breadandmushrooms's review
dark
mysterious
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
3.5
pivany's review against another edition
adventurous
dark
emotional
informative
mysterious
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? It's complicated
4.25
katsofanotherkind's review
adventurous
challenging
dark
mysterious
tense
fast-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? Plot
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
3.5
pagesofpins's review
1.0
This story of serial rape/murder and blame in the deep south has all the racism and poverty of To Kill A Mockingbird with none of the charm. A long coming of age tale that just emphasizes how gross depression-era East Texas poverty is, and that's before the chiggers get you.
majortomwaits's review against another edition
medium-paced
5.0
WOW!
A fantastically rich, beyond dark, and grotesque novel. It is qbsolutely brutal and crude, but also thoroughly emotional that it hurts. I am still overwhelmed (in a positive sense) by it, so all I can say is that this is the best The Night Of The Hunter pull off I've ever come across. Chef's kiss.
A fantastically rich, beyond dark, and grotesque novel. It is qbsolutely brutal and crude, but also thoroughly emotional that it hurts. I am still overwhelmed (in a positive sense) by it, so all I can say is that this is the best The Night Of The Hunter pull off I've ever come across. Chef's kiss.
Content Warnings
Graphic: Child abuse
sjj169's review
4.0
Set in the 1930's this book is told from the viewpoint of an elderly man looking back at a time in his life. Harry grew up in East Texas along the Sabine River area. An area where more is picked up at the local store than groceries.
Harry and his sister Tom find the body of a black woman who had been mutilated and tied up with barbed wire. His father Jacob is the constable/barber/farmer in the town and he takes the body to the black section to have a black doctor have a look to see what happened.
This unleashes racial tension in the area because the black people don't want trouble stirred up and some of the white people don't care if a black woman is dead. Then more bodies start turning up.
Lansdale brings this to life much better than my piddly review but I wanted to just get the basics across.
Harry was that curious boy who believed and had seen the legendary "Goat Man" following he and his sister in those woods.
His dad Jacob reminded me of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" He stood up for what he thought was right no matter what. There is a lynching scene in the book that I had nightmares about after reading this last night. (trigger warning for some of you)
Then there is Grandma: I want to be her when I grow up.
"I love and miss Grandpa, but I'm glad he's dead."
"Don't say that!" Mama said.
"Was he in a lot of pain?" Daddy asked.
"No. No. Thank goodness for that. But he took to singin' gospel songs. He'd just burst out in one from time to time, and he couldn't carry a tune in a syrup bucket with a lid on it. It was miserable. And you couldn't shut him up. I figured it was time for him to go just so I wouldn't have to listen to that. I ever start talkin' to myself, or heaven forbid sing a goddamn gospel song-"
This book as a mystery novel would have scored a 2 star from me, but it's more than that because if you spin me a tale involving a coming of age story and throw in some folk lore and you have me entranced. This is what Joe Lansdale does with this book.
Just a short time before I had been a happy kid with no worries. I didn't even know it was the Depression, let alone there were murderers outside the magazines I read down at the barbershop, and none of the magazines I read had to do with this kind of thing.
Harry and his sister Tom find the body of a black woman who had been mutilated and tied up with barbed wire. His father Jacob is the constable/barber/farmer in the town and he takes the body to the black section to have a black doctor have a look to see what happened.
This unleashes racial tension in the area because the black people don't want trouble stirred up and some of the white people don't care if a black woman is dead. Then more bodies start turning up.
Lansdale brings this to life much better than my piddly review but I wanted to just get the basics across.
Harry was that curious boy who believed and had seen the legendary "Goat Man" following he and his sister in those woods.
His dad Jacob reminded me of Atticus Finch in "To Kill a Mockingbird" He stood up for what he thought was right no matter what. There is a lynching scene in the book that I had nightmares about after reading this last night. (trigger warning for some of you)
Then there is Grandma: I want to be her when I grow up.
"I love and miss Grandpa, but I'm glad he's dead."
"Don't say that!" Mama said.
"Was he in a lot of pain?" Daddy asked.
"No. No. Thank goodness for that. But he took to singin' gospel songs. He'd just burst out in one from time to time, and he couldn't carry a tune in a syrup bucket with a lid on it. It was miserable. And you couldn't shut him up. I figured it was time for him to go just so I wouldn't have to listen to that. I ever start talkin' to myself, or heaven forbid sing a goddamn gospel song-"
This book as a mystery novel would have scored a 2 star from me, but it's more than that because if you spin me a tale involving a coming of age story and throw in some folk lore and you have me entranced. This is what Joe Lansdale does with this book.
Just a short time before I had been a happy kid with no worries. I didn't even know it was the Depression, let alone there were murderers outside the magazines I read down at the barbershop, and none of the magazines I read had to do with this kind of thing.
gnashchick's review
4.0
Joe Lansdale has never disappointed me. I admit outright bias because I'm a Texan, I was born in East Texas, and I know these characters. This is not a book for young readers, even though Harry is in his early teens and has a younger sister, Thomasina, AKA Tom, as a sidekick. This is a coming-of-age story, but it's also about loss of innocence for both Harry and Tom on many different levels. It's also a fairly gruesome murder mystery.
The Bottoms features violent deaths, rape, a lynching, rampant racism, and the apathy of a "it's always been this way" society. A handful of characters try to mitigate the hatred but meet ridicule and violence because of their views. Lansdale is writing about East Texas in 1933, and it lines up with the stories that my great-grandmother (rampant racist) and my grandfather (raging liberal) told me about their lives in Kilgore during the depression.
