Rating: 
Summary: Lansdale goes mainstream...sort of.
Review: Author Joe R. Lansdale is a cult figure due to his extreme way of looking at the world around him, specifically that corner known as East Texas. Not everyone can tolerate his depiction of the often unnecessarily violent behaviors of normal people (and not everyone gets to, as most of his output is released with small specialty presses). His ability to jump from one genre to another with apparent ease (he has written horror, mystery, suspense, and westerns, just to skim the surface) makes instant fans of his readers, who know that they will never get bored because he "always writes the same thing" like many authors. Novels like The Drive-In, along with his series starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine, and his short story collections High Cotton and Bumper Crop show his vast range of expertise, and his six Bram Stoker awards (given by the Horror Writers of America) are a testament to the appreciation of genre fans. A lot of Lansdale's work has a streak of dark humor running through it; you know when you read it you'll have a good time. The Bottoms has a lot of the same qualities of his other work, but is a more serious telling. Released by Mysterious Press, this is more of what people usually expect when they pick up a mystery novel, but still with the signature Lansdale stamp. Racism is a subject that never seems to get old, and it hangs heavily over the proceedings. From his room in a rest home, old Harry Collins tells the story of a period of his childhood in the 1930s. While he and his sister Tom (short for Thomasina and tomboy) are out on an unpleasant task -- that of putting down their sick dog, Toby -- they come across a dead black woman, naked and tied to a tree with barbed wire. Their father, Jacob, is the local Constable, so he is saddled with the investigation of the apparent murder. Of course, the kids think it was done by the Goat Man, a mysterious half-goat, half-man creature (he has horns but walks on two legs) that lives in the woods. Jacob's identification of the dead woman (who turns out to be a local prostitute) takes him into the black part of town, where he is confronted by townspeople, both black and white, who don't want him involved in "colored folks' business." Nobody cares about a dead black whore, they say, especially if she was killed by one of her own. Things heat up, however, when the body count increases; and when a white woman is killed, they are string up the first black man presented as a suspect. Jacob quickly learns that it's not easy to conduct a murder investigation when people are more interested in lynching than justice. Meanwhile, Harry is doing some learning of his own, and The Bottoms is, primarily, his coming-of-age story. Just on the cusp of teenhood, Harry is growing up quickly, having been confronted with his first dead person along with the heavy race relations going on around him. Old Harry's voice comes through often to tell what was gleaned from some of these experiences. His views soon mirror his father's, who, even though his actions are sometimes flawed, believes in the equality of all people. In his characterizations, Lansdale makes sure his racists are despicable, even as he gives them other sensitive qualities like endowing one with the power of reason to see the error of his ways. Although lacking the sense of extreme fun of his other novels, The Bottoms is still full of Lansdale's crackerjack wit, and his characters inevitably come out with creative metaphors for given situations, especially Harry's Grandma, who is chock full of folksy homilies. It is likely one of his best works and its receipt of the Edgar Allan Poe award is entirely justified. For beginners to the Lansdale canon, it is a way to get their feet wet before diving in, and for existing fans, it offers yet another angle of Lansdale's abilities. Writers with the talent of Lansdale are few and far between and this reviewer looks forward to each new offering.
Rating: 
Summary: Where have I read this before?
Review: First off, this novel is a good read but (see later)
Basic synopsis: It's a coming-of-age story within the context of a murder mystery. Young Harry Crane and his little sister Tom discover the mutilated body of a black prostitute by the riverside. Their father, one of the important lawmen around, attempts to track down the killer but is continuously stymied by racial tension and misunderstandings. Throughout the novel, Harry grows to understand his father and through him, the concept of manhood. He also begins to appreciate the sharp division between the races and learns from his father that everyone should be treated the same regardless of their skin color. Of course, I'm not going to tell you the ending, but it is pretty good.
Unfortunately, it seems like Lansdale has read To Kill a Mockingbird a bit too many times and is channeling Harper Lee's story throughout the novel. Both this book and Lee's star an older brother and younger sister learning to deal with racial issues. Both look up to a father who is righteous and seeking justice despite the racial divide. Both books also feature a greatly misunderstood social outcast who becomes very important in saving one of the characters.
