Customer Reviews

Fistful of Feet

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I'm going to be honest and say that I'm a huge fan of Jordan Krall and he's one of my favorite bizarro writers. I once heard Krall mentioned as the Quentin Tarantino of bizarro, and I think it's true in that he has a perfect mastery of genre fiction. Squid Pulp Blues paid homage to crime noir, and now with Fistful of Feet, Krall is entering one of my personal favorite genres: the western.

So of course I love this book, but I'm also going to tell you why. Fistful of Feet is a bloody love song to all the cool Spaghetti Westerns made back in the 60's and 70's, full of superhuman gunplay and a moral code enforced by graphic violence. The setting is the town of Screwhorse, a bubbling cauldron of corruption and mischief. The frontier of the west was a brutal and lawless environment, where everyone is just trying to survive. In this sense, Krall has stayed true to the roots of the western, giving it the proper atmosphere and the sort of characters we've come to expect. The cast is large and varied, with all the classic western characters represented. There's the stand-up-for-justice hero, the whores-with-the-hearts-of-gold, the corrupt mayor, the incompetent sheriff, the scum-of-the-earth thugs, the mystical Indians, the con man, and even a few psychos. That's a large cast, but I wasn't put off by it, as I felt that Fistful of Feet was just that kind of western. Westerns like this are like operas. There needs to be a large cast in order to produce as many corpses as possible.

Jordan Krall proves that he knows the western like the back of his hand, but at the same time, he's created his own brand of bizarro over the years. Fistful of Feet has tentacles, bodily fluids, deformed feet, weird drugs, sucking, screwing, hermaphrodites and much more. I've always been a fan of weird westerns but the best I could ever find was Trigun or old Jonah Hex comics (Sex and Death in Television Town by Carlton Mellick is very good, but at times it's barely recognizable as a western). Jordan Krall has created the TRUE weird western here. It conforms to the classic themes the genre has to offer, yet twists it with the sort of weirdness that Jordan Krall is known for. What we get is something far more interesting than just "werewolves in the west" or "cowboys in space." Here's hoping we get to see more weird westerns in the bizarro scene.

First things first, Jordan Krall is an amazing writer. His Bizarro literature is unique and quite fantastic. When someone tells you, "this author has a voice," Jordan Krall is one of those. I say this because after having read everything by Krall (save for Piecemeal June,) there definitely is an authorial voice hidden behind the Bizarro curtain that is this book. If you enjoy the type of writing found in pulp novels, then you will enjoy FISTFUL OF FEET. There's dialogue, fantastic imagery, memorable heroes, crazy villains, strange fetishes, stunning one-liners and tons of superb spaghetti western-worthy moments. If I were asked to describe the best thing about the book, I would have to mention the characters. Though they are quite zany and out-of-this-world, no character would be complete without dialogue and as I have mentioned before, Krall has a talent when it comes to writing believable dialogue. Where Palahniuk has failed (repeatedly,) Krall shines. FISTFUL OF FEET reads like a spaghetti western written by Quentin Tarantino (for the dialogue and violence) and directed by Stanley Kubrick (for the truly bizarre and unexplainable moments.)

Now don't get thrown off by my description of the novel. Yes, it is bizarre and it definitely has its fair share of "odd" moments but Krall manages to nail the Western feel. It could have been very easy to create a Bizarro story situated in the West with no real semblance of the Western genre but somehow, and I applaud him for this, Krall succeeds. There are dozens of unforgettable characters and as David W Barbee puts it, "Westerns like this are like operas. There needs to be a large cast in order to produce as many corpses as possible." I was able to snag a pre-order of this book, which came with a lollipop, collectible card, miscellaneous goodies, a personal inscription and the text itself. While I would have liked to have received a MEGA-AWESOME-BONUS edition, I understand that these are hard times and we cannot all release Steven Spielberg/George Lucas-esque 64th anniversary bundles. Nevertheless, I am quite pleased to have read this book and it needs to be handed out to as many people as possible. Now. Sequel, please. Now.

Jordan Krall's third release and first full-length novel is a must for spaghetti and weird western fans. I've never actually read a western novel but I find many of the movies to be plodding and dull to the point that most of the characters and plots are nakedly obvious in the first few minutes, thus beginning an endless barrage of the protaganist asserting his masculinity. Krall brings something new. The framework still draws heavily from the tried and true formula of the western film but is presented with such a love for the outre, weird, and fetishistic, that I found myself wanting to read on just to find out what happened next. And like the best spaghetti westerns, there are gems of existensialism like this: "Maybe there isn't a Heaven and Hell like they tell you in church. Maybe you end up spending eternity riding on the back of a giant scorpion that keeps going in circles and you can't tell him the right way to go because your mouth is full of dust."