The book was a fast read for me. Lansdale has a knack for great dialogue and writing scenes so realistic I can smell the piney woods. I didn't intend to read it in two days, but it was just so easy to turn to the next chapter. As the story progressed and the stakes got higher, I resigned myself to put off the things I needed done, and I finished the novel. (See the bias warning above.) I was surprised at one revelation at the end that I didn't see coming, and that's always a treat.
On the downside, I found a few rough spots. There was written dialect for a character with no teeth that felt like mocking to me. There's a character set up as the the apparent suspect, but it was too clearly a misdirect. Astute readers will be able to spot the culprit fairly quickly. Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of Joe Lansdale's work.
Oh, and Goat Man? Totally real.
The Bottoms features violent deaths, rape, a lynching, rampant racism, and the apathy of a "it's always been this way" society. A handful of characters try to mitigate the hatred but meet ridicule and violence because of their views. Lansdale is writing about East Texas in 1933, and it lines up with the stories that my great-grandmother (rampant racist) and my grandfather (raging liberal) told me about their lives in Kilgore during the depression.
The book was a fast read for me. Lansdale has a knack for great dialogue and writing scenes so realistic I can smell the piney woods. I didn't intend to read it in two days, but it was just so easy to turn to the next chapter. As the story progressed and the stakes got higher, I resigned myself to put off the things I needed done, and I finished the novel. (See the bias warning above.) I was surprised at one revelation at the end that I didn't see coming, and that's always a treat.
On the downside, I found a few rough spots. There was written dialect for a character with no teeth that felt like mocking to me. There's a character set up as the the apparent suspect, but it was too clearly a misdirect. Astute readers will be able to spot the culprit fairly quickly. Overall, I enjoyed the book and look forward to reading more of Joe Lansdale's work.
Oh, and Goat Man? Totally real.
asktheletters's review against another edition
dark
funny
mysterious
reflective
sad
tense
medium-paced
- Plot- or character-driven? A mix
- Strong character development? Yes
- Loveable characters? Yes
- Diverse cast of characters? Yes
- Flaws of characters a main focus? Yes
5.0
litwrite's review
5.0
This is a reread for me, though the last time I read this book was ten years ago when it first came out. After reading Dead in the West I thought I'd give Lansdale another try. He's an accomplished author though I haven't read a lot of his stuff.
The Bottoms takes place in Eastern Texas during the depression and is told from the point of view of a 12 year old boy whose father is the constable of a small community. The ravaged, mutilated bodies of colored women start appearing in the woods near the community, nicknamed the Bottoms. The rash of deaths, and the constable's insistence on solving the murders, leads to much racial tension that threatens to tear the community apart.
This book is good. So very very good. Like a darker version of To Kill a Mockingbird, it handles a lot of the same themes, but obviously in a more adult way. I love the way Lansdale uses the first person narrative from a younger child's point of view, one who is on the cusp of manhood but is learning new truths of how the world works, especially in a time of much upheaval and sadness. Despite having read the novel before (though I'm not sure that having read it a decade ago counts) this was a real page turner, and it had been long enough ago that though I had vague recollections of who the culprit was, I was still surprised and thoroughly satisfied at the reveal.
All the characters are fleshed out and not at all one dimensional, villanous or otherwise, and the descriptions of the Bottoms and life in Texas in the 1930's were interesting and painted a vivid picture. I can't recommend this book strongly enough. If you enjoy historical fiction, and murder mysteries, this one is for you.
The Bottoms takes place in Eastern Texas during the depression and is told from the point of view of a 12 year old boy whose father is the constable of a small community. The ravaged, mutilated bodies of colored women start appearing in the woods near the community, nicknamed the Bottoms. The rash of deaths, and the constable's insistence on solving the murders, leads to much racial tension that threatens to tear the community apart.
This book is good. So very very good. Like a darker version of To Kill a Mockingbird, it handles a lot of the same themes, but obviously in a more adult way. I love the way Lansdale uses the first person narrative from a younger child's point of view, one who is on the cusp of manhood but is learning new truths of how the world works, especially in a time of much upheaval and sadness. Despite having read the novel before (though I'm not sure that having read it a decade ago counts) this was a real page turner, and it had been long enough ago that though I had vague recollections of who the culprit was, I was still surprised and thoroughly satisfied at the reveal.
All the characters are fleshed out and not at all one dimensional, villanous or otherwise, and the descriptions of the Bottoms and life in Texas in the 1930's were interesting and painted a vivid picture. I can't recommend this book strongly enough. If you enjoy historical fiction, and murder mysteries, this one is for you.
whaydengilbert's review against another edition
4.0
Really more like a 3.5, but I can’t really tell if my criticisms are well-founded, or if the trappings of mystery fiction don’t really work for me. Like the exposition you get from the villain once they’re found out…I get that it’s part of the whole *thing*, I just find it so tedious. I’m also a really slow reader, and because of that I usually have more time to stew and figure out “who” it was that “dunnit” and unfortunately this is no exception.
However, Lansdale’s greatest strength is Voice, and in The Bottoms, as well as everything else I’ve read by him, it’s truly a joy to go along for the ride, even one that’s as sad and cruel as this one is at times.
However, Lansdale’s greatest strength is Voice, and in The Bottoms, as well as everything else I’ve read by him, it’s truly a joy to go along for the ride, even one that’s as sad and cruel as this one is at times.