“Now, in Russia, they got it mapped out so that everyone pulls for everyone else... that's the theory, anyway. But what I know about is Texas, an' down here... you're on your own.”
-M. Emmet Walsh (Blood Simple)
Don’t mess with Texas. Seriously, don’t. If there’s one helpful sign I’ve had surgically grafted onto my brain pan from reading the likes of Barry Gifford, James Crumley and Jim Thompson, it’s that. Or hey, just pop in David Lynch’s Wild at Heart and watch the Big Tuna segments. You gonna mess with that? Didn’t think so. Devil Red, the latest Hap and Leonard book from Joe R. Lansdale paints the east Texas landscape just one more shade of deeply weird that I’m happy to sit back and enjoy from the comfort of home.
The series featuring semi-professional, semi-intelligent, and hunnert percent ornery best friends, the laid back Hap Collins and the high voltage Leonard Pine has turned over more craggy rocks and sent more nasty discoveries scurrying for cover in the big country subconscious than seem likely to exist… anywhere. The hook is in Lansdale's execution, the way he rockets through outrageous humor, bloody mayhem, social and moral insight buried in on-the-nose, but from-out-of-nowhere dialogue and a healthy taste for and heaping portions of the flat-out grotesque that is mutating in the dark (and well lit) corners of contemporary Americana, that make his titles, (and not just the Hap and Leonard series) always worth taking notice.
From the Alamo to the troubled border, the actual history of the place, complimented by the epic vastness of the landscape, has grown a particular strain of mythical badass peculiar to the region celebrated and reviled in tandem in the works and words of hacks and masters alike.
Joe spins his tales in a carefully crafted yet wildly vivacious style that he's coined Mojo storytelling, and they cover, (from waaay over the top), horror, suspense, science fiction, mystery and western. (From his website)
Texas is so wrapped up in myth and legend, it's hard to know what the state and its people are really about... The bottom line is, Texas and its people are pretty much what most people mean when they use the broader term 'America.' No state better represents the independent spirit, the can-do attitude of America, better than Texas.
I'll take the Hap 'n Leonard tour any time.
Who's your favorite Texan writer?
Jedidiah Ayres writes fiction and keeps the blog Hardboiled Wonderland.
