” Imagine a sadness or grief so palpable that your body’s physical expression of it is harmful. Quite a visual, isn’t it?

On the heels of 2020’s much-lauded Blacktop Wasteland, S.A. Cosby has delivered a gut punch of a novel that’s grit lit at its finest. The story itself seems simple: Two fathers band together to seek vengeance against the people that killed their sons. But it’s not that easy.

One father is Black (Ike), one is white (Buddy Lee). Both are ex-cons, and while one has found redemption in living life on the straight and narrow after release, the other finds solace at the bottom of a bottle. Their paths would never have crossed had their sons not gotten married… to each other. Both fathers turned their backs on them, refusing to accept this same-sex union.

The story begins at the funeral and follows Ike and Buddy Lee as they unravel the mystery of what happened to their boys. Be forewarned though, their vengeance is violent. There are guns and bombs and even machetes - it’s that kind of story. But what elevates this Southern noir tale above gratuitous splatter fiction is the pervasive tone of redemption. One can’t help but feel that the outward rage Ike and Buddy Lee exhibit is a reflection of the inward shame they feel for not accepting their sons when they were alive. Their tears are like razor blades.

I listened to an advance copy of the audiobook courtesy of the author and Macmillan Audio via NetGalley. Narrator Adam Lazarre-White’s gravely voice is well-suited for the gravitas of the story. Razorblade Tears is slated for US publication in all formats on July 6th.

The novel has already been optioned by Jerry Bruckheimer and Chad Oman for a film through Paramount Players. I hope they don't screw it up.

PUBLISHER SYNOPSIS:

A Black father. A white father. Two murdered sons. A quest for vengeance.

Ike Randolph has been out of jail for fifteen years, with not so much as a speeding ticket in all that time. But a Black man with cops at the door knows to be afraid.

The last thing he expects to hear is that his son Isiah has been murdered, along with Isiah’s white husband, Derek. Ike had never fully accepted his son but is devastated by his loss.

Derek’s father Buddy Lee was almost as ashamed of Derek for being gay as Derek was ashamed his father was a criminal. Buddy Lee still has contacts in the underworld, though, and he wants to know who killed his boy.

Ike and Buddy Lee, two ex-cons with little else in common other than a criminal past and a love for their dead sons, band together in their desperate desire for revenge. In their quest to do better for their sons in death than they did in life, hardened men Ike and Buddy Lee will confront their own prejudices about their sons and each other, as they rain down vengeance upon those who hurt their boys.

Provocative and fast-paced, S. A. Cosby's Razorblade Tears is a story of bloody retribution, heartfelt change - and maybe even redemption.