I did enjoy this book, but I felt that the story was too derivative of To Kill a Mockingbird. Recommended for an interesting mystery but not for originality.
Rating:
Summary: A Pretty Potent Brew
Review: Harry Crane discovers the body of a murdered young black woman tangled and hidden in the maze-like scrub of the river bottoms. It's the middle of the Great Depression and the life of a black person isn't worth all that much, but Jacob Crane, Harry's father, is the local law and he wants to solve the crime. However there are forces that hinder and slow his investigation and hateful and hurtful bigots abound. There are racists everywhere.
Harry fixates on the murder and believes himself to be an important part of the investigation and, like his father, he wants to find the killer. And he has a suspect, someone he calls The Goat Man, a mythical, troll-like monster who lives under the swinging bridge that crosses over the Sabine River.
Because of the time and the racial divide and the fact that that divide was often murderously enforced by the Klan, Jacob Crane finds it too risky to continue the investigation. He is forced to let it drop and all he can do is hope that the murderer was one of the many transients of the time.
Harry's life and his world move on and he agonizes about his lost youth and the unsolved crime as he sits in a nursing home with nothing but time on his hands. The Bottoms may be gone now, paved over, but they live in an old man's mind the way a murder did in a young boy's. What a story. A darn good book. One that takes urban legend, gossip and warped family histories, puts them in a caldron, mixes them up with a witch's ladle and slips them into a child's imagination, turning them into a pretty potent brew. Mr. Lansdale is a storyteller extrodinaire, a writer not to be missed.
Rating: 
Summary: Huge Disappointment: The Only Mystery Is Why It Won an Edgar
Review: I will never trust the Edgar Award again after reading this derivative, predictable book. Not only is the murderer obvious from his first introduction, but it is clear who is going to be bumped off next. And although racism is clearly *the* important issue in the South, Lansdale seems rather preoccupied with describing lynching after lynching. One gets the impression that African Americans are nothing but victims in the eyes of this author. And it's positively criminal how much Lansdale lifted from Harper Lee. I'm truly baffled that this book has received so much praise.
Rating: 
Summary: A pleasing mixture of several genres
Review: In The Bottoms, author Joe Lansdale has superimposed a murder mystery over a coming of age story. To this he adds the setting of the rural south during the Great Depression which he couples with the racial tensions of that place and time. The result of this eccletic mixture is an engaging page-turner with wide appeal. Landsdale tells his story from the perspective of 11-year Harry, although it is an elderly Harry looking back on his childhood who narrates the tale. A chance discovery of Harry and his younger sister, Tom, launches a search for a serial killer by their father, Jacob, the town's constable. Memorable characters along the way include Harry's eccentric grandmother, a black doctor ahead of his time, a bigoted old man and his hateful sons, a neighboring constable with connections to both of Harry's parents, a reclusive elderly black man, and finally, a mysterious figure known only as the "Goat Man." Although the plot does have parallels to To Kill a Mockingbird, its blend of elements makes it uniquely worthwhile. And even if you solve the mystery ahead of time like I did, this book is sure to captivate you to the very last page.
