The Big Blow

by Joe R. Lansdale

Galveston, TX 1900. 4 days before the hurricane of the century.

Genres: Fiction, Historical Fiction, Crime, Thriller, Mystery, Horror, Americana

153 pages, Hardcover

First published January 1, 2000

About the author

Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over forty novels and numerous short stories. His work has appeared in national anthologies, magazines, and collections, as well as numerous foreign publications. He has written for comics, television, film, newspapers, and Internet sites. His work has been collected in more than two dozen short-story collections, and he has edited or co-edited over a dozen anthologies. He has received the Edgar Award, eight Bram Stoker Awards, the Horror Writers Association Lifetime Achievement Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzani Cavour Prize for Literature, the Herodotus Historical Fiction Award, the Inkpot Award for Contributions to Science Fiction and Fantasy, and many others. His novella Bubba Ho-Tep was adapted to film by Don Coscarelli, starring Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. His story "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road" was adapted to film for Showtime's "Masters of Horror," and he adapted his short story "Christmas with the Dead" to film hisownself. The film adaptation of his novel Cold in July was nominated for the Grand Jury Prize at the Sundance Film Festival, and the Sundance Channel has adapted his Hap & Leonard novels for television.

He is currently co-producing several films, among them The Bottoms, based on his Edgar Award-winning novel, with Bill Paxton and Brad Wyman, and The Drive-In, with Greg Nicotero. He is Writer In Residence at Stephen F. Austin State University, and is the founder of the martial arts system Shen Chuan: Martial Science and its affiliate, Shen Chuan Family System. He is a member of both the United States and International Martial Arts Halls of Fame. He lives in Nacogdoches, Texas with his wife, dog, and two cats.

Reviews

[Orsodimondo · Rating 4 out of 5]

HERE COMES THE STORY OF THE HURRICANE



Galveston, Texas – che a me è nota soprattutto per l’omonimo romanzo di Nick Pizzolato, da cui l’omonimo film, entrambi buoni – è una striscia lunga e sottile di terra, che forma un’isola collegata alla terraferma da ponti, sia per il traffico ferroviario che per quello su ruota.
Per quanto costruita perlopiù su palafitte, sabato 8 settembre dell’anno 1900 un uragano la spazzò via, sommerse, distrusse.
Si è trattato del disastro naturale peggiore della storia degli US.
All’epoca, chiaramente, la meteorologia non era altrettanto sviluppata. Ma comunque, si sapeva che stava arrivando, che ne stava arrivando uno brutto assai. Perlopiù invece si pensò che fosse uno come tanti altri. Poi, all’ultimo, si cercò di far evacuare la zona.
Morirono almeno ottomila persone.
Il numero degli animali morti non è mai stato calcolato.
All’epoca Galveston gareggiava con New York per il titolo di città più bella d’America.
Non ha più ripreso la gara.



Intorno a questo evento, scandendo il calendario e l’orologio – sia il conto dei giorni che quello delle ore – Lansdale imbastisce una storia delle sue. Con ciò intendo una delle sue storie che poggiano sul razzismo: bianchi e neri, i due colori inconciliabili.
Per condire la sua storia – e si tratta di spezie ben saporite – inserisce la boxe, non solo lo sport sul ring ma anche il mondo intorno, l’allenamento, la rivalità, l’organizzazione, le scommesse.
E sul ring salgono un bianco e un nero. Ma solo uno deve scenderne sui propri piedi.



Il colpo grosso, il grande colpo, the Big Blow del titolo originale, è quello che succede sul ring e quello che succede attorno, e cioè l’uragano.
Lansdale dedica pagine a raccontare alcuni sopravvissuti o vittime della catastrofe naturale: una giovane famiglia bianca, una più numerosa famiglia di colore, la coppia guardiana del faro, due giovani amanti. Queste sono le parti meno riuscite secondo me. E dato che in origine si trattava di un racconto, qui gonfiato a novella, direi che queste sono le parti aggiunte per fare volume.
Lansdale comunque c’è tutto: violento, pulp, ironico, scatologico, individualista, visceralmente e intellettualmente antirazzista. Una gioia.
[Il mio Lansdale #8]