Calamaro is the hero in the book. He enters the trippy town of Screwhorse, Nevada, dragging a wooden donkey behind him (an homage to the film Django). Calamaro has a hazy past and an extremely chivalrous disposition. The town of Screwhorse is a wreck. It contains a legendary whorehouse where customers can come and indulge their sickest, strangest fantasies. The mayor is corrupt. The cattle have tentacles instead of udders. The drugstore sells a powerful hallucinogen. These things are just the beginning. Part of the thrill of reading Fistul of Feet is discovering the odd characters and situations and picking up on all the winks and nudges.

Many of the characters lack depth, which is one of my only real criticisms with the book. One of the reasons for this is that Krall introduces A LOT of characters. There are basically good guys and basically bad guys but nearly everyone is weird. This can sometimes make it difficult to keep the characters straight. Some of the chapters are little more than these odd characters gathering together to indulge their fetishes with little to no plot development. However, this book is definitely not intended to be any kind of character study. And while it does have a plot that advances at a decent pace it is a writer creating an homage to various film and pulp fiction genres. In this respect, I think Krall succeeds and creates a very worthwhile and entertaining piece of oddity. After reading the 2008 novella Piecemeal June and the novella collection Squid Pulp Blues, I had been wanting to read a full-length work from Krall and Fistful of Feet left me very satisfied and looking forward to his next book.

This is my first Jordan Krall book and it will not be my last! Others have written about the plot so I won't get into that.

I do want to say something about the fantastic group of characters some of which I quickly grew to care for and dare I say that Calamaro reminds me of another character in a little series of books known as "The Dark Tower".

Jordan does an excellent job of bringing the wild west to life and throws in tons of the bizzare.

I could not put this book down and when I reached the final page I was left wanting more. I look forward to many more adventures by Mr. Krall.

I really didn't know what to expect coming in to this one, but the description wasn't quite accurate - at least I didn't get much "mythos" out of it. What it was, instead, was a very fun western revenge/redemption style story, with lots of bizarro mixed in to spice it up - and that's exactly how it was used, as a spice, not at the major flavor.

I don't read a whole lot of gonzo, if that's what this should be considered, because I can only enjoy it in moderate doses. Not that it isn't good, but because too much of the constant absurdity starts to become like while noise after a while. That said, this is exactly the stuff I'm looking for in a good gonzo novel. It was a pretty good story with a genuinely intriguing plot, and good guys and bad guys with their own agendas, that could have stood on its own w/o the addition of the gonzo element. The gonzo element just made it more fun. When I'm ready for my next dose, I'll probably be looking at more by this author.

The term "weird western" only begins to describe the absolute strangeness of this book. Yes, it's weird, but it's also, sick, perverted, historical and theological. And it's a darn fine book. It's not a story confined to just one plot. There are many characters with their own agendas and they engage in many odd activities. The stage for "Fistful of Feet" is exquisitely dressed and feels definitely like a desolate, post-civil-war America. I know that this review is extremely vague, but this is one of those "read it and then you'll get it" books that can't be sufficiently defined with a two-sentence summary. I will, however, mention that there are many violent and disgusting deaths. One is particularly gross and involves a chamber pot. If you enjoy bizarro fiction and thinking about what you're reading, then this book is for you.

When Calamaro drags a wooden horse into Screwhorse, a tiny little town in Nevada with a "trouble don't bother men none" attitude a bizarro spaghetti western unfolds full of gunman who love candy, ass juice, sexually transmitted tattoos, burping pistols, extra feet on woman, disease ridden mutants and so much more. At 210 pages, theres not a ounce of filler here, krall delivers so much bizarro on every page and once you start reading Fistful of Feet it's hard to stop, the writing and descriptions are so on point you just lose yourself in this story.

Jordan Krall, <strong>Fistful of Feet</strong> (Eraserhead Press, 2009)

I finished this book quite a while ago (16 April 2011; it's 7 July as I write this). I've been trying to come up with something to say about it other than "OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS", because while that's the case, it doesn't quite give you an overview of the book's strengths and weaknesses, does it? I want to give it the attention it deserves, but every time I start trying to come up with a "this book is like..." gig, I end up tripping over my feet. And then I end up coming back to Alejandro Jodorowsky, but <em>Fistful of Feet</em> is absolutely nothing like <em>El Topo</em> plotwise. (The movie it kind of <em>is</em> like plotwise is hilariously bad, and I refuse to mention its name here, mostly because as soon as I was finished writing the review for it I blocked it from my mind, and thus no longer remember it.)

Plot: In the small frontier town of Screwhorse, Nevada, pretty much anything can be had for a price. Problem is, sometimes that price is a little higher than you might want to pay. This problem is exacerbated when Calamaro, a gunslinger form the dusky wilds of New Jersey, walks into town pulling his wooden donkey. Very few people in town like Calamaro when they first meet him. (Snap judgments can be a bad thing, kiddies.) But eventually he finds himself with a small core of friends. More enemies, though, including a few wannabe card sharps he embarrasses on his first night in town who work for the Big Boss Man(TM). So of course we have a showdown between the mysterious gunslinger and the town power brewing. How much more western can you get than that?

