Joe Lansdale's The Drive-In

According to an article at joblo.com, special effects wizard Greg Nicotero will be directing an adaptation of Joe Lansdale’s gonzo horror classic The Drive-In. The source material is as over-the-top as Lansdale has ever written, so the movie will be something to see, and is certainly something I’ll be looking forward to. It seems it will be hard to do it justice, though, considered how outrageous the original story is. Then again, the original subtitle for the book was A B-Movie with Blood and Popcorn.
.

The Two Bear Mambo

The Two-Bear Mambo (the title refers to a scene in a nature documentary the characters in the book watch, where two bears have sex), the third Hap and Leonard novel, takes up a few months after the events of Mucho Mojo. As it opens, Leonard is again burning down the crackhouse next door, and Hap’s girlfriend, Florida, has left him for a friend on the police force. After the two are arrested for aggravated arson, Florida’s new beau tells them Florida has disappeared while researching an article in a small, ultra-racist town of Grovetown, and he will drop the charges if the two will go to Grovetown and find her. The duo reluctantly agree, and find greater problems than they could have imagined.

As always, no one equals Lansdale when it comes to blending genres, with hysterically funny dialogue mixing with chilling suspense. Grovetown is an example of a small, racist Southern town that I hope does not exist anymore (although I know it does). As usual with a Lansdale book, not for the easily offended, but great nonetheless.

Mucho Mojo

Five years after bringing us the first adventures of Hap and Leonard in Savage Season, Joe Lansdale brought their second installment to us in Mucho Mojo. When the story opens, Hap is back at work in the rose fields, putting rose sticks into the ground (“the job they give to sinners in hell” he describes it) while Leonard is still recovering from the injuries received in the first book, when Leonard learns he has inherited a house from his Uncle Chester. Leonard and Hap move into the home to fix it up so it can be sold, and make some disquieting discoveries.

The first is the once-quiet African-American neighborhood is being terrorized by a crack house located next to Leonard’s new property. This leads to confrontations between Leonard and the drug dealers, and eventually to Leonard burning down the crack house, an event that will be repeated until it becomes something of a running gag in the series. The second is even grimmer. Beneath some rotten floorboard, the duo finds a box filled with child pornography – and the skeleton of a small boy. When the police are none too keen on following up the disappearances of black children in the area, Hap and Leonard take it on themselves to uncover the truth. The result is the usual mix of grim criminal activity and hilarity, as only Lansdale seems able to pull off.

Oh, and the title refers to the bottle tree placed by Uncle Chester in front of his property. According to the book, the bottles are supposed to catch and trap evil spirits. Bottle trees are also common in some parts of Alabama, although I've never heard that particular explanation.
.

Savage Season

A bit busy today, so here's a reprint from a now-defunct blog I once wrote for, reviews of the Joe R. Lansdale series featuring the characters Hap and Leonard. eventually, I'm sure I'll repeat them all, but if you want to avoid the rush, they're all good.

The first novel in the series is the 1990 release Savage Season, which introduced the characters, and began Lansdale’s transition from an edgy, extreme horror writer into a somewhat more mainstream author of crime novels. It is one of the high points of popular literature of the last quarter-century.

The main characters of the books are best friends Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Hap is a forty-something white guy, who is something of a disillusioned idealist. Standing on his principles in the late 60s landed him a stint in prison for resisting the draft. Leonard is also in his forties, is a gay black man, and a Vietnam veteran. As much as anything, the series is about the bonds of male friendship, and the frequent debates between the pair (Leonard, a country music fan, is by far the more conservative of the two) are side-splitting displays of political incorrectness. The book is set in and around the East Texas town of LaBorde.

When the story opens, Hap and Leonard are working in the rose fields, back-breaking menial work. They have an opportunity to make some money and escape their monotonous existence when a face from Hap’s past appears, his ex-wife Trudy. Trudy was a firebrand radical, who divorced Hap when he was in prison, and now works at the Dairy Queen. She has a proposition: Her current boyfriend, Howard, was in prison with a bank robber who told him of a huge score on his last job that had been lost in a Texas river. Trudy and Howard have put together a team to recover the money, and use it to fund revolutionary causes. Hap and Leonard, who are needed for their diving abilities, join in the scheme strictly for the money.

