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15 of 15 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
ANOTHER WINNER FOR THIS GREAT AMERICAN WRITER!!!, January 7, 2003
In Joe R. Lansdale's newest novel, A FINE DARK LINE, the reader is carried back to the summer of 1958 when thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, Jr. and his family move to Dewmont, Texas to take over the ownership of the town's only drive-in movie theater. This is the summer that Stanley will lose his childhood innocence and learn that there's no Santa Claus, what sex is really about, the ugly truth concerning racism, and the painful reality about death, murder and the human monsters that hide behind the masks of one's next-door neighbors. It's also the summer that young Stanley begins to learn about the power of friendship, family, love, and the unrelenting courage that's needed in the face of horror. Stanley's journey into adulthood begins when he finds a half-buried metal box filled with old love letters near a burnt-down house in the woods behind the drive-in theater where he and his family now live. The letters belonged to a young girl who was gruesomely murdered almost two decades before. The fact that the crime was never solved triggers Stanley's curiosity. With the help of his older sister, Caldonia, and his new friends Richard Chapman and old Buster Lighthorse Smith, he begins to slowly, but persistently, dig into the past, not knowing that what he discovers will change his life forever. Brilliantly written by one of America's top authors, A FINE DARK LINE carries us back to when comic books were a nickel, Tarzan movies played on TV in the mornings, and a young boy could believe that the fictional John Carter of Mars actually existed. This was a time when anything seemed possible, and small-town life during the hot, sweltering summer months was slow and relaxed, and the local teenagers flocked to the drive-in theater at night to see the newest movies and to make out in their cars. Mr. Lansdale is able to capture the pure ambience of these forgotten memories with a simplicity of words that draws the reader into the story as if he/she was walking the streets of Dewmont with Stanley and his dog, Nub. Each of the main and supporting characters are fully developed individuals that you either love or hate, and one can't help finding themselves laughing out loud as Stanley learns about the "birds and the bees" from Caldonia and Buster, or feeling the soul-wrenching emptiness as he experiences first hand from the Mitchell's housekeeper, Rosy Mae, how terrible men can be toward the women they love. This is not only a journey for Stanley, but one for the reader as well. You'll come away with a little more knowledge of what it means to be a human being in all of its mixed-up aspects. Like Mr. Lansdale's previous award-winning novel, THE BOTTOMS, this book is what I would call a "life experience," and it's one I would highly recommend to any person wishing more than a casual read. Entertaining, thought provoking, and nostalgic, A FINE DARK LINE is a true masterpiece from one of America's most gifted writers.
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9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Coming of Age at the Dew Drop, April 8, 2003
Joe Lansdale proves again he can recreate with a fine eye growing up in East Texas during the '50's. Perhaps "A Fine Dark Line" is a bit too close to his prize-winning "Bottoms," but nevertheless, this is prime Lansdale reading. Stanley Mitchel, Jr. 13 resides in Dewton, Texas. His daddy owns the Dew Drop Drive-In movie, and their home is kind of between the screen and the concession stand, which Stanley thinks is a very good thing. The whole family, Mom ("Gal"), Daddy, and older sister Callie run the theatre. It is the summer of 1958, and as Stanley says, more things happen in that summer than have happened in his entire life. He finds a hidden trove of love letters that lead in him to a burned out plantation in the woods in back of the drive-in and discovers a young girl was burned to death in the fire. On the same night another young girl was murdered on the railroad tracks, decapitated and her head never found. Rumored ghosts abound. The remnants of the house and mill are eerily entwined with vines and saplings that have grown around and through them. Stanley decides to investigate the mystery, and gets a great deal more than he bargained for---corruption in high places, blackmail, and two psychotics: father of his best friend Richard and erstwhile boyfriend Bubba, huge and terrifying, of the family's housekeeper Rosy Mae. The characterizations are sublime. High spirited, cheerleader-cute sister Callie is wonderfully drawn. She knows she has great powers of attraction and uses them like an inexperienced marksman with an assault rifle. Friend Richard wrenches your heart with his deprived and catastrophic home life. The family employees, Buster, the projectionist, and Rosy Mae, crackle with life, earthiness, and vibrancy. Daddy, in spite of his bad temper and propensity to fight, shines with goodness, and mother Gal is secretly in charge of everyone. "A Fine Dark Line" is witty, terrifying and occasionally mischievous. Sometimes credibility is stretched. Even in 1958, could there be one 13-year-old boy that still believed in Santa Claus? The amount of terror and mayhem that happened on one night couldn't have happened to most people in a lifetime. But believe me, you will consider every last word right and true as you race through the pages. A book not to be missed.
-sweetmolly-Amazon Reviewer
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8 of 8 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Lansdale has a talent and landscape that know no boundaries, February 10, 2003
The arrival of A FINE DARK LINE prompts a legitimate question regarding its author, Joe R. Lansdale: is there anything this guy can't do well? My first encounter with him was THE DRIVE IN, a science fiction horror novel. This was followed by THE MAGIC WAGON --- a gothic western if you will --- and COLD IN JULY, a mystery. Then came the Batman-based CAPTURED BY THE ENGINES, TARZAN'S LOST ADVENTURE, the Jonah Hex comic book story arcs, and on and on and on...and they are all great. So with A FINE DARK LINE, we have a coming of age novel set in rural Texas in the 1950s, a time both better and worse than our own and inexorably linked to it. And, like all his other works that have preceded it, A FINE DARK LINE is his finest work to date. A FINE DARK LINE is told through the eyes of Stanley Mitchell, a thirteen year-old boy standing on the summer cusp of adolescence, the younger of two children in a family that isn't poverty-stricken but not exactly next door neighbors to Scrooge McDuck, either. No, the Mitchells are the owners and proprietors of the only drive-in theater in Dewmont, Texas. Stanley's youth and innocence are consumed in a slow-burning maelstrom sparked by his discovery of a tin box containing a collection of troubled love letters that ultimately lead him to a burned out house, the mysterious deaths of two young women and secrets that the powers that be in Dewmont would prefer to stay buried. Stanley's unlikely ally is Buster Smith, the projectionist at the theater, an elderly black man whose attempts to drown his demons in alcohol are doomed to failure but who has a depth that only Stanley is aware of. In attempting to solve the mysteries of the deaths of the two women, Stanley exposes not only himself, but also his family and friends, to danger. A FINE DARK LINE, however, is more than a mystery story. It is, ultimately, the tale of a time not so long gone but vanished completely nonetheless. Lansdale uses the mystery as a vehicle to explore the cultural landscape, race relations and sexual mores of the 1950s. What is most remarkable here is that Lansdale is able to capture so perfectly the voice of a 13 year-old boy in that era. I suspect that, to at least some extent, it is his own, some 50 years removed. If so, it resonates within him pitch-perfectly and his translation is unerring. With A FINE DARK LINE, Lansdale continues to expand the breadth and scope of his literary vision. One could easily come to the conclusion that his talent and landscape know no boundaries. He is a writer who has exceeded the promise of his earliest work and the expectations of his readers --- and will undoubtedly continue to do so. --- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub
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