A Dozen Tough Jobs [Hardcover]

Howard Waldrop (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 1989

Cloth binding in jacket in transparent cover, 135 pages, new book from 1989, book in new condition, jacket has minor shelf wear. Mark V Ziesing, 1989, stated First Edition.

Product Details

• Hardcover
• Publisher: Mark V Ziesing; First Trade Ed edition (June 1989)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0929480015
• ISBN-13: 978-0929480015
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5 x 0.8 inches
• Shipping Weight: 8 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,854,318 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Howard Waldrop, born in Mississippi and now living in Austin, Texas, is an American iconoclast. His highly original books include Them Bones and A Dozen Tough Jobs, and the collections All About Strange Monsters of the Recent Past, Night of the Cooters, and Going Home Again. He won the Nebula and World Fantasy Awards for his novelette "The Ugly Chickens." George R.R. Martin is the author of the bestselling Song of Ice and Fire series of novels. His fiction has won the Hugo, Nebula, World Fantasy Award, Stoker, and Locus Awards. He worked on the TV shows The Twilight Zone and Beauty and the Beast. He lives in Santa Fe, New Mexico.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Stellar mix of modern and classical, August 22, 2002

By 

Glen Engel Cox (Columbus, Ohio) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: A Dozen Tough Jobs (Hardcover)

Translate the twelve labors of Hercules into the cultural climate of Northern Mississippi in the 1920s, and while you're there make some true insights into human society of any time--why, only Howard Waldrop would attempt such a thing, and only Waldrop could have the panache to pull it off. A Dozen Tough Jobs should have been written 200 years ago so that it could have received the treatment it deserves: that being carved into stone. Waldrop proves that less is more, by condensing magic, bigotry, love, checkers, guitars, romance, and everything else that makes life...well, life, into a novella that is easily read in one night.

I.O. Lace is a young black boy who works for Boss Eustis. Well, work is hardly right. Work for blacks in Mississippi at the time was only a step removed from slavery, and Boss Eustis is a man to be feared. Joining I.O. in his life-once-removed-from-slavery is a man who is a slave: a convict named Houlka Lee, remanded into Boss Eustis' service for one year.

This novella is both subtle and not at the same time. For those unfamiliar with the Greek myths and classics that this is based on, the novella is an interesting view into 1920s Mississippi life. But for most of us, it is filled with little treasures that would make some annotator leap up and click his heels. Waldrop works in every aspect of the Hercules myth with such ease that you wonder if he rewrote all the Bullfinch's Mythology of the world so that they fit his novella, instead of the other way around.

Waldrop is a special writer, and one who deserves far more attention then he's ever gotten. Unfortunately, he is not very prolific, so when a new Waldrop story arrives, it is indeed a time of joy. A Dozen Tough Jobs is a time of ecstasy. Missing this book will only make your life sadder.