The Bottoms

From Barnes & Noble

The Barnes & Noble Review
Much of The Bottoms -- winner of the 2001 Edgar Award for Best Novel -- will probably seem familiar to Lansdale's longtime readers. It is based directly on his Stoker Award-winning novella, "Mad Dog Summer," and it revisits the territory covered in his young adult novel, The Boar, which was likewise set in the hardscrabble world of Depression-era Texas. This time out, though, the scope of the narrative is considerably more expansive, and the story itself is more suspenseful and acutely observed. The result is a novel that functions successfully on a number of levels: as a detailed, authentic portrait of the Great Depression; as a moving but unsentimental coming-of-age story; and as a graphic, nontraditional example of the serial killer novel.

The narrator of The Bottoms is Harry Collins, an old man obsessively reflecting on certain key experiences of his childhood. In 1933, the year that forms the centerpiece of the narrative, Harry is 11 years old and living with his mother, father, and younger sister on a farm outside of Marvel Creek, Texas, near the Sabine River bottoms. Harry's world changes forever when he discovers the corpse of a young black woman tied to a tree in the forest near his home. The woman, who is eventually identified as a local prostitute, has been murdered, molested, and sexually mutilated. She is also, as Harry will soon discover, the first in a series of similar corpses, all of them the victims of a new, unprecedented sort of monster: a traveling serial killer.

From his privileged position as the son of constable (and farmer and part-time barber) Jacob Collins, Harry watches as the distinctly amateur investigation unfolds. As more bodies -- not all of them "colored" -- surface, the mood of the local residents darkens. Racial tensions -- never far from the surface, even in the best of times -- gradually kindle. When circumstantial evidence implicates an ancient, innocent black man named Mose, the Ku Klux Klan mobilizes, initiating a chilling, graphically described lynching that will occupy a permanent place in Harry Collins's memories. With Mose dead and the threat to local white women presumably put to rest, the residents of Marvel Creek resume their normal lives, only to find that the actual killer remains at large and continues to threaten the safety and stability of the town.

Lansdale uses this protracted murder investigation to open up a window on an insular, poverty-stricken, racially divided community. With humor, precision, and great narrative economy, he evokes the society of Marvel Creek in all its alternating tawdriness and nobility, offering us a varied, absolutely convincing portrait of a world that has receded into history. At the same time, he offers us a richly detailed re-creation of the vibrant, dangerous physical landscapes that were part of that world and have since been buried under the concrete and cement of the industrialized juggernaut of the late 20th century. In Lansdale's hands, the gritty realities of Depression-era Texas are as authentic -- and memorable -- as anything in recent American fiction.

The Bottoms reflects a large number of clearly discernible influences. Faulkner is a palpable presence here. So is Flannery O'Connor. So, too, is Harper Lee, whose To Kill a Mockingbird informs this novel on almost every page. Recent influences -- such as Caleb Carr's The Alienist and the Stephen King's of The Green Mile -- seem equally apparent. In the end, though, Lansdale manages to absorb and contain these influences, and to create a novel that is uniquely, unmistakably his own. The Bottoms is the real, unadulterated thing: a moving, involving story told in a distinctive, authentic narrative voice. Don't let it pass you by. (Bill Sheehan)

Bill Sheehan reviews horror, suspense, and science fiction for Cemetery Dance, The New York Review of Science Fiction, and other publications. His book-length critical study of the fiction of Peter Straub, At the Foot of the Story Tree, has been published by Subterranean Press (www.subterraneanpress.com).

Lee Winfrey

Without ever preaching to a contemporary choir, Lansdale subtly but surely traces how race hatred can embitter, poison, and often physically destroy those who fall under its sway.
— Philadelphia Inquirer

Chicago Tribune

Deep East Texas in the Great Depression. A place where poverty is as prevalent and devastating as tornadoes. When young Harry Crane discovers a mutilated body in the river bottoms, a cold fear grips the region and racial tension nears fever pitch. Harry believes the killer is the Goat Man, a monster of Texas legend, made all the more real to Harry because he has actually seen him on his nocturnal wanderings. In the dark and gloom of the Texas night, and with no suspect in sight, the body count rises, a man is lynched, and the local law-Harry's father-intensifies the search for a savage killer who may be closer than anyone dares imagine.