Rating:
Summary: Coming of age, Lansdale style
Review: It seems like many authors that write a bunch of books end up doing a coming of age book at some point. The Bottoms is Lansdale's coming of age book. And in typical fashion for Lansdale he does it in his own way. The story follows Harry Crane, a young boy who discovers a dead body in a river. Harry's father, the local constable, starts an investigation that proceeds to change Harry's life and viewpoint of life. As with most of Lansdale's books, this one is ripe with vivid images, rich characters, unexpected violence and the unique southern charm that makes Lansdale's book his own. As a period book set during the Great Depression, it carries across a lifestyle that is hard to believe. Hard because the descriptions are so real that it is impossible to not see or imagine them, especially when compared to the modern conveniences that we have now. As is usual, I can highly recommend this book for everyone to read and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: Finally, Lansdale delivers a novel
Review: Joe Lansdale is one of my top ten favorite authors. His short stories are creative, startling, frightening, gruesome etc. (read High Cotton or Electric Gumbo). However, I have always felt that Lansdale's novels fell short of the mark. He has a tremendous imagination and is able to come up with the most macabre of settings and events which work to his advantage in stories and novellas, but haven't worked so well in the novels. It is hard to create a totally outlandish world and keep the reader's interest through the length of a novel. In The Bottoms Lansdale scales back his fondness for the bizarre--and it works. This is a beautifully crafted story of Depression era East Texas. And this is a story that the reader feels actually could have happened. Lansdale belnds in some supernatural aspects along the way, but these add to the suspense rather than distract from the realism. Another aspect that works is the method for telling the story. The protagonist is an 11 year old boy (Harry)--just the right age for this type of story. Harry is at the cusp of young adulthood. He struggles with looking for answers through his waning belief in the supernatural (Goat Man) and searching for the truth through a common sense approach like his daddy (the small town constable). But what really works is the fact that Harry tells his story some 60 or 70 years later from a rest home. I believe that it is extremely difficult for an author to tell the story of a child through the eyes of that child. Eleven year olds talk and think differently than adults and most times we get stories where the child telling the story sounds very much like a 40 year old--to me that detracts from the tone of the book. In this case, Harry can sound like an adult, because he is an adult retelling a tale of his childhood. It is very effective. Otherwise, Lansdale takes on the themes of poverty, racism and evil and sheds some light on each. Hands down this is Lansdale's best effort at a novel...so far.
Rating:
Summary: A deeper, darker Lansdale.
Review: Last year a friend of mine told me about Joe R. Lansdale and the Hap Collins-Leonard Pine mysteries. Being from Crockett, Texas, near Nacogdoches, he knew I could identify with the stories and characters. They were great, but until "The Bottoms" they were my only experience with JRL.
The era of the story was a little before my time, but the people and the setting really hit home. It is deep East Texas at it's best and worst. I read it in one long sitting and wanted to start reading it again. I can't get enough of his books set in East Texas, and people in other parts of the country should know the settings and the people are right on the money.
Rating:
Summary: ENGAGING TALE OF GROWING UP
Review: Mr. Lansdale proves what a versatile writer he in in "The Borders," the book for which he won the Edgar Award for Best Novel. Although the book has the elements of a mystery. Lansdale takes his reader more into the territory of "A Boys Life," "Stand by Me" and even "To Kill a Mockingbird." Without rehashing the plot again, Lansadle gives us a wonderfully written narrator's voice (the 80 and 11 year old Harry Collins) who tells his tale with both sadness and whimsical fondness. The relationships with his father, Jacob; his mother May; his sister Tom; his grandmother; the elderly Miss Maggie, and all interweave into a complex plot. There is a point in the novel where the identity of the murderer becomes obvious, but it's so deftly interwoven, you forget until it is identified. The book shows the sad side of segregation in the thirties where being "colored" was being "nothing." Lansdale gives a very good inclination of that life, and includes some remarkably likeable "coloreds."
A very well written book.
Rating:
Summary: everything you could want and more
Review: Set in depression-era southeast Texas*, this sort-of-mystery, sort-of-maybe-supernatural story reads like a near-gothic frappe of Harper Lee and early M. Night Shyamalan ... with a Texan accent. It's a richly-drawn, finely-told murder mystery related from the primary POV of 2 kids whose father is struggling with the investigation. Technically, I guess, the tale is told by the older sibling, who is now elderly (in a nursing home?); and to tell the truth, I wish Lansdale had left the frame story out of it. There's only so much denoument a novel needs, and I got more wind-down than I really wanted. But even so, it's a damn fine story and Lansdale's writing style is enough to keep you flying from paragraph to paragraph, even during those brief periods when you're less than thrilled with the content. [side note: For those of you who may not be aware, Joe Lansdale is the spectacular fellow who wrote the short story upon which the movie Bubba Ho-Tep was based. If you are blessed enough to own (or rent) a copy of the DVD, be sure to check some of the extras for an interview or two with Lansdale. He seems like quite a character, all lower-bodily fixations aside.]
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