Customer Reviews

The Magic Wagon

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If you enjoy Lansdale's Hap & Lenard stories (Cold in July, Bad Chili, etc.) then I strongly recomend this book to you. I myself am very much a fan of his efforts but didn't really enjoy some of his earlier work. This book however has that style and "voice" that I have come to think of as uniquely Lansdale even though the story takes place in a differant setting from his Hap and Lenard stories. Magic Wagon will probably be most familiar to readers of his western/horror stories popular in his work in comics. However, if like myself, you find you often laugh out loud to his characters quick, ruff and in ya face wit, if you follow along in awe of their knack for finding trouble, this book is a must.

After Buster Fogg has his life literally ripped away by a tornado, he falls in with sharp-shooting Cure-All selling showman Billy Bob Daniels and his assistant Albert. Billy Bob detests Buster every bit as much as Albert adores the boy and, with a wrestling chimp named Rot Toe, the group arrive in Mud Creek, Texas to ply their trade. Things go bad. Very, very bad. The Magic Wagon is vintage Lansdale (1986) and its 155 pages are brimming with his now trademarked humor, violence, and humanity. Highly recommended.

Joe R. Lansdale is a name you should know.

You seldom see a true-bred storyteller anymore. What makes Lansdale so eminently readible is that he never lets a message get in the way of a good story. He enters, says what he has to say, and leaves. I don't know if he sits in a room desperately trying to wrangle these wild tales down into a coherent form. It doesn't matter. The final product flows so smooth you could swear he just made it up off the top of his head. Or recited it from memory.

This is a man you would want to drink with.

THE MAGIC WAGON was published way back in 1986. It's a short little book, only 155 pages. Inside you'll find a tale packed with what you'll eventually recognize as Lansdale's voice. A certain dark humor, a habit of referring to unnamed characters by their defining characteristic ("Blue Hat", "Mule Face"), and overall a mordant understanding of the nature of people.

"Wild Bill Hickok, some years after he was dead, came to Mud Creek for a shoot-out of sorts.

I was there. Let me tell you about it."

I was referred to this book by a mention of it by author, Howard Waldrop. It is a wild ride indeed! Definitely not your usual western. I believe that Mr. Lansdale is the secret Texas brother (or clone) of Carl Hiaasen. Those who enjoy mysteries ,action and bizarre humor will love The Magic Wagon and Lansdale's other mysteries.

Though I've read maybe a dozen or more westerns (Edgar Rice Burroughs, Louis L'Amour, and Larry McMurtry) in my lifetime, I've never been a big fan of this particular genre. I love western movies, but getting me to read a western novel nowadays is like getting me to pay a visit to the dentist's office when I have a cavity that needs filling. Now, as I've said in a number of other reviews, I've become addicted to the writings of Joe R. Lansdale during the last several months. This is one of those rare authors who is so gifted that he can literally write in any genre-horror, mystery, suspense, children's, and even westerns. It's because of his talent and craftsmanship at telling a good yarn that I decided to read THE MAGIC WAGON. I wasn't sure if I'd enjoy reading a western again after so many years away from the genre, but my faith in Mr. Lansdale's storytelling spurred me forward. It's enough to say that by page fourteen, I was hooked line and sinker, and ended up reading this short novel (155 pages) straight through in one setting. THE MAGIC WAGON takes place in 1909 and is the story of Buster Fogg, a fifteen-year-old boy who lost his parents in a Texas tornado. After the burial of his father (his mother was never found) and the local bank calling in the marker on the land that the family house used to set on, Buster decides that it's time for him to start making his own way in life. With an injured leg and a pair of crutches, he sets out on foot for town one morning in the middle of winter, hobbling his way step by step over the icy road. By noon he's ready to call it quits and let the cold take over his worn-out body when a red wagon, drawn by eight mules and driven by a big colored man, pulls up alongside of him. Old Albert, the driver, offers Buster a ride. At first the owner of the wagon, trick-shooting-artist Billy Bob Daniels (he claims to be the illegitimate son of Wild Bill Hickok and is perhaps the fastest man alive with a gun), is against the kid coming along with them, but soon gives in begrudgingly to Albert's wishes. And so begins Buster's journey of adventure and to becoming a man as he travels from town to town on the Magic Wagon with Albert, Billy Bob, the dead body of Wild Bill Hickok, and Rot Toe, the Wrestling Chimpanzee. When they finally visit the small town of Mud Creek, the gunfighter known as Texas Jack Wentworth challenges Billy Bob to a shootout. The outcome of that gun battle will have a dire affect on Buster's life and things will never be the same again for the young boy. THE MAGIC WAGON is the perfect example of what great storytelling is all about. It's filled with memorable characters (both good and bad) that leave a lasting impression. There's humor and tragedy that carries the reader through the gamut of emotions. Few scenes in a novel have affected me as strongly as the one where the tornado whips down onto Buster's home without warning, ripping the barn apart, driving a pitchfork into the chest of his father, and carrying the farmhouse away with his mother still in it. There's also adventure here of the grandest sort. When Old Albert tells Buster about how they came across the body of Wild Bill and almost died in the process, the reader is drawn skillfully into the scene, becoming one with it and experiencing the fear and distrust as everything unfolds into a battle of life and death. Now, I don't know if there were really pistoliers in the old West that could shoot as good and fast as Billy Bob Daniels, but Mr. Lansdale had me believing there was. I felt like a kid at a circus as Billy Bob shot small coins out of the air, split playing cards in half that were turned sideways, and fired a shot that drove a cork into a bottle, knocking out the bottom without shattering the neck. The author also drew clear portraits of how the West really was with its dirty, cow-dung smelling towns, the false myths of dime-novel heroes, and the suddenness of violence and death. Mr. Lansdale projected all of this with a style of writing I've come to know since reading his award-winning novel, THE BOTTOMS. It's smooth, natural, alluring, and very down to earth, capturing the reader in a solid grip that even Rot Toe the Wrestling Chimpanzee couldn't break. Stephen King once wrote that it's the story, not the teller of the story, that's most important. I would put it another way and say that it takes an exceptional storyteller to first capture the attention of the reader or listener, and then from that point on the story takes over. If Mr. Lansdale wanted to, he could easily take over the mantle of western writing that the late Louis L'Amour held for so many decades. But, that would be too restricting for this wonderful author. Mr. Lansdale wants to do it all, and as long as he keeps writing (and it doesn't matter what genre he chooses), I'll keep reading.

Set in Texas at the turn of the 20th century, `The Magic Wagon' is the tale of Buster Fogg's life as well as other eccentric characters that he encounters. By the time he's 17, his life has been pock-marked by tragedy, yet each sad event is recounted in such a way as to make them Candide-like - tragic-comic, even farcical.

It reads like a combination of an S. E. Hinton novel (Rumble Fish, The Outsiders), in its convincing account of a boy's youth and, throughout, a feeling that if Jorge Luis Borges had ever written a literary, magical Western, he would have been more than delighted with the result that is `The Magic Wagon'. The voices and period are compellingly and convincingly done, and this makes for a wonderful novel for both adults and children alike.