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The Thicket, by Joe R. Lansdale
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ALA Reading List Award for History, Short List
Love and vengeance at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom from Joe Lansdale, "a true American original" (Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box).
Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas--orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.
Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot).
In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme. In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Gritand Stand by Me--the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm--or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review).
- Sales Rank: #130025 in Books
- Published on: 2014-10-14
- Released on: 2014-10-14
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 8.25" h x 1.00" w x 5.50" l, .0 pounds
- Binding: Paperback
- 368 pages
From Booklist
*Starred Review* The Bard of East Texas is back, this time with the turn-of-the-twentieth-century coming-of-age tale of 16-year-old Jack Parker and his 14-year-old sister, Lula. Still shocked by the sudden deaths of their parents from smallpox, they see their grandfather murdered by outlaws, who then abduct Lula. The same outlaws have killed the sheriff Jack hopes will rescue Lula, and Jack must turn to bounty hunters Eustace Cox and Shorty. Eustace is a black man who carries a giant shotgun; his constant companion is a 600-pound feral hog. Shorty is a dwarf with an attitude who was taught to shoot by Annie Oakley. Their bond is the discrimination they face, and they are willing to chase the outlaws into the primordial and lawless deep woods of East Texas’ Big Thicket. Lansdale’s premise seems borrowed in part from Charles Portis’ True Grit. But anyone who knows Lansdale knows he will put his own spin on the material. He has been writing brilliantly about East Texas for three decades (in both historical fiction and his contemporary series starring Hap Collins and Leonard Pine), but never has the region appeared stranger or more violent than it does here. The oil boom has begun, and Jack, a naive and pious farm boy, is introduced to boomtowns, brothels, lynchings, and all manner of new things. Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make The Thicket another Lansdale treasure. --Thomas Gaughan
Review
" Hellish and hilarious . . . It's classic Lansdale, his own self peppered throughout by much piney backwoods philosophizing on everything from religion to whoring, [with] the author's long-ago trademarked heaping helping of wry, often delightfully vulgar humanism. The Thicket is a keeper and then some." --Austin Chronicle
"This latest work reads like a dark version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and feels like a Coen brothers movie. It's the perfect mix of light and dark, with plenty of humor mixed in." --Houston Chronicle
"Lansdale excels at giving his fans what they want...Many die, but what's really dying here, Lansdale says, is a romanticized way of life." --Dallas Morning News
"The Bard of East Texas is back. . . . He has been writing brilliantly about East Texas for three decades, but never has the region appeared stranger or more violent than it does here. . . . Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make The Thicket another Lansdale treasure." --Booklist (starred)
"Lansdale offers up a coming-of-age Western adventure as captivating as the best of Larry McMurtry and written in a style reminiscent of Mark Twain. With intriguing, sometimes bumbling characters and storytelling laced with bravado, good humor, action, and heart...this title cannot help but captivate readers." --Library Journal (starred review)
About the Author
Joe R. Lansdale is the author of more than a dozen novels, including Edge of Dark Water, the Edgar Award-winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. He has received nine Bram Stoker Awards, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.
Most helpful customer reviews
37 of 40 people found the following review helpful.
Dark, entertaining ride deep into the Big Thicket
By Jared Castle
The Thicket is a first-person narrative from a 16-year old boy, Jack Parker, who is in hot pursuit deep inside the Big Thicket (that's East Texas). The story begins at the crossover to the 20th century with Jack an orphan on account of smallpox, losing his grandfather in a shootout on a river ferry to a malevolent trio -- Cut Throat Bill, N*gg*r Pete and Fatty Worth. The outlaws leave Jack to die in the river as they ride off with his younger sister, Lula.
Jack crosses paths with Eustace Cox, a mixed race (half-black, half-Comanche) tracker, and his dwarf partner, Reginald Jones ("Shorty"), who ascended from a bitter former life as a circus performer. Jack strikes a deal with them, which launches the ragtag posse of Eustace, Shorty, Jack and a gigantic, carnivorous hog (named Hog) on the trail to rescue Lula.
With a palette of colorful characters in place, Lansdale chops and changes the dialogue with clever descriptions and chewy monologues. The effect is delicious; Shorty is a renaissance man, so, naturally, he delivers the richest lines ("The young one here has been agitated to a remarkable degree ever since we found the dead boy, and he cannot quite get into his head that he will get no deader.")
Another favorite excerpt of mine is Shorty's first meeting with Jack, offering advice about the likelihood of finding Lula: "What you have to harden yourself to is us finding her and getting her back, and knowing things will not be as they were, but as you make them. And we may not get her back."
This exchange evoked for me Sykes' famous line from The Wild Bunch: "You want to come with us? It ain't like it used to be; but it'll do."
The best way to describe how gently Lansdale commences The Thicket is to share that I began reading it with my sons (ages 10 and 9) as a bedtime book (omitting profanity). With Jack's first-person narrative, the initial chapters read like a slightly darker take on the Adventures of Huckleberry Finn.
It wasn't until the fourth chapter when, in fine detail, Jack loses his virginity to a prostitute named Jimmie Sue that I realized the book was intended for an older audience; an audience with a deep affinity for western movies and an eyes-open-wide understanding of the tropes and clichés common to the genre. Lansdale knows them well, too, and enjoys grilling them up to his satisfaction.
By the way, the loss of his virginity is one of many rites of passage -- and the most pleasurable -- Jack faces.
