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spenkevich 's review for:
The Bottoms
by Joe R. Lansdale
‘“Only our memories allow that some people ever existed. That they mattered, or mattered too much.’
Imagine, if you will, a “great American classic”--like the Ivory Tower flying starched banners of canonization Classic-with-a-capital-C--adapted as a muder mystery novel. We’ve seen this before in Law and Order and such, and like, cool, the nerds get some fun. Okay, now imagine it being bad. The Bottoms by Joe Lansdale sounded like something that would be different, fun, and good discussion for a book club I’ve joined--Edgar Award winner, nominated for many others, compared to [a:Harper Lee|1825|Harper Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1593873322p2/1825.jpg] and [a:William Faulkner|3535|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615562983p2/3535.jpg]--but the most I can say is that it led to a lot of discussion and jovial merrimaking. Not in praise though, oh no. The Bottoms is fun, and once you pick it up you’ll breeze through it because it holds your attention and pulls you forward. Which is great, and I’m sure there is an audience for it that will really enjoy it for that. They aren’t wrong and I could see this being good for someone, which is saving us a star here. I seem to be an outlier on here about this, so take that as you will and definitely read other reviews to decide for yourself if this is a book for you. Unfortunately, The Bottoms is an unworthy retelling of [b:To Kill a Mockingbird|2657|To Kill a Mockingbird|Harper Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553383690l/2657._SY75_.jpg|3275794] that, beyond having some clunky writing, has a lot of really problematic issues going on despite being written as if it were progressive and, perhaps, wasn’t a story that needed to be told the way it was.
‘For when you can’t live life, you’re just burning life, sucking air and making turds.’
Why did I just choose that quote? I don’t know. It’s sort of ableist in its actual context but surely I don’t mean it in a metaphorical, review context. Okay, now I’m starting to feel bad because, as I mentioned, I think this could be really cool to those who would enjoy it. In the recent [a:Helen Oyeyemi|80808|Helen Oyeyemi|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1617125135p2/80808.jpg] novel, Peaces, she offers a brilliant metaphor about types of readers through a description of the 4 types of audience members at a marionette show: one watches the puppets; one looks for the puppeteer; one is crowd watching others reactions; and the other watches the strings. Admittedly, I am a string watcher and this novel is written for puppet--the characters and plot--watchers. Which is fine, and it would be elitist to jump on this book for the writing being just okay and the metaphors and images and themes being far, far too on the nose. For example, the red herring character of the novel is quite actually named Red, which I can’t, I just can’t give a pass to because I already used that as a child on A Pup Named Scooby Doo. But criticizing the novel on those points, to be fair, seems like missing the point and the purpose. We wouldn’t critique an episode of Bill Nye the same as a doctoral thesis on astronomy the same; the purpose and functions are not the same. But am I still going to dislike this novel otherwise? You betcha.
Here we go, friends (whats up, Annaka!? Hope desk is easy today). The Bottoms takes place in Texas and the initially terrifying character of The Goatman is inspired by actual Texas urban legend. Which rules, and the story of a Goatman taking hung bodies into the forest to do whatever they will with them is a good and creepy and exponentially so as Lansdale takes the larger Alton Bridge and makes it a rickety Indiana Jones rope bridge over a river in the middle of a terrifying marsh. Honestly, this had my attention and was really gripping during the first Goatman encounter. Then Goatman starts leaving trinkets and you think...hmmmm this is familiar? but by the time Goatman goes full finale-scene-Boo-Radley on the killer trying to harm the children the charm of the blatant Harper Lee mimicry has worn off and it’s kind of an eye roll.
The thing is, I usually really like retellings. Dark fairy tale retellings? Sign me up and put that in my eyes all day. But the thing about retellings is I prefer it when there is a purpose beyond just riding the vibes of someone else’s high notes to carry your own work. Which is what is happening here and Truman Capote hasn’t low key tried to claim he ghost wrote it yet so I guess gather that up in your mind. What purpose does a retelling-as-serial-killer-mystery set in Texas serve? He showed us that people in 1933 Texas were racist and crimes got glossed over if you were white and of a decent social standing, especially if it was killing Black sex workers. Wow, really Bob Woodward blowing the lid off that one, eh Joe?
