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A review by bhalpin
All the Earth, Thrown to the Sky by Joe R. Lansdale
4.0
An almost perfectly awesome adventure story hobbled by too-poetic title and dull cover that makes it look like one of those "good for you" books. This book is not good for you. This book is awesome. Well, it might be good for you too, but it is first and foremost a rip-roaring adventure story full of bank robbers, hobos, alligators, carnival wrestlers (okay, just one), and three plucky orphan kids on a road trip during the dust bowl. The ending is spot-on perfect, too. Would never have picked this up if I wasn't familiar with Lansdale. I hope other readers aren't thrown by the prestigious packaging because this is a really fun book.
So why four stars instead of five? Well. It's the race thing. Not that there's a hint of racism in this book. Not at all. But (perhaps one might consider this a spoiler, though I don't) our protagonists, three kids raised in two different families in Oklahoma in the 1930's prove to be completely un-racist. And even risk a great deal in order to show kindness to a black character. I mean, maybe that's possible, but it felt to me like Lansdale was trying too hard. (Oh, yeah, and the only black characters we meet are noble and kind. Not, thankfully, magical, but still a little too wholly good to be believable characters). I don't know how to get around this in historical fiction--if your white protagonists are realistically racist, then modern readers won't find them sympathetic. But if they're not racist at all...well, it just feels too comforting to me to white readers. We can tell ourselves that if we lived in those times and places, we too would have been completely not racist. I dunno. This isn't a book about race or race relations, so that element just felt off. But otherwise, it really is a great story that I really enjoyed and am glad I read.
So why four stars instead of five? Well. It's the race thing. Not that there's a hint of racism in this book. Not at all. But (perhaps one might consider this a spoiler, though I don't) our protagonists, three kids raised in two different families in Oklahoma in the 1930's prove to be completely un-racist. And even risk a great deal in order to show kindness to a black character. I mean, maybe that's possible, but it felt to me like Lansdale was trying too hard. (Oh, yeah, and the only black characters we meet are noble and kind. Not, thankfully, magical, but still a little too wholly good to be believable characters). I don't know how to get around this in historical fiction--if your white protagonists are realistically racist, then modern readers won't find them sympathetic. But if they're not racist at all...well, it just feels too comforting to me to white readers. We can tell ourselves that if we lived in those times and places, we too would have been completely not racist. I dunno. This isn't a book about race or race relations, so that element just felt off. But otherwise, it really is a great story that I really enjoyed and am glad I read.