Trudy is a classic femme fatale. Although Hap resists the judgment, Leonard knows from the outset that Tudy brings disaster to Hap, and disaster is what they find. One double-cross follows another, and eventually Hap and Leonard are trying to escape with their lives. The book works as a gritty crime novel, or as an outright comedy. Highly, highly recommended.

The Best Of Joe R. Lansdale

Anyone who reads horror or any other literature of the fantastic knows who Joe Lansdale is, I assume. A colorful personality as well as a gifted writer, he has been at the forefront since his breakthrough in the 80s, with his novels reaching bestseller lists and his work being adapted into film (Bubba Ho-Tep). He has also conquered the medium of comic books, most notably with the controversial “weird western” Jonah Hex, and is much sought-after at conventions for reading his own work. (At Hypericon in 2008, I witnessed Mr. Lansdale reading his short story “Mr. Bear”, and his performance did much to elevate the piece. Lansdale is also the only writer I’ve ever been too nervous to speak to.)

Although he is more known in the public conscious due to his novels, die-hard fans believe it is in the short story format that he truly shines. There have been several collections of his work thus far, and now Tachyon Publications has come out with a career overview, suitably titled The Best of Joe R. Lansdale. This contains most of his best known works, including five which have won Stoker awards. I’m a persistent critic of the Stokers, but even I’m impressed by that.

Among the highlights of the collection:

“Godzilla’s Twelve-Step Program”, in which everyone’s favorite giant lizard tries to reform his city-stomping ways, a good showcase for Lansdale’s trademark sense of humor.

“The Big Blow”, set in Galveston during the devastating hurricane at the beginning of the 20th Century.

“Incident On And Off A Mountain Road”, which was adapted for the Showtime series Masters of Horror (one of their better episodes, in my opinion).

“On the Far Side of the Cadillac Desert with Dead Folks” which won the British Fantasy Award and has never been collected.

“The Night They Missed the Horror Show”, about two young rednecks in 1968 who decide not to attend a showing of Night of the Living Dead after they learn the male lead is a black man. This is a decision that has fateful consequences. I liked this well enough to list it as Number 4 on my list of The Best Horror Stories of All Time, and most who have commented feel it should be higher.

Lansdale fans will have quibbles with the selections (I was wondering where “Tight Little Stitches In A Dead Man’s Back” was, myself), but no matter, this is a great collection. Whether you are a die hard Lansdale fan and want to get most of his best work in one volume, or you are a neophyte to the Cult of Lansdale looking for a good staring point, this is the book for you. The promotional material I received with the book says it will be released in March, although Amazon lists it being released on February 15th (and also confusingly says it is now in stock). Either way, order it, pilgrim.
.

The 14 Best Horror Short Stories of All Time!

As always, these are actually my favorite short stories of all time rather than the greatest. You don’t climb to the top of the heap of bloggers by observing truth in advertising.

If you are a regular blog reader (and if you are, thank you) you know I like lists, and if you aren’t, look at the sidebar and you’ll see. For some time, I’ve been planning a list of short stories to accompany the other poorly-received lists, but it was too daunting a task, as there are too many to choose from and the list varies from moment to moment. It’s also too important, as short stories have formed the true backbone of the horror genre. Recently friends began bugging me to produce one, so I figured “What do I have to lose?” So here it is.

The ground rules first. These are my own opinions, and you are free (and encouraged) to disagree, and to do so in the comments. Please feel free to give vent to any vitriol you may feel, although once again, “dipshit” has become a way too overused epithet. To keep the list somewhat manageable, and to keep my head from exploding, I limited the stories to one per author, so it wouldn’t be a list of the best Stephen King or H.P. Lovecraft stories, or every short piece T.E.D. Klein has written. I also made arbitrary judgments on novellas. Instead of using word length measurements, if a novella “felt” like a short novel rather than a long short story, it was disqualified. Therefore, no appearance by “The Mist”, one of my favorites.

