Hysterically funny wonderful supsense novel! My first reading of a Joe Lansdale novel was by accident when I wanted to try to find some new mystery writers to enjoy and ordered 'A Fine Blue Line' from a book club. I found Mr. Lansdale's writing and characters so good in that book that I then purchased 'The Bottoms' which was even better if possible. Both of which are murder mysterysuspense novels.I had never heard of Joe R. Lansdale a Texas born writer until I bought those two books and was surprised to find he has a large and loyal cult following as a writer of horrorsupernatural short stories and novels one of which became the popular movie BubbaHoTep about two elderly gentlemen in a nursing home who believe they are really a former US President and Elvis Presley. Although not a huge fan of horror in general I read that short story and found it very funny and quite frightening and decided to see what else he had written that I might like. I then stumbled upon his Hap & Leonard mystery suspense novels and was hooked. I now have them all and had to look for something more by Joe.I ran across this older book Freezer Burn and finally got a copy of it. I can't say enough good things other than to say it's his very BEST mysterysuspense novel of all and a super great read! So much so that he has now become one of my five top favorite writers of all time in any genre.This is the story set in Texas naturally of redneck loner loser and Mama's boy Bill Roberts. One day Mom dies and chronically unemployed Bill we'll just call him slightly slow decides he doesn't want to give up her Social Security check so he leaves her rapidly decaying body in a back bedroom with only the ever increasing flies and the Texas heat to keep her company. Bill is always scheming though so he and an even dumber buddy plan a robbery of a fireworks stand a plan that goes incredibly bad and this is when the story gets downright hysterical! Bill high tails it into the swamp and emerges eventually with a gigantic red and swollen face and head having been bitten hundreds nay thousands of times by those giant Texas skeeters. Appearing to be a real freak of nature he goes on the run by joining up with a cheap traveling carnival and fits right in! Look forward to lots of laughter as the dialogue and characters creepy midgets pinheads pumpkinheads a dogman and bearded lady to name a few are superbly written.One mystery starts upon Bill's seeing the carvnival's main attraction a sinister bearded man frozen in ice. Is the iceman a genuine caveman orperhaps even..
The very very best of Lansdale! My first reading of a Joe Lansdale novel was by accident when I wanted to try to find some new mystery writers to enjoy and ordered 'A Fine Blue Line' from a book club. I found Mr. Lansdale's writing and characters so good in that book that I then purchased 'The Bottoms' which was even better if possible. Both of which are murder mysterysuspense novels.I had never heard of Joe R. Lansdale a Texas born writer until I bought those two books and was surprised to find he has a large and loyal cult following as a writer of horrorsupernatural short stories and novels one of which became the popular movie BubbaHoTep about two elderly gentlemen in a nursing home who believe they are really a former US President and Elvis Presley. Although not a huge fan of horror in general I read that short story and found it very funny and quite frightening and decided to see what else he had written that I might like. I then stumbled upon his Hap & Leonard mystery suspense novels and was hooked. I now have them all and had to look for something more by Joe.I ran across this older book Freezer Burn and finally got a copy of it. I can't say enough good things other than to say it's his very BEST mysterysuspense novel of all and a super great read! So much so that he has now become one of my five top favorite writers of all time in any genre.This is the story set in Texas naturally of redneck loner loser and Mama's boy Bill Roberts. One day Mom dies and chronically unemployed Bill we'll just call him slightly slow decides he doesn't want to give up her Social Security check so he leaves her rapidly decaying body in a back bedroom with only the ever increasing flies and the Texas heat to keep her company.
