Bottoms [Paperback]

Joe R Lansdale (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: July 5, 2001

The Great Depression, East Texas. The woods are thick, the rivers wild, the weather ripe with tornadoes, and the Crane family, like most families in that neck of the woods, are eking out a thin living. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body bound to a tree with barbed wire in the river bottoms, the underbelly of East Texas is exposed. Whites fear a renegade Negro. Blacks fear a vengeful massacre, or, if the killer is white, that the law will let him slip through its fingers. Harry believes the murderer is the Goat Man, an East Texas monster of legend who lurks beneath the swing bridge on the Sabine River, like the Billy Goat Gruff. Harry and his sister have actually seen the Goat Man, or something much like him, in his nocturnal haunts. As the bodies mount up, an elderly black man is lynched, both blacks and whites are terrorised, and Harry's father - the local law - and grandmother investigate, searching for a killer who may be a lot closer than they think.

Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Joe Lansdale, author of several horror novels, Westerns, and some outrageous thrillers, is something of a cult writer. The Bottoms, which may be the breakout book that moves Lansdale beyond the genre category, is a resonant and moving novel. Though there is a mystery at its core, it is at heart a coming-of-age story, with a more literary bent than Lansdale usually demonstrates.

Harry, an elderly man, tells the story of a series of events that occurred in his 11th year, when the mutilated, murdered bodies of Negro prostitutes began turning up in the county where his father was the local constable. Harry and Tom, his younger sister, find the first one. Only their father, Jacob Crane, seems to care about finding justice for the victims, who are dismissed out of hand as unimportant by the local branch of the Ku Klux Klan, which warns Jacob off any further investigations. Harry and Tom think they know who's responsible: the Goat Man, a creature who's said to lurk beneath the swinging bridge that crosses the Sabine River, where the first body was found. In fact, the Goat Man has something to do with the murders, and the secret of who he is and what he really did is the key to the unsolved slayings. But that takes second place to the artfully explicated character of Jacob and Harry's changing relationship with him in the course of the loss of his boyish innocence. This is a masterfully told story and a very good read. --Jane Adams --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Publishers Weekly

In his latest suspense thriller, prolific yarn-spinner Lansdale, best known for his offbeat series featuring the mismatched East Texas Sherlocks Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (Bad Chili), presents a different voice in a coming-of-age story set in the early years of the Great Depression. Lansdale's 80-something protagonist, Harry Crane, looks back to the day in 1933 when he was 13 and, with his nine-year-old sister, Tom (Thomasina), he found the mutilated corpse of a black prostitute bound to a tree with barbed wire near their home along the hardscrabble bottomlands of the Sabine River. The discovery presents their father, Jacob CraneAa farmer and barber eking out a living as the town constableAwith a nightmarish investigation. News travels slowly in the days before television, but Jacob learns from the black doctor who performs the makeshift autopsy that two other mutilated bodies have been found over the last 18 months. Because the victims are black and "harlots," no one in the county much cares. But when the body of a white prostitute is discovered, a rabid mob lynches MosesAa black man who has been something of a surrogate father to JacobAdespite Jacob and Harry's heroic efforts to save him. Predictably, another body is soon discovered. Lansdale is best when recreating the East Texas dialogue and setting. Readers will not have to work hard to unearth comparisons to characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, but gruesome details of the murders keep the novel from being labeled a period piece. Folksy and bittersweet, though rather rough-hewn and uneven, Lansdale's novel treats themes still sadly pertinent today. (Aug.)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 320 pages
• Publisher: Phoenix Paperbacks (July 5, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0753814366
• ISBN-13: 978-0753814369
• Product Dimensions: 12.1 x 7.6 x 3.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 10.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (102 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #4,243,163 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of over thirty 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 eighteen 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 Hotep 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." 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.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

18 of 18 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars "Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom." George S. Patton, July 24, 2010

By 

michael a. draper (Guilford, CT) - See all my reviews
(TOP 500 REVIEWER)    (VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: The Bottoms (Hardcover)

The memories we have of our younger days are prescious and as we go on with our lives those recollections become cherished.

This story is told as a man is nearing the end of his life, reminiscing about the most momentous event of his childhood.

In East Texas, during the hard days of the depression, twelve-year-old Harry Crews and his nine-year-old sister, Tom, find the body of a black woman, deep in the woods by their farm.

Their father, Jacob, is the town constable. He brings the body to the next town because he is afraid that if he goes to the young doctor in his town, that doctor would suffer a loss of patients because he worked on a negro. The woman is identified as Jelda May Sykes, a harlot who did some conjuring. He's not surprised that there hadn't been much publicity due to their color.

As he is gathering information, he's informed by Red Woodrow, the constable in that town, to stay out of Red's jurisdiction and that he, Red, would conduct the investigation.

