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gnashchick 's review for:
The Bottoms
by Joe R. Lansdale
Joe Lansdale has never disappointed me. I admit outright bias because I'm a Texan, I was born in East Texas, and I know these characters. This is not a book for young readers, even though Harry is in his early teens and has a younger sister, Thomasina, AKA Tom, as a sidekick. This is a coming-of-age story, but it's also about loss of innocence for both Harry and Tom on many different levels. It's also a fairly gruesome murder mystery.
The Bottoms features violent deaths, rape, a lynching, rampant racism, and the apathy of a "it's always been this way" society. A handful of characters try to mitigate the hatred but meet ridicule and violence because of their views. Lansdale is writing about East Texas in 1933, and it lines up with the stories that my great-grandmother (rampant racist) and my grandfather (raging liberal) told me about their lives in Kilgore during the depression.
The book was a fast read for me. Lansdale has a knack for great dialogue and writing scenes so realistic I can smell the piney woods. I didn't intend to read it in two days, but it was just so easy to turn to the next chapter. As the story progressed and the stakes got higher, I resigned myself to put off the things I needed done, and I finished the novel. (See the bias warning above.) I was surprised at one revelation at the end that I didn't see coming, and that's always a treat.
On the downside, I found a few rough spots. There was written dialect for a character with no teeth that felt like mocking to me. There's a character set up as the the apparent suspect, but it was too clearly a misdirect. Astute readers will be able to spot the culprit fairly quickly. Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of Joe Lansdale's work.
Oh, and Goat Man? Totally real.
The Bottoms features violent deaths, rape, a lynching, rampant racism, and the apathy of a "it's always been this way" society. A handful of characters try to mitigate the hatred but meet ridicule and violence because of their views. Lansdale is writing about East Texas in 1933, and it lines up with the stories that my great-grandmother (rampant racist) and my grandfather (raging liberal) told me about their lives in Kilgore during the depression.
The book was a fast read for me. Lansdale has a knack for great dialogue and writing scenes so realistic I can smell the piney woods. I didn't intend to read it in two days, but it was just so easy to turn to the next chapter. As the story progressed and the stakes got higher, I resigned myself to put off the things I needed done, and I finished the novel. (See the bias warning above.) I was surprised at one revelation at the end that I didn't see coming, and that's always a treat.
On the downside, I found a few rough spots. There was written dialect for a character with no teeth that felt like mocking to me. There's a character set up as the the apparent suspect, but it was too clearly a misdirect. Astute readers will be able to spot the culprit fairly quickly. Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of Joe Lansdale's work.
Oh, and Goat Man? Totally real.