Publishers Weekly

In his latest suspense thriller, prolific yarn-spinner Lansdale, best known for his offbeat series featuring the mismatched East Texas Sherlocks Hap Collins and Leonard Pine (Bad Chili), presents a different voice in a coming-of-age story set in the early years of the Great Depression. Lansdale's 80-something protagonist, Harry Crane, looks back to the day in 1933 when he was 13 and, with his nine-year-old sister, Tom (Thomasina), he found the mutilated corpse of a black prostitute bound to a tree with barbed wire near their home along the hardscrabble bottomlands of the Sabine River. The discovery presents their father, Jacob Crane--a farmer and barber eking out a living as the town constable--with a nightmarish investigation. News travels slowly in the days before television, but Jacob learns from the black doctor who performs the makeshift autopsy that two other mutilated bodies have been found over the last 18 months. Because the victims are black and "harlots," no one in the county much cares. But when the body of a white prostitute is discovered, a rabid mob lynches Moses--a black man who has been something of a surrogate father to Jacob--despite Jacob and Harry's heroic efforts to save him. Predictably, another body is soon discovered. Lansdale is best when recreating the East Texas dialogue and setting. Readers will not have to work hard to unearth comparisons to characters in To Kill a Mockingbird, but gruesome details of the murders keep the novel from being labeled a period piece. Folksy and bittersweet, though rather rough-hewn and uneven, Lansdale's novel treats themes still sadly pertinent today. (Aug.) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

KLIATT

In The Bottoms, we meet Harry, an old man, who remembers strange and powerful events that happened back in 1933-34, in his East Texas hometown. The story begins with 11-year-old Harry, and his younger sister, "Tom," finding the body of a dead woman in "the bottoms." Harry's father Jacob, the local constable, then bravely begins to investigate a series of bizarre, brutal murders of Negro prostitutes. The townsfolk, meanwhile, are outraged that their constable feels that Negroes deserve the same justice as whites. When Harry and Tom discover the first victim's corpse, they also catch a fleeting glimpse of "The Goat Man," a shadowy figure they suspect is the killer. As his father's investigation continues, Harry tries to learn all he can about the murders and the possible culprit. Racial tensions run deep through the story, as mistrust and hatred between the adjoining black and white counties flare. The sleepy, dusty town is turned upside-down when local members of the Ku Klux Klan lynch an innocent man, and when white suspects are named as possible murderers. The Bottoms is a strong read, written in a style that invokes Flannery O'Connor, with a touch of Faulkner's quirky characters. Because sexual violence is a main part of the book, it can be disturbing to some readers. There is one sequence where the true murderer has captured young "Tom" which I found especially disturbing. On the whole, I recommend this book for mature readers who enjoy horror and mystery novels with a dose of good, solid literature. Category: Paperback Fiction. KLIATT Codes: SA—Recommended for senior high school students, advanced students, and adults. 2000, Warner, Mysterious Press, 328p., Ages 16to adult. Reviewer: Janice Bees; Freelance Reviewer, Chicago, IL

Library Journal

A trip into the woods proves a learning experience for 13-year-old Harry in this latest coming-of-age mystery yarn from Lansdale (Freezer Burn). When Harry and his sister Thomasina (Tom) strike out into the woods, they confront not only the myth of the Goat Man, who is said to inhabit those woods, but also some myths about the nature of justice and race in their 1930s East Texas community. Finding the dead and mutilated body of a black prostitute is only the first discovery along the road to growing up, though. As the body count mounts, the only solution open to the challenged community is to make an old black man into the scapegoat, though he is obviously incapable of the grisly killings. This leads to a satisfactory but untidy resolution from which Harry emerges as sadder but wiser. The book, a combination of William Faulkner's Intruder in the Dust and Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird (with a sizable portion of pure Lansdale thrown in), just might at long last bring premier storyteller Lansdale to the attention of an even broader audience. For all public libraries.--Bob Lunn, Kansas City P.L., MO Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.

School Library Journal

Adult/High School-This thought-provoking book portrays an accurate, disheartening picture of old-time Southern bigotry. Harry Crane, now an elderly resident of a nursing home, recalls a watershed event from his childhood in East Texas in the 1930s. The narration begins when he, nearly 12, and his 9-year-old sister discover the mutilated body of a black woman tied with barbed wire to a tree in the Bottoms, the swampy forest wilderness supposedly stalked by the "goat man" in search of children to eat. Harry's father, a small farmer, barber, and constable, begins an investigation into what turns into a series of mutilation murders of black women. Hostilities become palpable when the fear that a "white woman may be next" begins stirring in the town residents. Jacob Crane, a reasonable man trying to cope with an investigation beyond his skills and the unreasonable bigotry of his neighbors, faces a crisis that nearly destroys his family. The story is compelling, in a manner similar to Harper Lee's To Kill a Mockingbird. In fact, there are many parallels to that story, in the lessons learned by Harry as to what makes a monster, what really constitutes monstrous acts, and what being a hero really means. Harry also learns of the deep reserves of strength in himself and in his family. This is a wonderful book that will capture and educate young adults about a shameful time in this country's history and the strength of an individual to make a difference.-Carol DeAngelo, Kings Park Library, Burke, VA Copyright 2002 Cahners Business Information.

Wes Lukowsky

Effectively combining mystery and family history, it offers a vivid, multifaceted glimpse to a simpler, but not necessarily better, time. If any author desereved a breakthrough book, it's Lansdale. This should be it.
—Booklist