The first four chapters aren't slow; there's a lot of dying and hard dealing going on within those pages. Still, the author creates the same dreaded feeling I get when a roller coaster starts with a long, steep climb. Click. Click. Click. The clicking stops, my car crests for a moment, and I gasp for breath, rushing and roaring along.
I finished the remaining 19 chapters in a single night.
The book's lineage connects to classic American storytellers like Mark Twain, Charles Portis, John Ford and Sam Peckinpah, among others. The author offers affectionate tips of the hat to The Searchers, Ride the High Country, Unforgiven and The Wild Bunch.
In summary, Lansdale delivers an entertaining adventure, serving heaping portions of rough talk, dark humor and a lot of telling things just the way they are, without sugar-coating.
Amen, brother. Let's ride.
Rating: Five stars.
DISCLOSURE: This review was made possible courtesy of the publisher, Mulholland Books, which provided me an uncorrected proof at no cost in exchange for my independent and honest review. This book review was not sponsored or paid for in any way by the manufacturer or an agent working on their behalf.
UPDATE (September 22, 2014): Peter Dinklage (Game Of Thrones` Tyrion Lannister) will star as Shorty in the film adaptation that will be produced by Gianni Nunnari and Shannon Gaulding. Dinklage and his manager will co-produce.
"That Joe Lansdale's dark vision will be brought to life by the brilliantly talented Peter Dinklage starring as Shorty - it is a dream of mine," says Nunnari in a statement picked up by Variety. "This is the kind of original movie with edge and style that Hollywood Gang is hungry for; luckily we found all these things in The Thicket. We cannot wait to share this movie with audiences around the world."
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
An old-fashioned western with a modern sensibility (and humor)
By TChris
Give Joe Lansdale credit for versatility. He's written mysteries and suspense novels, science fiction and horror, comic books and cartoons. If he isn't making your bones shake with fear, he's making your teeth rattle with laughter. The Thicket is an old-fashioned western with a modern sensibility and a considerable amount of humor. Many books make me smile but few make me laugh-out-loud. This one did, repeatedly -- when I wasn't gagging at Lansdale's descriptions of carnage and mayhem.
In an attention-grabbing first sentence, we learn that sixteen-year-old Jack Parker will "take up with a gun-shooting dwarf, the son of a slave, and a big angry hog" before finding true love and killing someone. After Jack's parents (like many others in East Texas) die of smallpox, Jack's grandfather decides to send Jack and his sister Lola to live with their aunt in Kansas. Before they travel far, desperados make off with Lola. Hence Jack's need to take up with gun-shooting folk who can help him track the bad guys. Eustace, the slave's son, is a semi-reliable tracker. Shorty, the gun-shooting dwarf, learned his craft from Annie Oakley. The angry hog is named Hog. Eventually a woman of ill-repute named Jimmie Sue joins the posse, as well as two others. The search take them to the Big Thicket, a hiding place for all things evil.
It's easy to feel sympathy for Jack, who does his best to maintain his naïve innocence despite his dark experiences in a rough world, and for Jimmie Sue, who has had a difficult life. More surprising is the sympathy Lansdale creates for Eustace and Shorty. They are violent and greedy but not truly evil -- they generally direct their violence (if not their thievery) at people who deserve it -- and their status as underdogs makes it easy to cheer for them. Some of the characters are so outrageous that liking them isn't an issue, including the sheriff who only ever shot three women "in the line of duty, or nearabouts." As always, Lansdale creates landscapes and attitudes that draw the reader into the time and place in which the novel is set.
The Thicket is often a funny novel but it isn't shallow. Lansdale's characters occasionally debate the meaning of life, paying particular attention to faith and prayer. Jack's grandfather taught him that comforting religious beliefs are preferable to thinking "too much on my own, cause it might lead to other ideas that might be right but unpleasant." Shorty argues that faith in God's will leads to "disappointment and false expectations." Jack's Christian teachings, cautioning against vengeance and urging him to turn the other cheek, are at odds with the more violent but arguably more effective methods that Eustace and Shorty believe will help them find Lola. Still, this isn't a heavy philosophical tome. Lansdale uses the discussions of morality to poke good natured fun at hypocrisy.
Some aspects of the story (like the hooker with a heart of gold) are clichéd but the clichés are played for laughs -- and more often than not Lansdale gives the cliché a little twist. Fans of shoot-outs will be amused by the most hilarious gunfight I've encountered. Gore aside, The Thicket left me smiling.
10 of 11 people found the following review helpful.
TOP-NOTCH LANSDALE
By T. Zelazny
Joe Lansdale is my favorite contemporary writer, hands down. The Thicket is an amazing blend of his more recent works and his vintage classics. In my opinion, this is Lansdale at his best. If you enjoyed The Bottoms or Edge or Dark Water, you'll love this, though it has beautiful throwbacks to works like The Magic Wagon and Dead in the West (so if you prefer those, you'll also be very pleased, I believe). If you prefer one incarnation of Lansdale over the other (or if you're like me and simply love it all) The Thicket will thoroughly satisfy. At once both beautiful and brutal, Lansdale does what he does best--he continues to prove he is a) one of the absolute best writers we got going, and b) that he is his own self, always original, and equipt with probably the best set of storytelling skills there are. An easy five stars. The Thicket is an absolutely brilliant novel that will stay with you long after you've reached the end.
Grab a copy. I'm serious, you won't be sorry.
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