Pulp Fiction discussion

Born in October of 1951, Joe R. Lansdale grew up in East Texas, the son of a mechanic. He has written successfully in a variety of genres, including Western, horror, science fiction, mystery, and suspense; he has also written comic books and screenplays. Lansdale is probably most famous for his Hap and Leonard series of twelve novels, four novellas, and three short story collections, and for his Bram Stoker Award-nominated novella, Bubba Ho-Tep, which was made into a movie.

This month's read, The Bottoms, was originally published in May of 2000. Named a New York Times Notable Book of the Year, it won the 2001 Edgar Award for best novel. As of 2014 the book was being co-produced for a film by Joe R. Lansdale, Bill Paxton, and Brad Wyman. Paxton died in 2017, making any further plans uncertain.

A week ago I read in a day the runner-up in this poll, Country Dark by Chris Offut, arguably the best book I have read all year. I’m a little more than halfway done with The Bottoms, and it’s right up there. I’m on such a roll, maybe I’ll go ahead and read Pike too when I’m done.

I read Chris Offut's Country Dark a while ago and, wow, bam, I became an instant fan. I have high hopes for The Bottoms and Lansdale as I haven't read any of his yet.

Much as I love Offutt, I'm kind of glad the group will finally be reading Lansdale. Hope to start this one soon.

I started reading this one yesterday. It reminds me a lot in the first chapter of Where the Red Fern Grows. I did not expect to be saying that.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "I started reading this one yesterday. It reminds me a lot in the first chapter of Where the Red Fern Grows. I did not expect to be saying that."

I hope that doesn't mean a bunch of dogs die . . .

I'm waiting for the library to get it and I will be in, probably more like the second part of October.

I have already read it, so maybe I will pick another Lansdale for this month. The Bottoms is one of his best, and I'm glad it won the poll

I'm about a quarter of the way through this one so far. Besides the Where the Red Fern Grows vibes I'm also picking up To Kill a Mockingbird and "Stand By Me" influences. The plot of a young boy who stumbles across a dead body while squirrel huntin' with his trusty dog and tomboy lil' sister is okay, although some of the story, characters, and rural vernacular seem a little contrived at times.

I started this morning - LOVE the atmosphere. But, I noticed my copy, a hardback put out by Mysterious Press in 2000, has the following disclaimer:

A considerably different version of this story first appeared in 1999 Al Sarantonio (Avon Books, 1999.)

I'm wondering if that means this tale perhaps started life as a short story in an anthology, or if, perhaps, some of us are reading different versions?

Melki wrote: "I started this morning - LOVE the atmosphere. But, I noticed my copy, a hardback put out by Mysterious Press in 2000, has the following disclaimer:

A considerably different version of this story f..."

That's weird. I looked online but couldn't find anything about two different versions. Sarantonio edits a lot of anthologies. I wonder if that page crept in by mistake?

Either way, as I understand it, there are no hardcover copies currently in print, so hold on to yours. It might be worth some money.

RJ - Slayer of Trolls wrote: "Either way, as I understand it, there are no hardcover copies currently in print, so hold on to yours. It might be worth some money."

Now I feel as though I should wear gloves while I read it, and not just because it's only 62 degrees in our house.

I started it today and a little bit in but I agree RJ about the To Kill a Mockingbird overtones or feeling. It has sort of that nostalgic sort of vibe, and I like how the narrator presents everything so far.

I LOVE Grandma, and how she arrives with her own shotgun. She reminds me of my own Great Grammy Annie Moffit Smith, who always kept a gun by the backdoor for blasting at varmints in her garden and scaring away unwanted salesmen.

Melki wrote: "I LOVE Grandma, and how she arrives with her own shotgun. She reminds me of my own Great Grammy Annie Moffit Smith, who always kept a gun by the backdoor for blasting at varmints in her garden and ..."

Haha yeah I just got to that part. Feeling some Granny Weatherwax vibes.