Why 14 stories instead of 10? This was as far down as I could cull it, so I hedged my bets and cheated.

1. “The Colour Out of Space” by H.P. Lovecraft. In my mind, this is one of the few stories that continues to give me chills. I re-read it every year in October.
2. “Sticks” by Karl Edward Wagner. I’ve spoken of my admiration for Wagner before, and this is probably his best.
3. “Who Goes There?” by Don A Stuart (John W. Campbell, Jr.). The basis for the movies The Thing From Another World and The Thing, I read it at a young age, and its central theme of paranoia about the true identity of those around you continues to resonate.
4. “Night They Missed the Horror Show” by Joe Lansdale. Lansdale has written a number of great short stories, but this tale of two young rednecks who should have watched The Night of the Living Dead is his best.
5. “Nightcrawlers” by Robert R. Mccammon. “Something Passed By” was a close second, but I love this story of a man truly haunted by the war in Vietnam, and the unlucky diner patrons who get to share that with him. “Charlie’s in the light!”
6. “The Voice in the Night” by William Hope Hodgson. Hodgson was the great master of sea-swept horror, and this is probably his best short story.
7. “The Girl with the Hungry Eyes” by Fritz Leiber. Leiber is probably best remembered as a science fiction author, but he wrote in a number of genres, and his forays into horror are second to none. This story of an artist’s model who is a psychic vampire is my favorite.
8. “The Road Virus Heads North” by Stephen King. King has written a lot of great stories, and most people would pick one of his early works as his best, But this story of a man doomed by the purchase of an ever-changing painting sticks with me. I’ll always wonder what was in the paintings that were burned.
9. “The Ash-Tree” by M.R. James. A classic story from a nearly forgotten writer.
10. ‘The White People” by Arthur Machen. The dark sage of Wales framed this story as the diary of a young girl. Probably one of the most influential horror stories ever written.
11. “The Willows” by Algernon Blackwood. The world around us as the source of menace. One of H.P. Lovecraft’s favorites.
12. “The Yellow Sign”, by Robert W. Chambers. The centerpiece of Chambers’ great collection of short stories The King in Yellow shows how horror can come from that which is not explained. (The sign itself is never described, and it’s effects are only loosely explained.)
13. “Black Man with a Horn” by T.E.D. Klein. Any of the stories from the far-less-than-prolific Klein that were published in Dark Gods (a must-read) or the story that became his novel The Ceremonies, “The Events at Poroth’s Farm” would qualify, but this is marginally my favorite of them. Beware the Tcho-Tcho.
14. "Pigeons From Hell" by Robert E. Howard. The creator of Conan wrote some fine horror stories, and this is generally seen as his best.


If you haven’t read any of these, and you are a fan of horror, I suggest you seek them out. Then come back and tell me how wrong I am.
.

The Night They Missed The Horror Show

I’ve been wrestling for a while with the notion of a list of my favorite short stories, but haven’t gotten anywhere with it because there are just too many from which to choose. If I ever manage to put it together, one story that I know will be near the top is “The Night They Missed the Horror Show” by the legendary Joe R. Lansdale. In addition to being featured in numerous anthologies, it has been issued as a limited edition chapbook by Borderlands Press, as part of their great Dark Voices series, and comes with an audio CD.

The story is pretty simple. Two redneck teens in late-60s Texas, decide not to see “Night of the Living Dead” at the local drive-in – because the lead actor is black. Instead, they go cruising, and make a number of fateful choices. The story is profane, shocking and at times hilarious. If you are easily offended, it probably isn’t right for you.

What makes the new chapbook great is the accompanying CD. On it, you get an audio version of the story, read by Lansdale hisownself. Lansdale’s delivery is perfect, and really brings out the black humor in the piece. The story is accompanied by a few background audio effects, and by a musical score. The only complaint I had about the CD was a few times the music partially drowned out the words. Still, if you are a Lansdale fan (and you should be) or just enjoy a good story, this should be for you. But don’t say I didn’t warn you: the language might curl your hair.

