Despite its terrific writing, this was a book I initially resisted, thinking it tread too closely to To Kill a Mockingbird-young children growing up in a Southern town with racial crimes and politics, and a father involved in the case.But it went off on its own path quickly enough to win me over, giving its characters a complexity I really admired. There is palpable terror here, not just the kind to frighten children and the atmosphere is as thick as the summer heat. Highly recommended as a literary novel as well as crime fiction. First book I've read by Mr. Lansdale but not the last.
19 comments:
Wow..the first? Well, there's lots for you to look forward to. Most like this: some of his more recent novels such as A FINE DARK LINE and SAWDUST AND TINSEL; least like this: THE DRIVE IN and its sequels. COLD IN JULY and the Hap and Leonard novels split the difference...western THE MAGIC WAGON and such other historical fiction as THE BIG BLOW might also be a good next one.
Yes, I wasted my time reading too much literary fiction. Now I must remedy that. Thanks for the suggestions.
Oooh...it pains my soul to read the distinction you're making there.
(Too close to those who make the distinction between "serious fiction" and "genre fiction"...or who somehow think that there isn't crime fiction or fantastic fiction or historical fiction of high ambition or impressive literary achievement.)
Oh, let me rephrase it. I read genre fiction but not the noirish hard-hitting kind. I read mainstream crime fiction, the kind you'd expect. So a whole area of writing never crossed my path till old age. Maybe the term mainstream fiction is more apt than literary.
I'm a tiresome sort...not only do I take every opportunity to note that no fiction escapes genre, I also tend to note there really isn't a meaningful "mainstream"--just more and less popular examples of various genres. Particularly when some sf & fantasy types started deciding that fantasy fiction and sf that mixed elements from "genre" and/or avant garde and/or "literary" fiction was this Whole New Thing that should be tagged "slipstream" fiction (somewhat comparable to the New Mystery balloon juice of fifteen years ago).
In commercial and artistic terms, some of the hardboiled/noir gang have been pretty central to crime fiction since the early successes in BLACK MASK and its heirs...Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, et al., with James Ellroy the first to get A Whole Lot of attention as a Neo-HB/Noir guy, though Andrew Vacchs and others were working with some success with similar materials...and Lansdale and others even moreso, in artistic terms. Thouhg it's true that since the folding of MIKE SHAYNE and the blanding of AHMM in the 1980s, it's been a slow rebuild in the magazines, a somewhat less slow build in books...and such projects as Bruccoli and Layman's NEW BLACK MASK/A MATTER OF CRIME hasn't hurt, nor such little magazines as HARDBOILED and BLUE MURDER the web/pdfzine.
Sorry, Vachss, of course.
But do you mean Agatha Christie-derived cozies, spy adventures, perfect crime puzzles, court or police procedurals, or something else again?
His Hap and Leonard series deserve some attention if you run short of TBR's.......Lansdale -"an expert prose shitkicker" according to a blurber on the back of one of his books
Okay-All of Nicholas Freeling, Sjowah and Wahloo, Rendell, Marsh, Ross McDonald, John D. MacDonald, Block, Nicholas Blake, McDermid, Peter Robinson, P.D. James. and on and on. Hundred and hundreds of them But none of these quirkier writers till lately. Not really a cozy reader more mainstream police procedurals. Until now.
Colman-seems like a pretty diverse group of books from Lansdale. Mine being an anomaly?
Nope. THE BOTTOMS is in one of his modes...as I say, the "big" novels since have been in a similar mood, particularly FINE DARK...
Ross and John D. certainly models for some of these new folk, even if they might amp up the speed a la Paul Cain and moreso. Spillane influences, sometimes through Vachss, only usuall w/o indestructible antiheroes in the Hammer/Burke modes. But now I know I'm telling nothing new.
No, I have from your list.......Robinson, Block,Sjowall and Wahloo, McDermid on my shelves......but I think they all came after Lansdale for me.
Maybe I'm getting less quirky as I get older......don't think my wife or kids would agree though!
Of course, it would also help if I called Lansdale's novel by its title rather than by Ingmar Bergman's...the book is SUNSET AND SAWDUST.
Well we come to things from different places. It took my daughter's influence to move me over. Todd, you provide me with more laughs than a Marx Bros. marathon.
I'm the forgotten Ritz Brother.
Somewhat relevantly, did you catch Lawrence Block on THE LATE LATE SHOW last night? Craig Ferguson has Block on whenever he releases a new book, happily (as opposed to the reissues of lost material).
SUNSET AND SAWDUST is my favorite Lansdale. And look for LEATHER MAIDEN this fall. :-)
I don't know which one to try first but maye Sawdust. I will look for it, David.
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