The problem, however, with nearly plagiarizing TKaM, is that it carries some of the white saviorism problems. The book is told from the point of view of a young child and his sister--Joe decenters sister Scout (Tom, a cliche tomboy character, here) for the perspective of brother Jem (Harry Collins) so already recentering maleness which is a disappointment to say the least--as they sneak along to follow their father as he is the only one who will stand up for the Black community and investigate murders of women. The dad is kind of cool, admittedly, being the local constable and also owning a barber shop who will openly call his peers out for racism and makes sure to bring his police work needs to the Black doctor out of town because he can trust him. It would have been cool if Lansdale would have mentioned something like he was also ensuring the Black doctor got paid since he was clearly at an economic disadvantage to the white doctor, but I’m going to consider that was implied. Lansdale does an excellent job of framing the two doctors through the initial depictions of them, though. Dr. Tinn is a black doctor first met as he is dwarfed beside his collection of medical, psychology and philosophy books. It really embodies the idea that a Black doctor will have to work significantly harder to still not be as respected for their knowledge as a white doctor. The white doctor in question, Dr. Stephenson, is first described as already drunk sipping on some whiskey. It works and is a really well-done visual juxtaposition.
But yes, its a bit white savoirish as I’m sure you’ve read the essays examining Atticus Finch in that way, especially with the Dad often telling Black people what it is they need and asserting himself as their only defense because he says they won’t stand up for themselves. Okay, sure, they have good reason to be afraid and he is doing the right thing, but as a piece of art being put out into the world we have to ask, who does it serve? If you guessed white people you’d likely be correct. And yes, it’s good to have people see they are doing the right thing to be an ally. Sneaking this sort of message into a book that likely would be picked up by people who weren’t engaging in this discourse in 2000 when it was written is also cool. But who is it serving? White readers, and one that lets you give yourself a pat on the back without pushing you further into wrestling with antiracsim and still asserting the white males as the heroes of a story where the victims are Black as a sort of racism porn. Yes, I’m reading this in 2021 and I realize that when I was 14 in 2000 we hadn’t reached that as a general public conversation, but there were people talking about that even before then and I feel its a fair point to consider in critiquing the novel.
If you want to consider this novel a book that was a building block towards progress and how we are looking further into this issues now, sure, I’ll concede that to a good argument. And I recognize the conversation might not have sunk in back then but there is an egregious amount of using a racial slur in this book. It’s used to place the novel in it’s period as language characters would use, but honestly it feels like a white author justifying it to themselves and then just celebrating it. Also, period piece isn’t really one of the hashtags I’d slap on this book anyways. If this were pitched currently, it wouldn’t fly for sure but also I think finding a way around using it would have been considered. It’s like how you know you don’t sing the word even if it’s a favorite song, the author is white, he just shouldn’t use it. There is also an attempt at diction--one of the reasons the back blurb compares it to Faulkner as well as the Reed character’s fate being lifted straight out of [b:The Sound and the Fury|10975|The Sound and the Fury|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1433089995l/10975._SY75_.jpg|1168289]--that feels a bit forced and...well….it should definitely raise an eyebrow the way it is used with the Black characters. Curiously it is mostly used to denote a Black character. Not great.
I think this gets into the questions about novel writing that has begun to take shape. Why do I think this story should be told? How and for whom is it told? And am I the person who should tell this story? Why my voice? Which, I think, are valid points to consider when approaching an idea, and there is a lot of discussion on this. I’m not meaning self-censoring here, but there are a few moments we can likely look at and think, this is one that shouldn’t have passed these questions. Which is fine, find the story in you that really should be told I guess and use your voice to elevate those telling their stories as well. Lansdale points direct connections to other authors that are telling similar stories that deal with racism, which is great, but also only directing towards white authors. At the time it was written there are many Black authors the novel could have alluded to as well, but didn’t. I don’t mean to say this was intentional, but it was a blindspot that could have made the book better.