Very Odd Mixture But Ultimately Vintage Lansdale I wasn't sure what to think of _Freezer Burn_ when I started it. The characters were just a bit too wild to really register. Then about the time the protagonist Bill realizes that he's starting to have unusual feelings love friendship for Conrad the Wonder Dog and Frost the leader of a small freakshow he's hooked up with following a botched robbery I realized that I was starting to feel all warm inside too. It takes a great writer to create a character like Billsomeone you'd normally cross the street to avoidand make you care about what happens to him. I know that other reviewers didn't feel the same way but I was right there rooting for the poor guy the whole way. If anything the downbeat noirish finale which I should have seen coming came as a bit of a surprise even though we've all seen this a thousand times before think _Double Indemnity_ or _Body Heat_. Heck I would have been happy just following Bill's adventures with the freakshow for a few more hundred pages. I really enjoyed this book and would recommend it highly though it's obviously not for all tastes.
Back to Adam and Eve I recommend this book yet give it a mixed review. On the one hand I found the character of Conrad one of the most compelling I've ever come across in literaturewonderful and amazing! on the other hand the ending was excruciatingly bleak. It crushed me. This was the first time I read anything by Lansdale and I plan on reading more.
Lansdale retells 'Freaks' as a comic roman noir. Bill Roberts is a laconic and none to smart loser that decides to rob a firecracker stand just across the street because his mother is now dead and stinking up the place and he cannot get the nerve up to forge her social security checks to get the money which he is just about out of. With two cohorts helping him out the robbery goes well for about two seconds. Then things go south in a hurry. Four corpses later poor Bill stumbles out of the swamp and into a traveling carnival Freakshow run by a kind hearted man with a hand growing out of his chest and his femme fatale wife. Hoping to hide out until things cool down in the real world Bill takes a job there and waits for the proper angles to present themselves. Gidget the blonde bombshell wife of the show's owner has some plans of her own as well as some very nice angles to get them done.Freezer Burn is largely a retelling of the film 'Freaks' as a comedic roman noir. Chock full of unsavory characters that view humane behavior as stupid and weak this is certainly not a novel for all tastes. Longtime Lansdale fans will be delighted to see him brush up on his darker roots the ones responsible for The Nightrunners and the black as tar noir nightmare The Night They Skipped the Horror Show. Others used to the trace of nobility found in his most recent work will wonder why he wasted his time telling the tale of such an unlikable sociopath antihero. Being a nearly twenty year Lansdale addict I heartily recommend to his longtime fans as well as to those who just like dark hearted noir with a goofball twist.
Hard to pin down but interesting. This book is really odd. I gave it a rating of 4 stars but I can't decide if that's really the best rating. I can't really say it has a good beat and I can dance to it so I give it an 86 no I have to say that it is so far outside the bounds of nearly anything I've ever read that I cannot easily classify it.The story revolves around Bill Roberts a name that almost screams average guy who is a middleaged loser who used to live off the his mother's meager pension checks. Well that's no more because good old mom is dead and Bill can't forge her signature to save his life. So he cooks up a scheme to rob a firecracker stand. That's right a firecracker stand. Go figure. Naturally the robbery goes terribly wrong and people get killed. A strangely hilarious chase through a Texas swamp ensues whereby more people die in bizarre manners.Bill ends up being nearly eaten alive by misquotoes which makes him look freakish and by coincidence happens to be rescued from the swamp by the owner of a traveling freak show.
JUST WHO ARE THE FREAKS? Joe Lansdale is a marvelous writer I have enjoyed most of the books I've read of his. FREEZER BURN is certainly full of Lansdale's trademark humor and unusual scenarios but ultimately it loses ground in the story of Bill Roberts and his involvement with Frost's freakshow. The story is filled with sexual innuendo thoughts and acts Gidget is reminiscent of Kathleen Turner in Body Heat and other femme fatales. Bill comes across selfish and uncaring at times and when he does care it's not enough. He's definitely a man ruled by his sexual satisfaction.
