The Bottoms
Books | Fiction / Mystery & Detective / Historical
4.1
Joe R. Lansdale
This Edgar Award winner is "equal parts morality tale and page-turning thriller" (Denver Post)—classic American storytelling in its truest, darkest, and most affecting form, with echoes of William Faulkner and Harper Lee. Its 1933 in East Texas and the Depression lingers in the air like a slow moving storm. When a young Harry Collins and his little sister stumble across the body of a black woman who has been savagely mutilated and left to die in the bottoms of the Sabine River, their small town is instantly charged with tension. When a second body turns up, this time of a white woman, there is little Harry can do from stopping his Klan neighbors from lynching an innocent black man. Together with his younger sister, Harry sets out to discover who the real killer is, and to do so they will search for a truth that resides far deeper than any river or skin color.
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More Details:
Author
Joe R. Lansdale
Pages
336
Publisher
Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group
Published Date
2010-12-07
ISBN
0307742660 9780307742667
Ratings
Google: 5
Community ReviewsSee all
"If I had to nominate the Great American Novel I'd short list The Great Gatsby, both Huck Finn and Tom Sawyer and Death of a Salesman, (I know it's a play but it should be read as well as seen). If you absorb these you'll learn a lot about American culture.<br/><br/>Now I'd add to that list The Bottoms by Lansdale, or almost any book by Walter Mosley, (I've just finished Always Outnumbered, Always Outgunned). These are stories that deal with race and American society from coming of age to facing death and dying. They're real and touching and difficult to read if you have any empathy for people at all. I found them fast moving thrillers and insightful psychological."
David Farrar