[Danger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lansdale has managed to take several things that normally wouldn’t pique my interest (boxing, historical fiction, Texas, etc.) and blend them all into a compelling and unforgettable book. Hypnotizing prose and stark storytelling that doesn’t pull punches (pun intended) make this not-quite-true story of boxing champion Jack Johnson and the 1900 Galveston Hurricane (the deadliest single storm in US History) a complete page-turner, even when the story starts to occasionally meander into B-plots that have little to do with the general conceit of the novel. Still, it’s a quick and rewarding read for anyone interested in boxing, or not.

[Karl · Rating 4 out of 5]

Galveston, 1900.
Whorehouses, gambling, family life, a stark depiction of the times, and the points where history, reality, and modern myth intersect. They're all on display in a short historical masterpiece. A prize fight pitting legend Jack Jackson versus a professional brought in to teach him his place.

This is copy 57 of 250 signed numbered copies.

[Giorgio · Rating 4 out of 5]

★★★½

Crudo, violento, traboccante di vita e a tratti romantico. Divertimento assicurato.

[Thomas · Rating 2 out of 5]

By now, I think everyone knows of my love of Lansdale. If not, then stick around; after this one, I have three other novellas of his to read before returning to my usual reading schedule. I'll speak more of this love in those reviews.

As I've stated before, what makes a Lansdale story a Lansdale story is his style. His snappy dialogue, violent tendencies, and ear for the weird carries his stories, even when the stories themselves are just okay. The Big Blow is one of those "okay" stories. It's about Jack Johnson, the early 20th-century boxer, during the hurricane that devastated Galveston in 1900. The premise of the story is that a local member of the Sporting Club has hired a white boxer to defeat Johnson after Johnson had defeated a white man in a previous fight. The boxer they bring in to defeat him is truly despicable in his violence toward women and how he treats those who hired him, and there is a racial undertone to the event, as the white members of the club can't accept that a black boxer keeps winning the fights.

If the story were just about Johnson and the fight, it would have been slightly better than okay, but Lansdale includes a few secondary character that do little to progress the plot. There's the young woman who has been abandoned by her lover after finally sleeping with him, and then there's the young family trapped on the island during the storm. The family at least serves a purpose to the story, as their fate plays into the resolution between Johnson and the other fighter, but the young woman is just there to be spurned, and then attempt suicide during the storm. She doesn't do much for the story, and I couldn't see why she was included, save as a red herring (the white boxer has a preference for redheads, and she has red hair, so I kept expecting her presence to be a part of that subplot).

Lansdale can do much better than this. Sure, he can do much, much better than this (Sunset and Sawdust is my go-to Lansdale recommendation), but even his mediocre stories, like Leather Maiden and Lost Echoes, are better than this. It seems like this story was just dusted off to add one more book to his bibliography, as he and the publishers knew it would sell to the die-hard fans. I wouldn't recommend the story to any but the most die-hard of those fans. It just doesn't compare to what he can do with all pistons firing.

[Steph · Rating 3 out of 5]

***SPOILERS***

This was really not my favorite Lansdale novella. Absolutely awful characters, and they are set in the year 1900. If I had lived in this little town, among all those people, I’d have walked into the ocean as well.
Not only was it a terrible time to be a POC, or a woman, but it was a truly awful time to be gay as well. Or a baby! Jesus, what that poor baby went through… and the part about the dude who was thinking about sex with his boss’s wife, while pegging his boss as hard as he can, and his boss was thinking about the Black boxer he would have rather been having sex with, all while making excuses for the sex, and yelling, ‘this doesn’t mean I’m gay..!’ could have been left out completely. Actually, so could the young lady walking into the ocean….. and the horrible way the young married couple ‘saved’ their baby, before drowning in the flood, Jesus wept..!
Idk, I just didn’t see a reason for a lot of this stuff. I don’t see a reason for this whole novel, actually. Idk if I’m in a grumpy mood or what, but this novella was a total miss for me. And I adore Lansdale!

