Books by Joe R. Lansdale
“The Bottoms is about a boy in 1933 who finds the mutilated body of a black woman, dead, strung up to a tree—so a lot of the book is looking at race during that time period through the eyes of a young boy. So there’s a strong setting, and an almost mythological storyline. Because when you’re living in an environment that’s very remote, people create their own stories that get passed down for generations, and Lansdale does a good job of trying to understand the people who lived there during that period. I think it can be more eye opening to see the absurdities of how people are treated when you look at it from the perspective of a child witnessing these things for the first time, to look at it with fresh eyes.” Read more...
Simon Hawkins, Film Director
Interviews where books by Joe R. Lansdale were recommended
The Best Noir Novels, recommended by Simon Hawkins
Noir is as much an aesthetic as it is a genre of book or movie, explains the film director Simon Hawkins; and though it might be set anywhere, Los Angeles is its spiritual home. Here, he recommends five of the best noir novels—each defined by their strong settings, seedy atmospheres and suspenseful plotting.