There sure is a lot of sexualizing the women in the book too. The mom exists almost solely to be part of a sexual rivalry over her with the rival Sheriff, red herring Red, where it’s fairly understood that Red’s lack of sexual ownership over her is seen as a punch to his toxic masculinity. Every woman in the novel exists to be sexualized. Even the Grandma and Tom are sexualized with the sexual assault of a child being oddly glossed over like it wasn’t a huge deal. Not great.
I feel bad, and honestly this could be a fun read. For the target audience, it’s probably a joy and I do recognize that I am not the target audience. Read other reviews, don’t take my word on it. Art is subjective and I am in no way an authority on anything and a hack reviewer to boot. So take this all with a grain of salt. I could harp on mechanics, like the father being described as someone who would never wear overalls despite the father being described as wearing overalls in a scene where that inclusion wasn’t meant as a change or reveal (thanks Greg to pointing that out), but what I’m more critical of is that it didn’t even achieve it’s own thematic intentions. It was a scarry, murder novel that wasn’t scarry (it unveils its monster WAY too soon as something not to be feared) and the mystery was sort of muddled. I did enjoy all the various side paths it teased and it offers a lot of potential killers with a pretty good plot on who it was, but it also introduces a lot of plot lines that sort of bloat the novel and leave a sense of rot from not being followed instead of tidily put away. The whole epilogue attempts to discard too much and does so in such a bland and pessimistic way--the Red stuff is cool and I like how that is left a mystery (though this is a perfect time to mention that plotline about white supremacists discovering they have Black ancestry is done better in a novella by a Black author found in the 2020 book [b:The Office of Historical Corrections|51777605|The Office of Historical Corrections|Danielle Evans|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586815315l/51777605._SY75_.jpg|74667881])--that the novel ends with a bad taste in your mouth. The narrator sets this up as a telling of his childhood where he claims to only remember the good moments, but the novel seems to only focus on the bad. If these are the good moments, count me out.
2/5
Imagine, if you will, a “great American classic”--like the Ivory Tower flying starched banners of canonization Classic-with-a-capital-C--adapted as a muder mystery novel. We’ve seen this before in Law and Order and such, and like, cool, the nerds get some fun. Okay, now imagine it being bad. The Bottoms by Joe Lansdale sounded like something that would be different, fun, and good discussion for a book club I’ve joined--Edgar Award winner, nominated for many others, compared to [a:Harper Lee|1825|Harper Lee|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1593873322p2/1825.jpg] and [a:William Faulkner|3535|William Faulkner|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1615562983p2/3535.jpg]--but the most I can say is that it led to a lot of discussion and jovial merrimaking. Not in praise though, oh no. The Bottoms is fun, and once you pick it up you’ll breeze through it because it holds your attention and pulls you forward. Which is great, and I’m sure there is an audience for it that will really enjoy it for that. They aren’t wrong and I could see this being good for someone, which is saving us a star here. I seem to be an outlier on here about this, so take that as you will and definitely read other reviews to decide for yourself if this is a book for you. Unfortunately, The Bottoms is an unworthy retelling of [b:To Kill a Mockingbird|2657|To Kill a Mockingbird|Harper Lee|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1553383690l/2657._SY75_.jpg|3275794] that, beyond having some clunky writing, has a lot of really problematic issues going on despite being written as if it were progressive and, perhaps, wasn’t a story that needed to be told the way it was.
‘For when you can’t live life, you’re just burning life, sucking air and making turds.’