Just started the audiobook (thanks to my public library's Hoopla connection). What a great reader Brad Sanders is!

I am getting a few Stand by Me vibes as well. I love how the author hooks us into a dilemma and conflict from the first few chapters.

I'm over 2/3 through and should wrap up in about a week. The plot has taken some twists and turns that I did not see coming. Family trees with branches all over the place.

I finished this book at the beginning of the month and loved it. It had such an authentic feel. Okay, I only lived in the deep south for a bit in the 80s, but all the voices have the right sound. Agreeing with the Stand By Me and To Kill a Mockingbird references.

At some point I had a hunch who the killer was, but it was a hunch. I could not think of the motive.

Well done!

Great pick! Very "pulpy" indeed. Sometimes the racism and Klan stuff almost got to be too much for me --not for the faint of heart-- but that stuff is always hard to look at, particularly when it's accurately rendered. The characters were really well written, and I felt, fully formed. I definitely wouldn't have discovered Lansdale without this group read, so thanks for that!

This book appears to be his most popular, at least here on GR. Has anyone read any of his Hap and Leonard series? I'm curious if his other books are this good.

Sara wrote: "Great pick! Very "pulpy" indeed. Sometimes the racism and Klan stuff almost got to be too much for me --not for the faint of heart-- but that stuff is always hard to look at, particularly when it's..."

I've read the first seven of the Hap and Leonards, and really enjoyed them, though I didn't start with number one. I think I read Mucho Mojo first. When I finally read the first in the series - Savage Season - more than a decade later, I didn't like it that much.

Looking at my list, I've read more Lansdale than I thought. To everyone who really liked this one, I'd highly recommend The Thicket and A Fine Dark Line.

I've read The Thickett, and I liked it almost as much as The Bottoms.
They are different books though, with the western-horror novel being surprisingly funny, in a very black sort of way.

I'll be finishing this one today and I'll post some thoughts after.

I finished and rated it three stars. I haven't written my review yet, but I'll share some thoughts here.

I was disappointed in many of the aspects of the book. I thought the story was very similar in many ways to To Kill a Mockingbird with elements of Where the Red Fern Grows and the movie "Stand By Me" - all of which were released and well-known at the time this book was published. I don't think the author sat down and intended to write something similar to those other book/movies but he would have been aware of them and he didn't do much, if anything, to differentiate his book from those stories either.

In addition, there were many instances of Deus Ex Machina, in which something happened just so the book's story could proceed. The ending is a perfect example: The parents just up and decided to get busy in their car down the road from the house at the exact same night that the killer decided he would sneak up to the house, slice open the exact correct screen and kidnap the little girl. He's awfully lucky the parents just happened to get horny that night, and that no one woke up when the dog barked, and that the little girl didn't make any kind of noise at all. Awfully lucky. Oh, and Boo Radley the Goat Man just happened to see the whole thing but didn't do anything to stop it but followed the killer, but also came back to alert the family and also set up some branches for them to follow...sigh, I think you get my point. That's just one scene.

East Texas sure seems like a friendly place. The dad beats up a Klan member and his sons with an axe handle and everyone just agrees to let it go. No retaliation whatsoever. A lot of the racial incidents seem to happen just to establish who is good and who is bad. And it sure is lucky that this story happens to the most racially progressive family in the entire American South. That saves us any embarrassment trying to figure out who to root for. The characters in this book fall into three categories: 1) racially progressive, simple strong small town folk, 2) cartoonish bigots that cut eyeholes in their bedsheets, and 3) the rest of the townfolk who all jump in the lynchin' and act like raving lunatics then disappear for the rest of the book, never to be seen again.

Congratulations to Dad for whipping his temporary alcoholism so quickly. Many alcoholics struggle with their disease for their entire lives. Mom didn't seem to mind too much though. All she does is cook and bed her husband. And the narrator took his whipping without any mental after-effects at all.

