The Bottoms

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Summary: THE "BOTTOM" LINE ON THIS BOOK.......
Review: I love it when I read a book whose title means absolutely nothing to me as in "The Bottoms". What are the bottoms? I found out that they are the "bottoms" of the rivers and, in this case, they have been drained leaving them damp and mushy - the perfect setting for the scene of the crime in Joe R. Lansdale's latest book.

In the days when the law didn't look upon a rash of murders as being committed by the same person - a serial killer was in fact murdering women in Arkansas, Oklahoma and Northern Texas. Now this killer has arrived in East Texas and young Harry Crane discovers the killer's first victim as he comes up a dead black woman tied to a tree. Since his father Jacob is the town constable, the task will fall to him to solve the crime. But no one else will be interested in finding the killer since the dead woman is black, so, in a nutshell, who cares? Well, Harry's father does and he will find himself fighting a losing battle as he tries to right this wrong. Instead of the town coming together, they will band against Harry's father as he tries to find justice for the innocent blacks in Texas in the 1930's.

Now it is seventy years later and the once young Harry Crane is sitting in his nursing home reliving those events of long ago. And, as Harry is reliving those days, I'm reliving those moments spent reading Harper Lee's To Kill A Mockingbird. I know there are only so many stories that can ever be told but there were just too many similarities in this book for me to thoroughly enjoy it. From the young brother and sister team, to the father in an official position of law, to the Goat Man so reminiscent of the reclusive Boo Radley and finally to the lynch mob showing up at the Crane house -- I could have been reading To Kill A Mockingbird all over again. Not only did this take away from my overall enjoyment of the story, it also made me quite irritated as well. I guess I just feel very protective of a "classic" that holds such a special place in my heart. In this rendition, however, the killer is so obvious throughout the entire book...no surprises here. So the "bottom" line is if you haven't read the original by Harper Lee, you'll probably enjoy this much more than I did. There's no doubt that Joe R. Lansdale is an excellent writer and I look forward to reading some of his more "original" works.

Rating:
Summary: Excellent!
Review: I won't go into details about the story, that's been done on previous reviews. I will say that this is an extremely engrossing, well written novel which deserved it's Edgar award. The characterzations and the setting of the mood in a small town in Texas is in my opinion a superb read.

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Summary: Uniquely Texan. Lansdale's best.
Review: Joe R. Lansdale is a writer of unique qualities. His stories are set in Texas, his native home, and his style evokes a wonderful sense of place flavoring each of his short stories and novels. The people and events he writes about are always singular, standing out in one's imagination long after the pages are closed and the story over.

With "The Bottoms," Lansdale has written a haunting story, a complex mystery clothed in Lansdale's Depression-era Texas, a beautiful coming-of-age story. It is a book of lasting importance, the best so far for Joe R. Lansdale.

So as not to give away the plot, I will just say if you enjoyed "To Kill a Mockingbird," "Huckleberry Finn," or "Stand By Me," you will enjoy "The Bottoms."

It's a worth addition to anyone's library.

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Summary: THIS IS SIMPLY ONE OF THE BEST NOVELS I'VE EVER READ!!!
Review: I've been aware of Joe R. Lansdale as a writer of short stories and novels for over fifteen years; but, until a few days ago, I'd never read anything by him. I'm not sure what drew me to THE BOTTOMS. Maybe it was the fact that this novel won the Edgar Award for 2000, or possibly it was the large number of positive reviews that were written about it. Whatever the reason, my curiosity was peaked to the extent that I wanted to read the novel now, in hardcover, rather than wait another month for the Trade paperback to come out. I wasn't even sure if I'd like the book; yet, I felt compelled to buy it. Now, let me say that over the last forty-two years, I've probably read somewhere in the neighborhood of 3,000 novels. Though there have been hundreds of books I've enjoyed over the years, few have managed to capture my heart and soul in such a way as to leave me with a profound sense of what it means to be a human being. This is a rare experience, but when it happens, I know that it's something that will stay with me for many years to come. THE BOTTOMS by Joe R. Lansdale is one of those miracles of writing that had such an affect, and what troubles me is that only a small audience of people is actually aware of this book. I hope my review will help alleviate this to a certain degree. THE BOTTOMS is the story of eleven-year-old Harry Crane and the tragedy that transpired between the years of 1933 and 34 in the small East Texas town of Marvel Creek. It began on a normal summer day when Harry and his younger sister, Thomasina, were out hunting squirrels along the Bottoms with their dog, Toby, and accidentally discovered the tortured body of a dead black woman. On their way back home to get their father, Jacob, who is the town's constable, they are stalked through the darken woods by something or someone that could be the legendary Goat Man. The two kids make it back home safe and sound, but just barely. When Jacob Crane is told about the body, he recovers it the next day and begins an investigation that few white people seem to care about. Eventually more bodies are discovered and the town realizes that it has a demented killer within its midst. It isn't, however, until a woman, who is partially black and white, is murdered that the "good" citizens of Marvel Creek decide to take matters into their own hands. Because of a careless error on Jacob's part, an innocent man is lynched, and he must come to grips with the totality of his mistake, as well as his failure to stop the hanging. It's a burden that can weigh heavily on the shoulders of a decent person. As the killings continue and someone very special to young Harry is brutally murdered, he and his sister take it upon themselves to solve the mystery of the Goat Man and find out who the killer really is. Of course, the killer knows that the two Crane children are hunting him and has plans of his own for dealing with them in a very special way. Joe R. Lansdale's novel is a morality tale in the grandest sense, dealing with the deep roots of racism and how people can close their eyes to prejudice and injustice. It's also a story about life itself and how human beings (both and bad) choose to live it, probing the emotions of guilt and shame like an open wound, while at the same time depicting heart-felt acts of courage and redemption. Filled with difficult questions concerning love, friendship, what its means to be a man, and doing the right thing when the odds are clearly stacked against you, Mr. Lansdale offers no easy answers and doesn't pull his punches when delving into the dark side of human nature. All of the characters in this novel resonate with a life force of their own, luring the reader into their world, making you believe each and every word that's written. I was there at night, in the woods, when the Goat Man stalked Harry and Thomasina, feeling their terror in the pit of my stomach. I breathed in the close friendships that Harry had with old man Mose and Miss Maggie, not to mention the schoolboy crush he had on his beautiful teacher, Mrs. Canerton. I raged and then wept when Jacob and Harry were beaten down to the ground by the lynch mob, knowing the anguish they felt at not being able to stop what was about to happen. And, I trembled in fear at the final confrontation between a young boy and a human monster, understanding that bravery often comes with the risk of death. THE BOTTOMS isn't a novel that can be read and then put away, but one that readers will live and feel to the very core of their being. This book is Joe R. Lansdale's masterpiece, as well as his breakout novel into mainstream fiction. It deserves to be recognized on a much wider scale, and I sincerely hope that those who read it and love the book as much as I do will pass the word.