Why did I just choose that quote? I don’t know. It’s sort of ableist in its actual context but surely I don’t mean it in a metaphorical, review context. Okay, now I’m starting to feel bad because, as I mentioned, I think this could be really cool to those who would enjoy it. In the recent [a:Helen Oyeyemi|80808|Helen Oyeyemi|https://images.gr-assets.com/authors/1617125135p2/80808.jpg] novel, Peaces, she offers a brilliant metaphor about types of readers through a description of the 4 types of audience members at a marionette show: one watches the puppets; one looks for the puppeteer; one is crowd watching others reactions; and the other watches the strings. Admittedly, I am a string watcher and this novel is written for puppet--the characters and plot--watchers. Which is fine, and it would be elitist to jump on this book for the writing being just okay and the metaphors and images and themes being far, far too on the nose. For example, the red herring character of the novel is quite actually named Red, which I can’t, I just can’t give a pass to because I already used that as a child on A Pup Named Scooby Doo. But criticizing the novel on those points, to be fair, seems like missing the point and the purpose. We wouldn’t critique an episode of Bill Nye the same as a doctoral thesis on astronomy the same; the purpose and functions are not the same. But am I still going to dislike this novel otherwise? You betcha.
Here we go, friends (whats up, Annaka!? Hope desk is easy today). The Bottoms takes place in Texas and the initially terrifying character of The Goatman is inspired by actual Texas urban legend. Which rules, and the story of a Goatman taking hung bodies into the forest to do whatever they will with them is a good and creepy and exponentially so as Lansdale takes the larger Alton Bridge and makes it a rickety Indiana Jones rope bridge over a river in the middle of a terrifying marsh. Honestly, this had my attention and was really gripping during the first Goatman encounter. Then Goatman starts leaving trinkets and you think...hmmmm this is familiar? but by the time Goatman goes full finale-scene-Boo-Radley on the killer trying to harm the children the charm of the blatant Harper Lee mimicry has worn off and it’s kind of an eye roll.
The thing is, I usually really like retellings. Dark fairy tale retellings? Sign me up and put that in my eyes all day. But the thing about retellings is I prefer it when there is a purpose beyond just riding the vibes of someone else’s high notes to carry your own work. Which is what is happening here and Truman Capote hasn’t low key tried to claim he ghost wrote it yet so I guess gather that up in your mind. What purpose does a retelling-as-serial-killer-mystery set in Texas serve? He showed us that people in 1933 Texas were racist and crimes got glossed over if you were white and of a decent social standing, especially if it was killing Black sex workers. Wow, really Bob Woodward blowing the lid off that one, eh Joe?
The problem, however, with nearly plagiarizing TKaM, is that it carries some of the white saviorism problems. The book is told from the point of view of a young child and his sister--Joe decenters sister Scout (Tom, a cliche tomboy character, here) for the perspective of brother Jem (Harry Collins) so already recentering maleness which is a disappointment to say the least--as they sneak along to follow their father as he is the only one who will stand up for the Black community and investigate murders of women. The dad is kind of cool, admittedly, being the local constable and also owning a barber shop who will openly call his peers out for racism and makes sure to bring his police work needs to the Black doctor out of town because he can trust him. It would have been cool if Lansdale would have mentioned something like he was also ensuring the Black doctor got paid since he was clearly at an economic disadvantage to the white doctor, but I’m going to consider that was implied. Lansdale does an excellent job of framing the two doctors through the initial depictions of them, though. Dr. Tinn is a black doctor first met as he is dwarfed beside his collection of medical, psychology and philosophy books. It really embodies the idea that a Black doctor will have to work significantly harder to still not be as respected for their knowledge as a white doctor. The white doctor in question, Dr. Stephenson, is first described as already drunk sipping on some whiskey. It works and is a really well-done visual juxtaposition.
But yes, its a bit white savoirish as I’m sure you’ve read the essays examining Atticus Finch in that way, especially with the Dad often telling Black people what it is they need and asserting himself as their only defense because he says they won’t stand up for themselves. Okay, sure, they have good reason to be afraid and he is doing the right thing, but as a piece of art being put out into the world we have to ask, who does it serve? If you guessed white people you’d likely be correct. And yes, it’s good to have people see they are doing the right thing to be an ally. Sneaking this sort of message into a book that likely would be picked up by people who weren’t engaging in this discourse in 2000 when it was written is also cool. But who is it serving? White readers, and one that lets you give yourself a pat on the back without pushing you further into wrestling with antiracsim and still asserting the white males as the heroes of a story where the victims are Black as a sort of racism porn. Yes, I’m reading this in 2021 and I realize that when I was 14 in 2000 we hadn’t reached that as a general public conversation, but there were people talking about that even before then and I feel its a fair point to consider in critiquing the novel.