But telling you about the plot of this book doesn't tell you about all the wonderful little side bits and details that make it so great. The hallucinogenic blue starfish still haunts my dreams three months later. He may be my favorite character in a book I've read so far this year. In fact, he may deserve a book all his own. [elbows Krall] And come on, a wooden donkey. You have to love that. And the secret in the boss' basement (which is actually revealed on the back cover, but not explicitly, so I won't spoil it for you here). The OTHER posse of mysterious gunslingers converging on the town for an entirely different reason. And then there's the climax, which takes all the best blood-flying bits of a Sam Peckinpah film and makes them weird. And, come on, TENTACLE COWS.

Not to say the book doesn't have its weaknesses, and they're the same ones I usually write about when I start talking bizarro. The characterization could've been stepped up some, especially with the minor characters; too many of them smell a little too much like symbols or archetypes rather than thinking human beings (or thinking tentacle cows). Most of the major characters, however, are well-drawn. Krall turned in a book that's about twice as long as most bizarro novels I've read to date, and he used the extra space wisely. Still, make no mistake, this is plot-based fiction for the most part, and what usually gets sacrificed in the service of plot-based fiction in characterization. As long as you're ready for it, or don't care about it, you shouldn't have a worry in the world.

The short answer: OMGYOUMUSTREADTHIS. *** ½

I love westerns. As a kid up until now, I have held a unique fascination(sp?) with all things relating to this genre usually held sacred only by the elderly. Eastwood, Leone, Van Cleef, and so on have been personal heroes of mine since middle school. I have seen every cheezy seventies western ever made, and have made it my personal goal to read every book L'Amour ever wrote, or thought about writing (i can do that, I have what they call "Cowboy-Kenesis").

However, I have always felt one thing has always been lacking in this incredible, horse-filled fantasia: Sexual Fetishism.

While L'Amour may have a character or two cast a sidelong glance at his horse here and there, the remainder of the sexuality of the genre has always been limited to the occasional, somewhat confusing prostitute rape scene. Or an informal indian orgy.

No more. Jordan Krall, sensing this lack, has written the ultimate in fetish-riddled (instead of "bullet-riddled"...get it?), face burping, donkey-masked, shoe sniffing western novels, and the world will forever be in his debt because of it.

Thank you, Mr. Krall.

Cowboy thanks.

I never liked Westerns. But maybe it's not my place to say, since I thought John Wayne was just a character Clint Eastwood played for years, not an actual person. But let me just say Westerns bore me to tears. So when I saw this title, "Fistful of Feet", I laughed my ass off. Now THAT'S funny. It's obviously a play on words of some movie where Clint Eastwood ran around being a jerk, but I can't remember ("Fistful of Horses" maybe?)

So leave it to Jordan Krall to finally make me like a Western. Wasn't hard, just make it bizarre as hell. That's obviously the secret ingredient every Western ever made has been sorely lacking. He's done something very original here, whereas in Hollywood I think they should just call every Western that comes out "The Unforgiven", because they're all a big boring piece of crap. Fistful of Feet is the first idea for a Western to come out that I think that me, and a hell of a lot of other people, would be interested in seeing at the theatres. Hell, it could even be the final nail in the coffin for John Wayne (long may he suffer).

There is a huge cast of colorful characters in this book, with each and every one of them having something very interesting about them, making their separate storylines very engaging. When characters cross paths and things come to a head it can be very explosive. A lot of the action and violence in the book is so vivid and horrific (and thankfully so). I must say that Krall is just a genius at painting a pretty picture for you. And you've got some really unwholesome villains in here, proving again my theory that cowboys are the most sinister force on earth. And as for the main character, the likeable Calamaro, he's one of the most awesome leads ever. This is the kind of guy you would daydream about having adventures with. He makes Billy the Kid (or whatever big famous cowboy guy, any of them actually) look mind-numbingly uninteresting. Also, the depths of perversity that go on in the whorehouse are probably some of the most creative things on the subject I've ever heard anyone come up with before. And god are the Indians in this astonishing. (Feather, not dot). Like I said before, you've got a pretty diverse cast of characters for a Western here.

And let's get to the weird stuff. I'd like to point out the seemingly recurring theme in Jordan Krall's books of cephalopods, a foot fetish, and the mysterious wooden donkey the main character drags around with him (the "Apocalypse Donkey"?) Hard to explain really, but read this yourself, and you won't be disappointed. Actually, the list of strange things on the back cover, trust me, the book delivers on these things, and then some. If you're not interested in these things (my favorite being the sexually-transmitted tattoos), and don't want to delve into the book to know more, then please stick to your boring old John Wayne Gacy movies.

If you've always hated Westerns like I do, then I highly recommend this book. It's like discovering a naked picture of jesus in the most boring book of all time (The Bible). Now THAT would be a revelation. And if you love Westerns, I'd recommend this book even more. I think you need it to make your taste on things a little more refined.

I was also pleased to see there was no spaghetti in this Western. I've always hated spaghetti with great anger.

Jordan Krall rules.