Meanwhile, Harry and Tom are convinced that a legendary killer is about, the killer, known as Goat Man, follows them home from deep in the woods.

After a period of quiet, another body of a black woman is found. This time the body is in Jacob's jurisdiction so he conducts an official investigation.

The story is told in a warm, visual style, as if the reader was sitting in the living room and listening to the events unfold whle having a cool drink with the story teller.

Harry and Tom are excellently portrayed and could have been the children of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird." In fact, Scout Finch and tomboy, Tom Craine could have been twins, they are so much alike. Both stories have negro characters who are wrongly accused and both stories have heroic characters and are masterpieces of literature.

14 of 14 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Outstanding, December 9, 2000

By 

C. Fletcher (California) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

This review is from: The Bottoms (Hardcover)

I've been reading Joe Lansdale for just over ten years now, and I think this is just about the best book he's ever written. I picked up "The Drive In" when I was about sixteen, and I've been hooked by his terrific writing and his great senses of humor and story ever since.

If you've never read anything by Joe Lansdale, you're missing out on a truly unique, authentic American writer. It's true you probably need a strong stomach to make it through an average Joe Lansdale novel, but I think it's also true that you need a sharp sense of humor which enjoys being tickled, a sensitive soul and a hightened appreciation for the poetic in everyday life. Joe delivers on all of these fronts. He's like no other author I've read. He's a little bit like Mark Twain, he's a little bit like Stephen King, and something like Harper Lee. But that comparison only works if you put all of those in a blender and hit puree.

In "The Bottoms," Lansdale, who is a master of the folkilsy-gruesome character-driven story, charts some new territory. Not geographically--this one takes place, like most of his other tales, and like his real life, in East Texas--but rather stylistically.

Ever since reading my first Lasndale book I've been a huge fan. His writing is always exretemely fluid. It just makes you feel like writing must be one of the most natural human activities, like walking or breathing or taking a long drink of water when your throat feels like sandpaper. But in this book, Lansdale seems to have tightened the linguistic screws a few notches. Not only is the writing fluid and fun to read, but it is of a consistently excellent quality. Before "The Bottoms" I probably would have only recommended Joe Lansdale to people who have a taste for the weird. If you've seen "The Texas Chainsaw Massacre 2" more than once for example, I know you'd like Joe Lansdale. He's an excellent writer, but that's the kind of taste you have to have, at least on part of your palate, to appreciate him.

The style and characterization in "The Bottoms" just blew me away. There are four excellent books that I was reminded of while reading this: "To Kill a Mockingbird," by Harper Lee, "The Green Mile," by Stephen King, "Huckleberry Finn," by Mark Twain and "Montana 1948" by Larry Watson. If you've read and enjoyed any of those books, please do yourself a favor and read Joe Lansdale's "The Bottoms." Even if you haven't read any of those others, read this one (and then go read those also).

The only real complaint I had about this book was that the mystery was a little too easy to figure out. That almost didn't matter, though, because I was having such a good time with the writing and the characters.

One other thing was that all of the narrator's similies are mouth-wateringly food related. This become a little trying after a while, especially if you haven't eaten for a few hours. I half expected to find out at the end that the young protagonist had grown up to be a chef. I thought that would have been great.

An excellent read, though. Well done, Joe! Keep up the good work!

If you like the feel and style of this book, I also reccomend the music of guitarist John Hiatt, particularly his latest CD, "Crossing Muddy Waters." I got to know this CD at the same time I was reading this book, and they blended together very nicely in my imagination.

21 of 23 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Worthy Winner, May 20, 2001

By 

sweetmolly (RICHMOND, VA USA) - See all my reviews

This review is from: The Bottoms (Hardcover)

Edgar first prizewinner Lansdale delivers the goods. He is a masterful storyteller nailing time, place, and people with bulls-eye accuracy. The narrative and dialogue flow, and the pace never flags. He captures the child's eye view with all the authority of Stephen King or Harper Lee.

Harry is an honorable boy caught in a dark story of racism, death, and folklore. The events gradually close in on him and his family creating an almost unbearable suspense. The characterizations are sharp and multi-layered. I particularly liked the non-message in dealing with racism. Mr. Lansdale is an unblinking recorder; all the indignities and intricacies are out there with no apology; for we are hearing a story as it was, not as we would like it to be.

"The Bottoms" transcends the mystery genre. It is a particularly fine coming-of-age story. Yet mystery-thriller fans will not be disappointed. Harry's and sister Tom's search and confrontation of the killer stretch the suspense until you feel as if you are humming like an overtaxed wire.

I would rate this book the best I have read this year, and it has a permanent place on my bookshelf. Highly recommended.