If you want to consider this novel a book that was a building block towards progress and how we are looking further into this issues now, sure, I’ll concede that to a good argument. And I recognize the conversation might not have sunk in back then but there is an egregious amount of using a racial slur in this book. It’s used to place the novel in it’s period as language characters would use, but honestly it feels like a white author justifying it to themselves and then just celebrating it. Also, period piece isn’t really one of the hashtags I’d slap on this book anyways. If this were pitched currently, it wouldn’t fly for sure but also I think finding a way around using it would have been considered. It’s like how you know you don’t sing the word even if it’s a favorite song, the author is white, he just shouldn’t use it. There is also an attempt at diction--one of the reasons the back blurb compares it to Faulkner as well as the Reed character’s fate being lifted straight out of [b:The Sound and the Fury|10975|The Sound and the Fury|William Faulkner|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1433089995l/10975._SY75_.jpg|1168289]--that feels a bit forced and...well….it should definitely raise an eyebrow the way it is used with the Black characters. Curiously it is mostly used to denote a Black character. Not great.
I think this gets into the questions about novel writing that has begun to take shape. Why do I think this story should be told? How and for whom is it told? And am I the person who should tell this story? Why my voice? Which, I think, are valid points to consider when approaching an idea, and there is a lot of discussion on this. I’m not meaning self-censoring here, but there are a few moments we can likely look at and think, this is one that shouldn’t have passed these questions. Which is fine, find the story in you that really should be told I guess and use your voice to elevate those telling their stories as well. Lansdale points direct connections to other authors that are telling similar stories that deal with racism, which is great, but also only directing towards white authors. At the time it was written there are many Black authors the novel could have alluded to as well, but didn’t. I don’t mean to say this was intentional, but it was a blindspot that could have made the book better.
There sure is a lot of sexualizing the women in the book too. The mom exists almost solely to be part of a sexual rivalry over her with the rival Sheriff, red herring Red, where it’s fairly understood that Red’s lack of sexual ownership over her is seen as a punch to his toxic masculinity. Every woman in the novel exists to be sexualized. Even the Grandma and Tom are sexualized with the sexual assault of a child being oddly glossed over like it wasn’t a huge deal. Not great.
I feel bad, and honestly this could be a fun read. For the target audience, it’s probably a joy and I do recognize that I am not the target audience. Read other reviews, don’t take my word on it. Art is subjective and I am in no way an authority on anything and a hack reviewer to boot. So take this all with a grain of salt. I could harp on mechanics, like the father being described as someone who would never wear overalls despite the father being described as wearing overalls in a scene where that inclusion wasn’t meant as a change or reveal (thanks Greg to pointing that out), but what I’m more critical of is that it didn’t even achieve it’s own thematic intentions. It was a scarry, murder novel that wasn’t scarry (it unveils its monster WAY too soon as something not to be feared) and the mystery was sort of muddled. I did enjoy all the various side paths it teased and it offers a lot of potential killers with a pretty good plot on who it was, but it also introduces a lot of plot lines that sort of bloat the novel and leave a sense of rot from not being followed instead of tidily put away. The whole epilogue attempts to discard too much and does so in such a bland and pessimistic way--the Red stuff is cool and I like how that is left a mystery (though this is a perfect time to mention that plotline about white supremacists discovering they have Black ancestry is done better in a novella by a Black author found in the 2020 book [b:The Office of Historical Corrections|51777605|The Office of Historical Corrections|Danielle Evans|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1586815315l/51777605._SY75_.jpg|74667881])--that the novel ends with a bad taste in your mouth. The narrator sets this up as a telling of his childhood where he claims to only remember the good moments, but the novel seems to only focus on the bad. If these are the good moments, count me out.
2/5