I thoroughly enjoyed The Thicket, but the story has some raw and rough edges to it that people who prefer their stories bloodless and cleaned up might find offensive. Sixteen-year-old Jack Parker tries to get help for his sister, discovers that the local law isn’t going to do anything, and takes up with a couple of bounty hunters, the aforementioned Shorty and a big black man name Eustace who hangs around with six hundred pound hog called Hog. You Jack Parker and his sister Lula have the great misfortune to run across hoodlums that kill their grandfather and kidnap Lula. Joe Lansdale spins this story with gusto, getting the narrative tone pitch-perfect, painting characters that are real people who just happen to be larger than life – even Shorty, the midget. That's where Joe Lansdale lives.The Thicket is a story, a tall tale about Texas, about growing up, and about a world that used to be that somehow still lives out in the West and talks about a mindset that colors much of what people think and do. Too often overlooked in American literature is that lineage descending from our early humorists such as Bierce, and from Twain: regional, darkly comic, bizarre. Lansdale marries story and style in a way most writers never achieve. Nuanced, compelling, darkly humorous and remarkably vivid, THE THICKET quickly becomes a one-sitting novel, told in a voice that would have called Huck Finn himself in from the river. THE THICKET presents Joe Lansdale at his finest - which is to say, at the high-water mark of all storytelling. His name deserves to be whispered with the greats.

Joe Lansdale is one of the dark kings of modern mystery fiction, a master of the genre. * Library Journal *Ī gently legendary quality makes this tall tale just about perfect * Kirkus Reviews * This title cannot help but captivate readers. As captivating as the best of Larry McMurtry and written in a style reminiscent of Mark Twain. Storytelling laced with bravado, good humor, action, and heart. Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make THE THICKET another Lansdale treasure * Booklist * It's the perfect mix of light and dark, with plenty of humor mixed in * Houston Chronicle * This latest work reads like a dark version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and feels like a Coen brothers movie.

horror, bloodshed and laughs * Shortlist * A master of noir laced with laugh-out-loud black humour.

The thicket joe lansdale