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Title: Scrapper

Subtitle: A Novel

Author: Matt Bell

Narrator: David Chandler

Format: Unabridged

Length: 8 hrs and 38 mins

Language: English

Release date: 09-15-15

Publisher: Recorded Books

Ratings: 3 of 5 out of 6 votes

Genres: Fiction, Contemporary

Publisher's Summary:

For fans of The Dog Stars and Station Eleven, Scrapper uses the real-life dystopia of a devastated Detroit as a backdrop for one man's desperate quest for justice and redemptive grace.

In the wake of tragedy, ex-boxer Kelly returns to Detroit after years in the South. Unable to find work, he scavenges for scrap metal in the hundred thousand abandoned buildings at the heart of the city, an area he calls "the zone", where one day he finds something far more valuable than the copper he's come to steal: a kidnapped boy handcuffed to a bed, crying out for rescue. After being celebrated as a hero, Kelly secretly decides to avenge the boy's unsolved kidnapping, a task that will take him deeper into the zone and into a confrontation with his own past, unearthing long-buried cycles of trauma and cruelty, memories made dangerous again.

Critic Reviews:

"Somber, incantatory sentences to hold you within [Bell's] dreamlike creation.... This unique book leaves you with the haunting lesson that even if you renounce and cast away your loved ones, you can never disown the memory of your deeds." (The Wall Street Journal)

"A gripping, grisly tale of a husband's descent into and ultimate emergence from some kind of personal hell." (The New York Times)

"Bell's novel isn't just a joy to read, it's also one of the smartest meditations on the subjects of love, family and marriage in recent years." (NPR)

Members Reviews:

So beautiful, I had to buy a copy for my ex because I knew he'd also relate

Oh my word...this book is exquisite. From the first sentence, I was drawn into it. The writing is so beautiful, I kept stopping and re-reading entire sections. My ex and I have spent time in Detroit exploring and wondering and learning the history of the city and the neighborhoods while I photographed as much as possible of what we saw. I wanted to capture it before it was gone forever. Matt Bell writes the way I think and it took me back to the days we had spent at the Packard Plant and in the neighborhoods. I bought a first edition hardcover for myself to keep on my coffee table with "Detroit: 138 Square Miles" a photography book my brother bought me and a coffee table book I had made of my first photography trip to the neighborhoods of Detroit. I also bought a paperback copy for my ex and had it sent to him. This stunning scope of this book brings the sadness of this beautiful city to full color. Reading about a book a week, it takes a lot to bump into my "top 10 of forever" book list. This book is number 2. Along with Charlie LeDuff's incredible "Detroit: Autopsy of an American City", if you love Detroit, read these 2 books.

Powerful and Dark

This was different from Bell's other work I've read, slipperier than normal at least. That's saying something too. There are definite touches of darkness, though that isn't new. Far from pleasant, which is no reason to judge a book negatively anyway, this one gave a great deal to think on-though much of that as I saw it was not stated directly.

Two Stars

Just wasn't what I expected.

The "zone"

Scrapper refers to Kelly, a young man who forages for scrap metal and salvageable parts of abandoned buildings in an area of Detroit known as the zone. He removes and sells the parts by the pound.