This chapbook is available directly from Borderlands.

The Nightrunners

The first long-form work by Joe Lansdale I ever read was The Nightrunners, way back in the 80s. I recently read it again, and was pleased with how well it has held up.

The basic plot outline is somewhat similar to Straw Dogs (almost a year into this blog, and I'd never mentioned Straw Dogs, now twice in one day). A gang of truly degenerate teens rapes and brutalizes a schoolteacher. After her testimony puts the gang leader away (and he dies in jail), the rest of the crew follows the victim and her husband to a secluded getaway cabin to enact their revenge. The somewhat pacifist husband has to turn to violence to defend his wife and himself.

The story diverges due to the fact that the gang is really led by a possessing demon called the God of the Razor, who spurs the teens on to violence. The God of the Razor would be one of Lansdale’s most enduring creations in the horror field, recurring in subsequent stories and one themed anthology.

This is a very visceral novel, with scenes of extreme violence. The writing style is perhaps a little less fluid than Lansdale’s later work, but the energy and emotional impact is at its peak.It is available in a limited edition hardcover called The God of the Razor, or you can find a used paperback floating around.
.

Razored Saddles

Razored Saddles was one of the seminal anthologies of the 80s (first published in 1989) and one of the few I missed on the first go-around, so I was understandably stoked when I finally obtained a rather expensive copy of the original hardback. I was also excited that the anthology was edited by a favorite author, Joe R. Lansdale (with Pat LoBrutto). And finally, there was the subject matter.

When I was a kid and comic books were the center of my reading universe, one of my favorites was a book called Weird Western Tales. This was a blend of horror material and the western genre, with cowboys fighting ghosts, zombies, and the like. The best known continuing feature in this vein was Jonah Hex, about a hideously disfigured gunfighter (Lansdale himself wrote two great story arcs for Jonah Hex in the late 90s). Razored Saddles was ostensibly in this milieu, so I had looked forward to it. Lansdale hisownself referred to it as the first “cowpunk” anthology.

All anthologies are somewhat up and down, with a variety of different authors with differing takes on the theme, and I was prepared for this to hold true here, but I expected it to be generally good, with great writers like Lansdale, Lewis Shiner, Howard Waldrop, and others. The book started off well, with a Robert McCammon story, “Black Boots” about a gunman fleeing an unkillable foe. But the pleasant vibe dissolved in a haze of New Wave SF blandness. The majority of the stories ignored the weird western idea in favor of flat uncompelling narratives. It did pick up near the end, with “Yore Skin’s Jes’s Soft ‘n Purty” by Chet Williamson, but most of the stories were a major letdown. Lansdale himself has written a number of outstanding western/horror hybrids, so if that's what you're looking for, I'd suggest seeking one of his collections. To me, Razored Saddles was a missed opportunity.

The Magic Wagon

The Magic Wagon is an important book in the Joe Lansdale bibliography. In the author’s own words, it is where he first found his voice. And a distinctive voice it is.
In East Texas in the early 20th Century a young man named Buster Fogg finds himself alone after his family is wiped out by a tornado. He is taken in by a traveling medicine show, joining a bizarre surrogate family which includes Billy Bob the trick shot artist, Albert, an ex-slave, and Rot Toe the wrestling chimpanzee. Along the way, they acquire the mummified corpse of Wild Bill Hickok, who Billy Bob thinks is his real father. This obsession leads the group into a climactic showdown in the town of Mud Creek.
As always, Lansdale has a gift for vivid description and humorous, realistic dialogue. The short novel propels itself along at a brisk pace. Lansdale has never written anything that was not worth reading, and he’s at the top (and beginning) of his form here.

A Look At Joe R. Lansdale

Since I’m still a little bit over the moon about meeting Joe Lansdale, who is something of a hero of mine, I thought I would revise and republish something that originally appeared on another site. So, here goes:

It’s always hard for me to pin down just who is my favorite author. It changes from day to day, and varies with my mood. But no matter when I consider the issue, there’s always one name at or near the top of the list: Joe R. Lansdale, his ownself.

