I had a fantastic, in depth conversation with Adam Howe the other day in which we talked about his most recent book, DIE DOG OR EAT THE HATCHET and
discussed some exciting projects he's working on. Adam is a very honest and candid person and I was able to learn quite a bit about him and something of what makes him tick. So I come to his first book, BLACK CAT MOJO with a different set of eyes than the ones I read DIE DOG with.
Adam is an exciting discovery for me. I'm a great fan of what I think of as white trash or redneck-noir, in the style of a lot of Lansdale's work, but I had--I thought--exhausted pretty much all of the available material in that vein, particularly of the dark, comedic variety that is Lansdale's stock in trade.
But I was wrong. There's another guy that writes that kind of stuff, and writes it exceedingly well. Replete with black, southern-fried redneck antics and action galore, the three novellas (plus a bonus short) in BLACK CAT MOJO will blow your mind with their horrific scenarios and wanton hilarity, not to mention their remarkable authenticity. Why remarkable? Because Adam's British. As far as I know, the closest he's ever been to the American south is New York City, where he got to meet the King--Stephen, that is--after winning a writing contest and getting his winning entry published in the newest revision of On Writing.
So where did he develop such a convincing down home chicken-fried voice as he demonstrates so masterfully in his novellas? Well, if you go to the conversation we had recently on Shotgun Logic and read the section where he talks about his creative influences, you'll get a pretty good idea. Also the part where he talks about his comedic inspirations. But there's more to it than that. Adam is a brutally honest guy and he's not afraid to commit his peculiar and unique ideas to paper. And, as is evidenced by novellas such as Of Badgers and Porn Dwarfs, he does so with tongue in cheek and shotgun in hand. Because Howe, in addition to being hilarious, isn't afraid of a little violence and splatter. Or a whole fuckload of it.
Because BLACK CAT MOJO is an earlier work than DIE DOG... I expected it to be less accomplished, and that preconception was partly correct. But don't take that to mean it's a bad collection because it isn't. It's less accomplished in the way that three million dollars is less than four million. Who's complaining? Like DIE DOG.., the thing that really makes these novellas work is the balls to the wall hilarity, unrelenting action, and ultra quirky characters. And, while Howe demonstrated an improvement in his storytelling abilities with his second collection, it's still well represented here and I was not disappointed, nor will you be.
If you haven't read Adam Howe, you're missing out on a rock star author with mojo in spades, ideas that compare to nothing you've ever read before, and some of the most delightfully twisted characters you'll ever encounter. Howe is an author I will return to every time he writes something new, and will also return to some of the novellas represented here and in DIE DOG OR EAT THE HATCHET.