How old exactly were these kids? Did it say in the book anywhere? The boy seemed like he was about 8-10, except for the times when it seemed like he was older, like a teenager. And the little girl seemed little, until the killer decided she was just about to turn into a woman which would make her more like 12-14.

However old he was, it sure was thoughtful for the boy to turn the killer loose so he could chase them down and heighten the suspense. Chekhov's rule about suspension bridges was in full effect: "If you show a rickety suspension bridge in the first act, then your characters MUST be dangling from it in the third act." I think that's what he said, anyway. Good thing everyone missed all the rocks below the bridge that the author kept pointing out.

Also, I sure enjoyed the Scooby Doo ending where the bad guy monologued for about a half dozen pages, letting us know what he did and why he did it. Nothing like exposition from a rapist-killer to keep us all locked in. I should mention that I had the killer pegged in the first 100 pages of the book, maybe earlier. I would be surprised if anyone didn't. I think the killer's identity would only surprise people who don't read mysteries very often.

I gave this book three stars. Why so many, based on my prior comments? Well there were things I did like. The author had some small touches here and there that brought the town to life, like descriptions of the cooking, or the kids happily licking their peppermint sticks, or the pigs who got loose and ran down the main street. Small touches like this were everywhere. And in the middle of the book there's a nice reveal about some racial histories in the town that could have changed the whole direction of the book. It didn't though. Red's character arc was so silly and stupid I couldn't believe I was reading it. It reminded me of Dave Chapelle's bit about the blind black racist.

I do like Lansdale's prose enough to give him another shot, but I was just really surprised that there are so many 5-star reviews of this book.

Actually I changed my mind and I'm giving the book two stars. The ending was just so disappointing....

Melki wrote: "Looking at my list, I've read more Lansdale than I thought. To everyone who really liked this one, I'd highly recommend The Thicket and A Fine Dark Line."

Thanks for the recommendations!

I'm sorry RJ didn't enjoy the book this time. I agree with almost everything they cite as accurate, but my perspective on all of it was that those things are what make a contemporary "pulp" a "pulp" rather than "Great Literature" (note the capitals) --regardless of what paper it has been printed on. If the topic/theme has been done to death and someone comes along and does it all again, but just a little differently and/or with some nice "small touches" that make the story theirs, I feel like that's what pulp is and where it shines.

Sara wrote: "I'm sorry RJ didn't enjoy the book this time. I agree with almost everything they cite as accurate, but my perspective on all of it was that those things are what make a contemporary "pulp" a "pulp..."

No need to be sorry Sara, and I am male by the way or "he/him" in modern parlance. I like pulp too but this story didn't feel like pulp to me. It had the fragrance of a pulp author - the guy who wrote Bubba Ho-Tep - trying to write "Serious Literature" and falling short of the mark. It certainly didn't help that Lansdale took his book WAY too seriously. Good pulp usually has some tongue-in-cheek humor to let us know that the author is in on the joke too, but this book was - with only minor occasional exception - serious as a funeral dirge. I like hamburgers, but I don't like cheap hamburger being packaged up and sold to me as filet mignon.

SPOILER ALERT

A story set in the American South, back in the day, narrated by a youth who lived it, who lives in a small town with a sibling and a respected father. Racism is a central theme. There is violence and threatened violence. There is a mentally handicapped adult who remains a largely unseen presence who watches over the two central children, protects them and leaves hidden items to be found. We all know this story, right ? To Kill a Mockingbird.

Lansdale's writing is beautifully evocative of place and time. One can clearly see his early talent for engaging a reader. His analogies were too frequent and flowery for my taste. I suspect I'll enjoy his more recent novels better.

I had too many things going on last month to finish this one, but finished it tonight and echo the thoughts that it was fairly mediocre and felt kind of unoriginal with so many parallels to To Kill a Mockingbird. I felt like there was a lull there in the middle of the book where things just seem to go no where, and the characters felt sort like prototypes/cliche in some respects. Not that all was bad, and some of the descriptions of the places and time are good, but just couldn't really get into it that much. 3 stars for me.