Lansdale’s work is an interesting combination of the fantastic and the everyday grind. In some areas, he has written books that could be considered transgressive, although that tendency has waned in recent years. Originally he was lumped in with the splatterpunks (although he personally rejected the inclusion), a number of gifted young writers in the eighties who produced some extreme horror stories, but his recent output has been more concentrated in the genre of crime fiction. He retains a gift for very outré violence, and there is a macabre humor to most of his work. His best work, I think, has been in short stories. The must reads of his short fiction would include:

“Night They Missed The Horror Show”
“Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man’s Back”
“On The Far Side Of The Cadillac Desert With Dead Folks”
“The Big Blow”
“Mad Dog Summer” (the basis for the novel The Bottoms)
"The Events Concerning A Nude Fold-Out Found in a Harlequin Romance”

The best source for these would be the following anthologies:

High Cotton
By Bizarre Hands
Writer Of The Purple Rage
Bumper Crop

Lansdale is best known in long form as the author of the Hap and Leonard novels, of which there are seven at this writing. The best is the first, Savage Season. It contains the same dark humor, but the violence quotient is much higher. This was only widely published as a paperback original, and is long out of print. If you find it, it has a distinctive cover: a hand with a nail through it. A new Hap & Leonard novel will be out in 2009.

Other novels of note:

The Drive-In, Parts 1 and 2 – A gonzo story of people trapped at a supernaturally possessed drive-in. Weird and wonderful.
The Nightrunners – An early horror novel, with somewhat crude technique, this was partly responsible for the “splatterpunk” movement of the 1980s
Lost Echoes – A crime novel with a little of the supernatural, very well done. Read a review by an idiot here.
The Magic Wagon – A western of sorts, it involves a traveling medicine show, Rot-Toe the wrestling chimpanzee, and the mummified body of Wild Bill Hickok.

There have been a couple of notable screen adaptations:

Bubba Ho-Tep – Elvis and JFK are in an old folks home, having faked their deaths (and, in JFK’s case, being turned black) when the residents are stalked by a soul-sucking mummy. As weird as it sounds, but a cult classic. Supposedly a sequel, Bubba Nosferatu and the She-Vampires, is on its way, although the original creative team has bowed out due to creative differences, and Lansdale is no longer connected to it.
Incident On And Off A Mountain Road – Showtime adapted this short story about a woman fleeing an abusive husband who runs into a greater menace for the Masters of Horror series.

Hope this leads someone to a great but underappreciated author.

Lost Echoes

First of all, I should tell you I am a huge fan of Joe R. Lansdale. This goes all the way back to the 80s, with novels like The Nightrunners and Savage Season, and even better short stories along the lines of “Night They Missed the Horror Show” and “Tight Little Stitches In A Dead Man’s Back”. He is one of the few writers who has never disappointed me, and he certainly doesn’t let me down with Lost Echoes, his latest, published in February by Vintage.

It’s the story of Harry Wilkes, a young man whose bout with the mumps as a child left him with an unusual talent. When ever a sound is struck on an inanimate object, such as the slamming of a car door, he relives any traumatic experiences in the area tied to the object. Vicious murders, back-seat rapes, suicides – he relives each of them. If the chair his father sat in when he died of a heart attack is scraped on the floor, he watches his father die all over again. Rather than this power making him important, it has turned him into an alcoholic recluse in his early twenties.

The bulk of a novel concerns his meeting a fellow traveler, another man who began drinking when he inadvertently caused the death of his wife and son. Together, they start to pull their lives together. Then, the girl he loved shows up with a request: Help me find who murdered my father – and he has to face his greatest fears.

Lansdale’s early work was extreme, and he was considered a transgressive author. Time has mellowed him, however, and this book, while not flinching from violence and containing heavy profanity, is much lighter than his early work. For those of you not familiar with him, he writes dialogue as well or better than any living writer, and the humor in the conversations always makes me laugh out loud. Highly recommended.