An ol' Spark of Texas
I like Joe R. Lansdale.
One of the few true American writers who has a grasp of the English language with crisp dialogue that comes from a slice of life. Its fast-paced movement takes you on for a ride the same way Lyndon B. Johnson used to drive his guests while drinking bourbon and hitting eighty down the uncluttered Texan highways.
Lansdale writes with the heart and soul of Texas. As a life-long native of east Texas, he captures the southern hospitality with his words. His stories offer strange characters in even stranger places. Then there's the style.
His style’s like none other. It’s like listening to your favorite uncle shooting the breeze around the campfire while hammering another whiskey. His sense of humor. Well, that’s another thing. His kind of humor is like putting you in the car trunk on a hot day. Maybe comes back a little later and asks if you want a glass of lemonade.
My first exposure to Lansdale is the then little-known story called “Night They Missed the Horror Show.” From there, I was hooked. He’s crass, vulgar, using every dirty word in the book. But woven between those subtleties blooms a poetic writer who knows his side of Texas. This same story is now one of the most published in horror anthologies these days. Lansdale's responsible for writing “Bubba Ho-Tep” about John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley going up against a soul-sucking cowboy mummy at a retirement home. It was later made into a movie with Bruce Campbell.
However, the jewel of his writing belongs to six novels with an oddity for a pair. If anyone wants to see an odd couple, this is it. Written through the eyes of narrator Hap Collins, he teams up with friend Leonard Pine on several mysteries. They go through a lot of trouble to solve a mystery with plenty of smarts and fists and guns.
I could probably bump into someone like Hap at a local grocery store. He seems like a real person. Very average. He goes through relationship problems with women just like any other guy. Like the author himself, he's loveable as a big teddy bear.
Leonard Pine is both gay and black. Yet he isn’t stereotypical. He doesn’t wear high heels and a cheap party hat. He oozes male chauvinism. He saves Hap’s bacon several times. And vise versa.
“Bad Chili” is a tour-de-force in Lansdale writing. It begins with Hap being bitten by a rabid squirrel. Then it goes on to a mystery about an underground operation selling snuff films. Read these books at your own risk.
I write plenty of fiction novels in my spare time. I do mysteries, horror and thrillers with a creative streak. In fact, that’s all I ever really do. And I owe a lot to Lansdale for his inspirations.
One of the few true American writers who has a grasp of the English language with crisp dialogue that comes from a slice of life. Its fast-paced movement takes you on for a ride the same way Lyndon B. Johnson used to drive his guests while drinking bourbon and hitting eighty down the uncluttered Texan highways.
Lansdale writes with the heart and soul of Texas. As a life-long native of east Texas, he captures the southern hospitality with his words. His stories offer strange characters in even stranger places. Then there's the style.
His style’s like none other. It’s like listening to your favorite uncle shooting the breeze around the campfire while hammering another whiskey. His sense of humor. Well, that’s another thing. His kind of humor is like putting you in the car trunk on a hot day. Maybe comes back a little later and asks if you want a glass of lemonade.
My first exposure to Lansdale is the then little-known story called “Night They Missed the Horror Show.” From there, I was hooked. He’s crass, vulgar, using every dirty word in the book. But woven between those subtleties blooms a poetic writer who knows his side of Texas. This same story is now one of the most published in horror anthologies these days. Lansdale's responsible for writing “Bubba Ho-Tep” about John F. Kennedy and Elvis Presley going up against a soul-sucking cowboy mummy at a retirement home. It was later made into a movie with Bruce Campbell.
However, the jewel of his writing belongs to six novels with an oddity for a pair. If anyone wants to see an odd couple, this is it. Written through the eyes of narrator Hap Collins, he teams up with friend Leonard Pine on several mysteries. They go through a lot of trouble to solve a mystery with plenty of smarts and fists and guns.
I could probably bump into someone like Hap at a local grocery store. He seems like a real person. Very average. He goes through relationship problems with women just like any other guy. Like the author himself, he's loveable as a big teddy bear.
Leonard Pine is both gay and black. Yet he isn’t stereotypical. He doesn’t wear high heels and a cheap party hat. He oozes male chauvinism. He saves Hap’s bacon several times. And vise versa.
“Bad Chili” is a tour-de-force in Lansdale writing. It begins with Hap being bitten by a rabid squirrel. Then it goes on to a mystery about an underground operation selling snuff films. Read these books at your own risk.
I write plenty of fiction novels in my spare time. I do mysteries, horror and thrillers with a creative streak. In fact, that’s all I ever really do. And I owe a lot to Lansdale for his inspirations.
posted by K.M. Paters at 8:31 PM
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