One of my friends on goodreads, Thomas, has a much better review about this novella than I do. It can be found here:

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show...

So Brad Sanders is the narrator for the audiobook version of this novella, and he was wonderful. Thank you Tantor Media for this project…. I guess?

3 stars, and only bc it’s by Lansdale. I’m sorry dude, but you can do SO much better…!

[Matt Hansen · Rating 5 out of 5]

This story packs a wallop. Possibly one of the most vulgar books I’ve read. McBride is one of the most disgusting characters I’ve come across. A truly vile person.

I appreciated that Lansdale didn’t clean up the language for modern sensibilities. It felt authentic to its time, but in a Deadwood sort of way, so much so I had to look up if this was a true story or not.

[Vittorio Rainone · Rating 5 out of 5]

Violento, molto crudo ma terribilmente pieno di vita, per certi versi di amore. Molto bello

[Vittorio Alberici · Rating 4 out of 5]

Ambientato a Galveston nel 1900, durante il disastroso uragano che devastò la città, il romanzo segue un giovane pugile costretto a sopravvivere tra la furia degli elementi e la violenza degli uomini. Lansdale trasforma lo scontro sul ring nel simbolo di una lotta più ampia — contro la natura, il destino e la brutalità della vita stessa.

Meno pulp e più umano rispetto ad altre sue opere, è un romanzo breve ma intenso, dove coraggio e disperazione si mescolano come fango e sangue.

[ilariasbooks · Rating 4 out of 5]

Lansdale è un autore prolifico e assolutamente incisivo e unico, un suo romanzo ti rimane incollato addosso, i suoi personaggi indimenticabili, la sua narrazione tesa e intensa.
La storia si sviluppa durante l’alluvione che distrusse quasi interamente l’isola di Galveston, nel 1900, un fatto di cronaca devastante, e narra la vicenda del primo pugile nero campione del mondo, in un periodo in cui i bianchi erano superiori ed i neri non potevano neanche avvicinarli.
Lil Arthur Johnson, nero, povero, forte ed onesto contro Jim Mcbride bianco, disonesto ed egoista... Intorno a loro personaggi tipici di Lansdale che evidenziano un Texas razzista, conservatore, fanatico e cattivo.
Una scrittura ricca di dialoghi, densa e realistica rende il romanzo un bocconcino prelibato di 150 pagine che si divora e che fa pensare a come certi contesti siano rimasti arretrati e discriminanti anche oggi.
Lansdale è sempre una certezza.
"Lo volevano fuori, con le buone o con le cattive. L’idea che il loro campione fosse un negro era rivoltante”.

[Matteo Pellegrini · Rating 4 out of 5]

1900: Galveston è una ricca città costiera del Texas dove le differenze di razza corrono parallele a quelle sociali. I bianchi amano la boxe, ma si divertono a vedere i neri che si ammazzano di botte in una versione sudista dei combattimenti di gladiatori. Quando "Lil" Arthur, afroamericano, sconfigge il più forte pugile bianco della città, Forrest Thomas, i soci dello Sporting Club chiamano a combattere contro di lui Jim McBride, bianco, razzista, sarcastico e violento. Altre storie s'intrecciano a formare un ricco affresco nel quale ribollono tutti gli ingredienti della classica storia di Lansdale, ma su tutto giganteggia il mito di "Lil" Arthur, che entrerà nella leggenda del pugilato col nome di Jack Johnson, primo campione del mondo di colore.

[Robert · Rating 4 out of 5]

Very different from his other works and I think the best one. I picked up Lansdale for his horror stories, and this one was tacked on to the end of "Bullets and Fire". I kept waiting for the horror aspect to kick in and it never did,yet I think this is Lansdale's best piece.

