Joe R. Lansdale's East Texas adventures
[I wrote this in June 2007. I'm reposting it on this blog in honour of the publication of the new Hap and Leonard book, and on the news that a series called Hap and Leonard is in pre-production. Let's hope it gets the green light!]
Do you ever have sudden enthusiasms for writers?
You come across a book – perhaps remaindered, or in a second-hand shop, and therefore cheap – and you buy it because you like the look of it. It hangs around for a while on the bed-side table, untouched … and then you run out of other stuff to read and pick it up. And it blows your socks off. You race through the book and immediately start scouring the bookshops for other masterpieces by the same writer.
This happened to me with Vonnegut, with Gore Vidal, James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos … hell, a lot of my current favourites. And then you discover that these guys have been around for years, and you’d never heard of them before. What happened? How could you have been so dumb not to have known of them?
Well that’s just happened to me again with Joe R. Lansdale. I found a book called Mucho Mojo being recommended in a book shop, and it was reduced in price, so I looked at the back cover blurb and it seemed interesting so I bought it.
Wow, what a revelation! Lansdale has been around for years and written at least 21 novels, 12 collections of short stories, 5 anthologies and two non-fiction books. How could I have been so dumb?
The Lansdale books I’ve come across and am slowly working my way through are in the series of semi-detective stories set in East Texas, and starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Hap is intelligent, knows martial arts, is loyal to his friend Leonard but just has no real ambition. He works at a series of dead-end jobs that barely pay the rent, but do give him the opportunity to get involved in plots that don’t need him to hold down a profession or career.
Leonard is a one-off in crime fiction, so far as I know: a middle-aged, black, gay martial-arts expert who has a series of relationships with guys that are handled sensitively but without being sanctimonious. Between them, Hap and Leonard get involved in stories that are funny, tough, violent and tremendously well-written. Here’s the first paragraph of Bad Chilli:
And Lansdale also handles the action perfectly as well. The fights are described with panache and real physicality, but without the brutality of some writers in the genre. They remain realistic even in extremis.
I’m on my fourth in the series so far, with at least two more to go afterwards. I’m beginning to regret already that soon I’ll have read all of them. That in itself says something about this fantastic writer.
Do you ever have sudden enthusiasms for writers?
You come across a book – perhaps remaindered, or in a second-hand shop, and therefore cheap – and you buy it because you like the look of it. It hangs around for a while on the bed-side table, untouched … and then you run out of other stuff to read and pick it up. And it blows your socks off. You race through the book and immediately start scouring the bookshops for other masterpieces by the same writer.
This happened to me with Vonnegut, with Gore Vidal, James Lee Burke, George Pelecanos … hell, a lot of my current favourites. And then you discover that these guys have been around for years, and you’d never heard of them before. What happened? How could you have been so dumb not to have known of them?
Well that’s just happened to me again with Joe R. Lansdale. I found a book called Mucho Mojo being recommended in a book shop, and it was reduced in price, so I looked at the back cover blurb and it seemed interesting so I bought it.
Wow, what a revelation! Lansdale has been around for years and written at least 21 novels, 12 collections of short stories, 5 anthologies and two non-fiction books. How could I have been so dumb?
The Lansdale books I’ve come across and am slowly working my way through are in the series of semi-detective stories set in East Texas, and starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Hap is intelligent, knows martial arts, is loyal to his friend Leonard but just has no real ambition. He works at a series of dead-end jobs that barely pay the rent, but do give him the opportunity to get involved in plots that don’t need him to hold down a profession or career.
Leonard is a one-off in crime fiction, so far as I know: a middle-aged, black, gay martial-arts expert who has a series of relationships with guys that are handled sensitively but without being sanctimonious. Between them, Hap and Leonard get involved in stories that are funny, tough, violent and tremendously well-written. Here’s the first paragraph of Bad Chilli:
“It was mid-April when I got home from the offshore rig and discovered my good friend Leonard Pine had lost his job bouncing drunks at the Hot Cat Club because, in a moment of anger, when he had a bad ass on the ground out back of the place, he’d flopped his tool and pissed on the rowdy’s head.”How could you not carry on reading a book that begins like that? Lansdale writes with verve and insight, giving a real sense of the slightly run-down part of East Texas in which Hap and Leonard live. The relationship between the pair is also handled beautifully – they fight, they argue, they spend days when they’re not talking to each other … but they’ve always got each other’s backs.
And Lansdale also handles the action perfectly as well. The fights are described with panache and real physicality, but without the brutality of some writers in the genre. They remain realistic even in extremis.
I’m on my fourth in the series so far, with at least two more to go afterwards. I’m beginning to regret already that soon I’ll have read all of them. That in itself says something about this fantastic writer.
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