Rating:
Summary: For different reasons, a good read.
Review: This story has a good mystery. But more, it has some suspense and it teaches you something as well. East Texas in the 1930's before all the forests were cut down. White folks and black. The authors use of dialect is wonderful, not too much, very appropriate.

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Summary: Not the "Bottom" of the Heap
Review: This serial murder mystery is set in and around "the bottoms", a wooded riverbank area in the deep south. In fact, this setting is so vividly described as a dark, thorny, snake infested hell that it's chilling to see it as the metaphor for the soul of this killer. This is the strongest point of the book, and I still shudder as I imagine that perhaps there is no "bottom" to this person's vast depravity. The story is well told as an elderly man's recollection of a chilling year of his adolescence - an awful coming of age for him.

The story was somewhat weakened by distracting similarities to the wonderful novel, "To Kill a Mockingbird" (setting, characters, and plot), to the extent that the climax was kind of predictable. He also gave away a little too much about the killer early on, so that even a novice to this genre such as me was able to guess whodunit. The various characters were too uniformly good or bad; I would have appreciated more complexity. Nevertheless, I'm glad I read it.

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Summary: "Son of Sam" meets the Waltons
Review: It is about a family in the deep south during the depression.A murdered black women is found in the woods and the father, who is the town's constable, has to deal with the attitude of a prejudgious town in trying to find the killer. He teaches his son the value of a person depends on their character not their color etc. It starts out as a very nice "coming of age" book. Then another woman is murdered and then another. Not only murdered but butchered with personal body parts missing and things sewn into them and it tells of all the murdered bodies in detail.Then to top it off the murderer switches to child molestation! I was left wondering what happened to my nice story. I know that there were murders in the 1930's but serial murders who tortured and "used" the bodies after death is not something I have ever heard of back then.The author needed to decide if he was writing a 21st century horror murder book or a coming of age sensitive book. Mixing brutal psychopatic serial killers with the "Waltons" just doesn't work.

Rating:
Summary: Big Disappointment
Review: I bought this book on the basis of its award and the rave reviews I read about it here. The plot is used largely as a vehicle for making points and describing characters, who are mainly stereotypes associated with the points being made. There's little real suspense. The ending is not surprising because of the too obvious clues that precede it. The real surprises are the strange ways people behave throughout the book. I didn't think they acted in ways I could accept as believable. I tried to understand what others liked about this novel but ultimately couldn't.

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Summary: Echoes of several pasts
Review: I'm a long-time reader of Joe Lansdale, and I like his work. That said, throughout the reading of this compelling novel, I simply could not stop seeing the similarities (perhaps inevitable) between The Bottoms and To Kill A Mockingbird. At the baseline, this tale of a young brother and sister in East Texas with an unwilling hero father is so very close thematically to Mockingbird that I kept sliding over into recall of that book throughout my reading of this one.

There is, according to Isaiah, nothing new under the sun. That is true, particularly in fiction. There are few themes that haven't been addressed. The theme of The Bottoms has, indeed, been addressed before. That is not to say that Lansdale doesn't do a splendid job with the material. The characters, the setting, the sense of time and place are all very well done. The device of having the narrator, an elderly man in a nursing home at the end of his life, relating events from many decades before is used to very good effect. But The Goatman too strongly reminded me of the silent Boo Radley; their roles were almost identical. And while the father in The Bottoms is a constable and not an attorney, they nevertheless both possess very similar qualities in terms of their fundamental belief in equality and fairness.

It is a good book, with great narrative drive, and difficult to put down. But I was, none the less, left with a strong sense of deja vu when I got to the end. It is a most worthwhile book, even a brave one, and I recommend it as an example of good writing.

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Summary: Supernatural Coming-Of-Age Story -- My Favorite!
Review: This is a really good book. It definitely owes a debt of gratitude to To Kill A Mockingbird by Harper Lee, Boy's Life by Robert R. McCammon, and The Body by Stephen King. (All excellent reads) Lansdale has created a realistic view of East Texas during the Depression. The story has it's requisite murder mystery, it's mysterious supernatural character who roams the woods, and a couple of strong-willed kids who find themselves wrapped up in all the goings on. Pick this book up and enjoy yourself. This was my first Lansdale book, but probably not my last.