[Filippo Santaniello · Rating 5 out of 5]

Romanzo breve in cui Lansdale condensa tutta la sua genialità: intreccio imprevedibile, personaggi tridimensionali, dialoghi sputati in faccia, tutto mescolato con un ritmo inferocito che non dà tregua al lettore che si ritrova tra le mani un vero gioiello grezzo di letteratura americana

[Sorairo · Rating 3 out of 5]

Libro letto per "commissione", ma amato zero.
Non che io non abbia apprezzato nulla, però temo che io e questo autore possiamo condividere ben poco. E' troppo crudo per me.
La storia è ispirata ai fatti veri della tempesta che abbattè l'isola di GAlveston nel settembre del 1900, ma i temi principali sono la lotta razziale e la boxe come terreno di scontro tra bianchi e neri.
Infatti le vicende partono dall'assunzione di un campione di pesi massimi per combattere un incontro di boxe con un nero, reo di aver battuto l'indefesso campione dello sporting club. Il campione in questione è una persona estremamente rivoltante, crudele e cattiva che ci porteremo avanti per tutta la storia. Ma qui di gente davvero a posto ci sono solo i neri, colpevoli di essere poveracci e con poche prospettive. Per Jack, il nero che ha battuto il campione dello sporting club, la boxe è una speranza luminosa di uscire dal buio e dalla segregazione. Sogna. L'unico, a parte una famiglia che ci viene presentata più avanti.
Il signor Beems, capo dello sporting club, che assume il campione, e i suoi tirapiedi sono quasi peggio del campione. Viscidi e codardi. Almeno il campione sarà crudele ma onesto.
Tutto purtroppo finisce con l'uragano (e il coraggio della famiglia che sogna che per permettere al figlio di sopravvivere lo inchiodano ad un palo!), ma è un interessante specchio del Texas di una volta (per certi aspetti identico ad oggi) ed una denuncia al razzismo ed alla denigrazione. Quel che ho odiato è il linguaggio: scurrile, crudo, indigesto. La scrittura però è fluida e godibile. Un gran controsenso, ma sicuramente LAnsdale sa fare il suo lavoro.

[S. Wilson · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Blow is an excellent piece of historical fiction by Joe R. Lanndale that uses the 1900 Galveston Hurricane (one of the deadliest natural disasters in american history) as a backdrop to explore racist attitudes during the turn of the century. As winds and waves rapidly build off the coast, rich country club owners ship in cutthroat pugilist John McBride to take the club championship from local black man 'Lil' Arthur Johnson, who won it during what was considered a novelty fight between him in the club's white champion.

True to his writing style, Lansdale exposes the vulgarity and violence dominating society, while simultaneous shining a flashlight on the dark underbelly of history. His fictionalized accounts of the Galveston Hurricane are as emotionally jarring and captivating as his portrayal of the racism inherent in American society just a little over a century ago.

[Andy Davis · Rating 1 out of 5]

Seems to be well reviewed but I found it a pretty vile little book. I thought it was an interesting concept - an early Jack Johnson boxing match in Galveston at the time of the great Hurricane but.....not enough boxing and so many odd little side stories that aren't even stories really, just padding and often going nowhere or having pretty horrible endings for the innocent people involved (while the main horrible racist, prostitute beating, hired thug going free). Other delights are a woman used for sex deciding to drown herself, changing her mind and drowning anyway; a baby nailed to a house support and various dogs and horses drowned or shot. I have one of Langdale's mysteries and I note at least one of the other low reviewers say that they like his work but hated this. Just maybe I will give that a go then, but then again, maybe I'm just done.

[Lafang84 · Rating 4 out of 5]

Nel mio cammino di lettura, forse per ignoranza nel senso stretto del termine, non ho mai incontrato un autore così versatile. Ogni libro di Lansdale che leggo è una finestra sull'inaspettato. Non delude neanche in questo romanzo breve, anche se ho più volte sottolineato come i racconti brevi mi lascino spesso insoddisfatta. È un libro che ti travolge con la sua potenza, senza orpelli, senza dettagli inutili, solo la cruda realtà che ti attende dietro l'angolo. Questo uragano quasi mistico che fa da sfondo all'incontro di pugilato ti accompagna dall'inizio alla fine, non facendoti mai pentire di questa breve lettura. Un raro caso in cui i personaggi, nonostante siano stati delineati con pochissime caratteristiche, ti sembra di conoscerli perfettamente. Bravo Lansdale.

