Customer Reviews

The Bottoms

5 star:		(62)
4 star:		(28)
3 star:		(6)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(3)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I have been struggling with this review. I think that is because "The Bottoms" was such a personal experience that trying to find the words to share my thoughts with others is a bit difficult. However, I believe this deserves telling because "The Bottoms" is a very special book and I wish to share the experience with others.

This is the tale of Harry, a boy grappling with bridging that difficult gap between childhood and manhood. Along the way he confronts the search for a serial killer, race relations and his love for his parents with all their faults that we are loathe to accept in our parents.

The story takes place in Eastern Texas during the Depression. Although this is not a time and place I am familiar with, I found myself meandering through the woods, creeks and rural roads without feeling like a stranger to this part of the country. Mr. Lansdale made it so real to me that I could feel the heat, smell the air and want to swat at flies or scratch imaginary mosquito bites. It was as if I were hiding in the woods, in the barn or behind a chair in the farmhouse watching the story enfold before my eyes. Mr Lansdale has a wonderful talent for bringing you into the pictures he creates. His ability to do this reminds me of Stephen Booth's writing in "The Black Dog."

Although I figured out who the murderer was early in the book, that didn't detract one iota from my pleasure in reading this book. I was so caught up in lives of a family that I had come to love that catching a serial killer became superfluous to their story.

Of all the characters in the book, I was most drawn to Jacob, Harry's father. Aside from the fact that I wished I had grown up with a father like Harry, I suffered with him during his crisis of faith in his core moral beliefs and the very purpose for his existence.

This book will hold you in its grip until the very last page. The last chapter lulled me into a sense of complacency only to find myself in tears when reading the last few paragraphs.

I would urge you to read "The Bottoms" and experience your own personal trip.

I love it when I read a book whose title means absolutely nothing to me as in "The Bottoms". What are the bottoms? I found out that they are the "bottoms" of the rivers and, in this case, they have been drained leaving them damp and mushy - the perfect setting for the scene of the crime in Joe R. Lansdale's latest book.

In the days when the law didn't look upon a rash of murders as being committed by the same person - a serial killer was in fact murdering women in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Northern Texas. Now this killer has arrived in East Texas and young Harry Crane discovers the killer's first victim as he comes up a dead black woman tied to a tree. Since his father Jacob is the town constable, the task will fall to him to solve the crime. But no one else will be interested in finding the killer since the dead woman is black, so, in a nutshell, who cares? Well, Harry's father does and he will find himself fighting a losing battle as he tries to right this wrong. Instead of the town coming together, they will band against Harry's father as he tries to find justice for the innocent blacks in Texas in the 1930's.

Now it is seventy years later and the once young Harry Crane is sitting in his nursing home reliving those events of long ago. And, as Harry is reliving those days, I'm reliving those moments spent reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. I know there are only so many stories that can ever be told but there were just too many similarities in this book for me to thoroughly enjoy it. From the young brother and sister team, to the father in an official position of law, to the Goat Man so reminiscent of the reclusive Boo Radley and finally to the lynch mob showing up at the Crane house -- I could have been reading To Kill A Mockingbird all over again. Not only did this take away from my overall enjoyment of the story, it also made me quite irritated as well. I guess I just feel very protective of a "classic" that holds such a special place in my heart. In this rendition, however, the killer is so obvious throughout the entire book...no surprises here. So the "bottom" line is if you haven't read the original by Harper Lee, you'll probably enjoy this much more than I did. There's no doubt that Joe R. Lansdale is an excellent writer and I look forward to reading some of his more "original" works.

I've read all of Joe Lansdale's novels, and a significant percentage of his short stories. I believe that "The Bottoms" may be his best book yet. This novel finds Lansdale exploring new narritive and stylistic territory while staying within many of his traditional themes. This may also be his most accesible book to date, and should gain him some new readers whose sensibilities might be too fragile for some of Joe's earlier horror novels. "The Bottoms" is indeed a horror novel, a genre that Lansdale has not explored for a number of years. Really though, it might be more proper to call this a hybrid of the mystery/crime/detective, horror, and traditional literary forms. There are elements of all of these, but no single aspect is overemphasized.

The story is set in 1930's East Texas and centers around a family living in a small town called Marvel Creek. The narration is from the point of view of an old man, near death, telling the story from the point of view of himself as a teenager. The author's narrative execution is truly masterful. Lansdale manages to capture both the point of view of the teenage boy and the elderly man, so that we see everything through both aspects of the same person.

