Really liked this book. Felt it owed a lot to "To KIll A Mockingbird"
with the innocent children narrating and a boo radley type character. If you are going to steal, steal from the best. He has also made it his own. An enjoyable read ( )

In my opinion Joe R Lansdale has two different writing styles. The Hap and Leonard series are storyteller writing. Most of his stand alone books are more like a novel, if that makes sense. Anyway The Bottoms should be taught in school along with Tom Sawyer/Huck Finn as great American Novel. ( )

Texas, 1933. Cuando el joven Harry Crane y su hermana menor hallan el cadáver de una mujer de color junto al río Sabine, todo el mundo da por hecho que el asesino ha tenido que ser alguien de su misma comunidad. Pero la víctima resulta ser solo la primera de una serie de muertes cada vez más horribles y viscerales. ¿será posible atrapar al asesino antes de que dé por saciada su sed de sangre?.

This was one excellent book. A riveting tale. Highly recommend. ( )

This story breaks your heart. Though it's fiction, it's based on all-too-real historical events in this country's past. It's written by a white author, and how he can bring himself to write a story with the characters using the "N" word throughout, is more than I can imagine.

It takes place in the early 1930s, in East Texas, in and around a small town on the Sabine River. Whites and Blacks are segregated, and when any crime is done to a Black, it's considered not worthy of investigation. But let a crime happen to a White, and the least suspicion that it's been perpetrated by a Black, and the Klan break out their bathrobes and cone-shaped hats.

Despite having the unhealthy atmosphere of racism in their community, Marvel Creek has a few good-hearted souls, doing their part for the young folk of their town.
P.128:
"there wasn't an official library in Marvel Creek until some years later. Mrs. Conerton was just a nice widow lady that kept a lot of books in London out and kept records on them to make sure you gave them back. She would even let you come to her house and sit and read. She nearly always had cookies or lemonade on hand, and she wasn't adverse to listening to our stories or problems."

East Texas is tornado country, and during the telling of this tale, Marvel Creek suffers the disorder and disaster of a twister.
P.136:
"a twister is a horrible, fascinating thing. One moment there's a huge Dark cloud, then the cloud grows a tail. The tail stretches toward the ground, and when it touches it it begins to cry and howl and tear up the Earth.
it's winds can carry men and cars and buildings away as easily as a woman might tote a handkerchief. It can rip huge trees out by the roots and toss them about, knock a train off its tracks and tear it up like so much cardboard. It can pull worms from the ground, toss pine straw through tree trunks, spraying gravel like bullets.
this twister I'm telling you about tore through the bottoms and laid trees flat all along the riverbank for about 2 miles, ripped a swath through the woods that killed wildlife, demolished shacks, sucked ponds dry, toted off the fish and frogs and rained them on housees 3 miles away."

Harry's grandma, his mother's mother, comes to Live with Harry's family. She's a hearty woman, a lover of life, and she comes to them with her old car. She uses its horn enthusiastically. As the protagonist lays sleeping in his room in the Rest home, at the end of his life, from which perspective he is telling this tale, he wakes to the sound of a horn. The sound recalls his mind to the memory of his grandma.
P.207-8:
"I awoke thinking of her, and tears rolled down my cheeks. Not only because of her memory, but because I was even more reminded of then, and suddenly all pulled into now, and I do not like now, for I am old. So very old. Older than she got to be. And I'm not sure a person ought to live to be too old. For when you can't live life, you're just burning life, sucking air and making turds. Perhaps it's not age, but health that matters. Live long and healthy, it doesn't matter. But live long and unhealthy, it's a living hell. And here I lie. Not doing well at all."

This is the story of Cruelty done to innocent victims, and karma doing it's best to bring justice.

( )