[Janet Martin · Rating 3 out of 5]

I don't know how to evaluate this book. It's a fictionalized account of a very tragic real event. The main characters are a pair of boxers engaged in a match during the hurricane, but there are additional snapshots of victims and survivors mostly illustrate the real life horror of the experience. The language and prejudice of this account are certain to offend many readers, despite being realistic for the time. I'm a definite Lansdale fan, but this was a very uncomfortable listen, despite the excellent and truly compelling narration of Brad Sanders. Had I considered the subject matter more carefully, I would have passed on this short listen. It's probably worth more than 3 stars for quality of writing and research, but I would only give it 1 for my enjoyment.

[Lucaxx]

Credo che Lansdale si sia divertito a scrivere questo racconto lungo (romanzo breve?) di Lansdale, soprattutto per il suo evidente tentativo di battere ogni record di uso della N-word, sfruttando l'ambientazione texana del 1900 e parlando di un combattimento di un bianco contro un nero. Ma non solo per questo: c'è una bella ricostruzione di una città marittima andata distrutta dall'eponimo uragano, la descrizione degli abissi di corruzione di un pugile impunito, molte pennellate su personaggi che compaiono per poco ma riescono a rimanere impressi. L'autore non si allontana dalla sua comfort zone, ma c'è davvero tanto mestiere in questa storia, ed avercene di scrittori come lui.

[Lisa · Rating 3 out of 5]

Interesting little book intertwining two historical events that occurred in Galveston, TX in 1900, a deadly hurricane and a racially motivated fight between a black and a white boxer. This is a quick read with quick character development. Best read in one sitting, it is an ideal book for travel, where it can pull you in and you can follow it through to the end in one go.

[Sparagniaus · Rating 4 out of 5]

“Fuori, il vento aumentava leggermente, soffiando aria calda dall’odore salmastro lungo le vie di Galveston e nella finestra del bordello, e periodicamente si portava appresso ispiratissimi brandelli del canto degli ubriachi, finché non ne rimase in giro nessuno e non ci fu altro che il vento. Il vento.”

[R. · Rating 3 out of 5]

This wasn't the best Lansdale that I've read for sure, but it wasn't bad. If this is your first foray into Lansdale be aware that they get better and more interesting from here.

I liked the general subject and the tone of the book. I loved the usual gritty Lansdale subject matter and content and whole style of his writing. It was a little short for my tastes, but to each their own.

[Laura · Rating 3 out of 5]

Lansdale’s prose is reliably compelling.
By forces of nature (the deadliest hurricane in U S history) animals are harmed in this book.,
Lots of sex.
Lansdale reveals a swath of the highly polarized social realities of the time. The story ends on an absurdly happy note of irony when two fighters save the life as a baby.

[Henry Cosgrove · Rating 5 out of 5]

Great Story

First time we went on a cruise we left out of Galveston the day before the city was evacuated because of a hurricane. We had toured the town and read various plaques commemorating the destruction chronicled in this book. Our 5 day cruise turned into an 8 day cruise. Hurricane turned an missed Galveston completely.

[Luca Affinito · Rating 5 out of 5]

Una delle migliori cose che mi sia capitate.
E poi Lansdale ha anche ritwittato le mie congratulazioni.
Una storia d'amore, proprio.

Info sul libro le trovi qui: http://www.illibroignorante.it/?p=3415

[Marco Cortesi · Rating 2 out of 5]

Worst book of my favourite writer.
I always love Lansdale’s style, even in this book, but the story is really too poor, with random characters that appear at random time and don’t give any effort or meaning.

[Greg · Rating 5 out of 5]

I really enjoyed reading this book.

[Luca Trovati · Rating 4 out of 5]

Magnetico.
Crudo.
Divertente.
Straziante.
Lansdale.

[Aaron · Rating 3 out of 5]

Not my type of story. It felt a little incomplete to me. More shorty than a novella.

[OrdinaryPete · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a fast read. This was a fun read. This was a needed read.

Cya