Frozen By The Freezer And Burned By The Girl!!! This movie is about one of life's losers Bill Roberts. Bill's mother has died and he doesn't want to forge her signature on her Welfare Checks. Furthermore she has left her house to an Animal Shelter in her Will. Instead of hiring a lawyer and contesting the Will like any sane person Bill decides to rob the fireworks stand and is soon caught up in a murder. He flees into the woods and become part of a travelling Carnival where he meets Gidget who is one cold hard hearted lady.Gidget has Murder on her mind and justifies her actions by being self aware that her and Bill are both Rotten to the core. This book is highly entertaining and I would rank it as one of Joe R. Lansdale's best.
Not one of my favorites It seems readers either love or hate Freezer Burn. I have to write that I'm in the middle. I LOVE almost all of Lansdale's writing.
A HILARIOUS NOVEL ABOUT ADULTERY AND MURDER!!! First let me talk for a moment about the writings of Joe R. Lansdale. I'm now totally addicted to this remarkable East Texas author. I think his novel THE BOTTOMS is one of the true masterpieces of modern American literature. I love the Hap/Leonard series and could read a new novel about these two hilarious and utterly heroic characters every week if Mr. Lansdale could write the books fast enough. I've read his novellas THE BOAR and THE BIG BLOW and have wondered why a mainstream publisher didn't pick up these two great little books. I've also read his children's story SOMETHING LUMBER THIS WAY COMES. So far I've enjoyed every piece of writing by him that I have read. FREEZER BURN is no exception. Though certainly different from the above books it nevertheless is pure Lansdale at his best. This is the story of Bill Roberts a low life who simply doesn't know any better. He's been living with his dominating mother for a long time and when she finally dies he decides to keep her body in the bedroom so that her social security checks will continue to come in. The only problem with the plan is that Bill is unable to successfully forge her signature on the checks. So with a handful of checks he's unable to cash a raucous smell permeating the house and a couple of cans of beets in the kitchen cabinet left to eat Bill makes the lessthanlucid decision to rob the firecracker stand across the street on the fourth of July with the help of two equally stupid acquaintances Fat Boy and Chaplin. Like everything else in Bill's life the robbery goes terribly wrong. The owner of the firecracker stand is murdered and then Fat Boy he encounters a nest of water moccasins in the swamp!!!! and Chaplin are killed in the getaway. Bill hides out in the Bottoms for a day or so feeding the mosquitoes with his face avoiding the poisonous snakes and praying the law doesn't catch up with him. When he eventually comes out of hiding he sees a carnival in a nearby field and goes to them for help. The owner of carnival Jack Frost takes Bill in and allows him to stay until he's completely healed from the mosquito bites and then offers him a job. This carnival is special. It's filled with freaks Conrad the Dog Man U.S. Grant the Bearded Lady the twohead Buckwheat pin heads and punk heads midgets and the Ice Man. Even Frost has a hand growing out of his chest. The only other normal person except for a couple of nasty roustabouts besides Bill is Gidget the wife of Jack Frost. Gidgetblonde beautiful sexy and as deadly as one of those cottonmouths in the Bottomsis every husband's worse nightmare. Over a period of weeks Bill gradually begins to see Frost and some of the other freaks in the carnival as human beings but it isn't his destiny to be a nice guy. Gidget has other ideas for him.
Read more...
Related Products
- Cold in July JOE LANSDALE'S VERSION OF EAST TEXAS NOIR!!! COLD IN JULY by Joe R. Lansdale is one of the author's earlier novels. The book was first published in 1989 and is just as fast paced thought provoking and violent as his newer ones. This is the story of Richard Dane a ...Read the full
- The Bottoms (Vintage Crime/Black Lizard Original) Success is how high you bounce when you hit bottom. George S. Patton The memories we have of our younger days are prescious and as we go on with our lives those recollections become cherished.This story is told as a man is nearing the end of his life reminiscing ...Read the full
- The Complete Drive-In Postmodern 50s pulp! I loved this book. I'm too cynical for most horror so King/Koontz/et al bore me. Lansdale does not bother trying to convince us these tales are real. This is pure pulpy goodness. Where else could you find dinosaur rape cannibalism and human ...Read the full
No comments:
Post a Comment