A "new" discovery
Monday, April 9, 2012 at 10:17AM 
If you have visited woofreakinhoo in the past, you have heard me wax eloquent about the mojo storyteller Joe Lansdale. Well it turns out Mr. L is getting a lot of attention for his new book Edge of Dark Water out on Mulholland Books. And the attention is very much deserved.
About a year ago, my novel Correction Line danced about as close as it gets to Mulholland Books (MB) picking it up. The biggest thrill of this, at the time, was the possibility of sharing the MB bookshelf with Lansdale. Now, MB ultimately passed on my novel, but the editor wrote one of the most glowing rejections I've ever received (forwarded to my agent, actually). Someday I might still get something in the MB list, but this post is supposed to be about Joe Lansdale.
A number of years ago, a friend read my work and said, "Hey you sort of write like Joe Lansdale." I'd never heard of him, so I picked one of his novels, Rumble Tumble, I think, and started reading. For starters, I did see the comparison - even though, he was writing about East Texas, and I was deep in Southern Saskatchewan (or some place like it). Maybe they share some similar geography, though East Texas misses out on the -40 winters.
As I plowed through the Hap and Leonard books, I came across his novel The Bottoms. I have to admit, that my initial thought was that he was all crime fiction, witty, and well written (and laugh-out-loud funny to boot) - but I didn't see a lot of literary muscle. That sounds way more disparaging that I mean - I now see streams of depth in all of Joe's work, some is more successful than others, but it is definitely there. When I read The Bottoms I was floored. Not sure how to explain it, without reverting to the joining up of past authors into some menagé-a-writers mash-up (Faulkner, O'Connor, and Harper Lee have a love child, whose Godparents are Welty and E. A. Poe... that sort of stuff)
I digress. The book is fucking brilliant.
So I yak to my reader and writer friends over the years - have you ever read Lansdale? Who? (Right.) Though, I did find pockets. On entering a local mystery bookstore for the first time, my query was met with, "Are you kidding? He's the best out there."
At least when Bubba Ho-tep came out, my indie movie loving friends got what I've been talking about. And after reading this piece in the NYT, I wonder if his name will come up when Abraham Lincoln: Vampire Hunter hits the screens.
I am really glad that Joe R. is getting great press and reviews on his latest - and I hate to use the tired old, you know, I knew this band when they were just on the way up (um.... Wilco, anyone?) - but yeah, I've been reading Lansdale for years. And if more of you start finally reading him, and his bank balance goes up, well it's about damn time.
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