The story itself is also constructed with a master's touch. This is a longish novel (more than 400 pages), and the gradual buildup, climax, and denouement are perfectly paced and executed. Many people are primarily familiar with Lansdale through his Hap and Leonard books, but "The Bottoms" is a much different animal. The pacing is much slower, and there is an innocence and wonder that pervades the whole book. As always, though, the best thing about a Joe Lansdale novel is the characters. I feel like I know these characters. It's the characters that will grab you and keep you there for the whole book. "The Bottoms" is some of Lansdale's best writing to date. Don't hesitate.

This is a really good book. I am giving it five stars here, but there is something that niggles at the back of my mind that refuses to equate this book with the very best I have read. Perhaps it is that `The Bottoms' plays a little too closely at first with `To Kill A Mocking Bird'. In the end this book has little to do with Mockingbird, but it really pulls up affiliations with Harper Lee's classic in its overall tone. Maybe also, Lansdale did not quite evoke enough of a sense of place or time for me. And lastly, the character `Goat Man' lost a little something because he was never built up as a terrifying figure after the first nights chase, little innuendo's are bandied about by Lansdale that lead one to know the truth about him long before the protagonists. But this is all nit picking. The book is first rate in every other respect.

I strongly recommend this book, `The Bottoms'. I think that you will find here a page turning mystery/thriller/period piece that satisfies in a large degree anyone's appetite for a well-crafted book. It's also unusual enough that if you have read too many mystery/thrillers like I have, that you will be grateful for a change of pace. The ending is pretty much unexpected and Lansdale offers up enough red herrings that you will be lying if you say that you were %100 sure of the ending before you got there.

It is sometimes something of a chore to find something worthwhile to read, especially after you have just read an exceptionally good book and don't want anything less worthy in your next one. I just finished World War Z a few days ago, which was as fun and entertaining a book as I have read all year, and I wanted another truly good horror book, or at least something that could make me stop thinking about my last book. I decided I wanted an award-winning book so googled "stoker awards" and "edgar awards" and saw that this book won best novel in 2001. A-ha! This should be good I thought, let's get this and get those zombies out of my head. So I did. And it was good. It wasn't anything like I thought though.

I started reading this after dinner and just kept reading until I finished around midnight. I thought this was a horror novel and that Lansdale was a horror writer. I am pretty sure he has written horror novels, but this isn't really one of them. Nevertheless the book did break the spell of World War Z and I was transported to East Texas in the heart of the depression in the 1930's where I meet Harry, an eleven year old boy growing up in the poverty of the time. This is very much his coming-of-age story, highly reminiscent of To Kill a Mockingbird, that follows Harry as he finds the corspe of a black woman who has been tortured and molested. Harry reports the crime to his father, the local constable and town barber. The crime happens again, and then yet again, and we begin to realize a serial killer is stalking women in the area. As the killer begins to stalk white women, racial violence, always simmering beneath the surface of the area, explodes to the grief of all. Harry, his family, and their lives are caught up and inextricably woven into this tale of sadness, discrimination, love, loyalty and learning one's space for oneself within the world.

The mystery is really never that mysterious to us that are reading the novel. After all we are such much experienced with serial killers today. The characters in the novel though cannot discern the clues around them and that is part of what makes this such an effective novel. We watch as the protagonists struggle against ignorance, fear, prejudice, discrimination and pure lack of experience as their small world is shattered one woman at a time. The denouement is also very satisfying as Harry confronts the serial killer and as he explains his own perception of himself to Harry. This is a very tender book, very well-written, and very moving and effective. I can see why it won a best book award and I think most people would enjoy this novel very much.

This involving mystery starts out as the reflections of an old man looking back on his life and one of the interesting points of his childhood. The novel is set in the 1930's at the bayous of East Texas with creeks, rivers, forests, snakes and all the great components that make for adventure when you are 12 years old. The main character, Harry, finds a murdered black woman bound to a tree using barbed wire. He, along with his sister, Tom, scurry back to report to their father, the local constable, about their find. From there, you are led into a whirlwind of activity in the book that keeps luring you on and on. There are more murders, but there is a depression on and segregation is rampant. Mr. Lansdale does a wonderful job reflecting the thinking of the time and addresses many tough social issues as well. This is a great read and I didn't guess who the murderer was, even at the end!

When I finished reading this book, it was like losing an old friend. I thoroughly enjoyed the story and was reluctant to lay it down. I highly recommend this book.