Reviewed By: Ruth Jordan - RAM
Sunset and Sawdust
Amazon US HC Amazon Canada HC
Joe R. Lansdale
Class/Genre: Mystery
March 2004, Knopf, 352 pages/$22.00
A Lansdale novel is always something special. SUNSET AND SAWDUST is a treat. This is a tale of fraud and murder for hire. This is a history of an East Texas lumber town surviving through the Depression. Racial and gender inequality are explored. This is a story of one woman’s emancipation.
As the story opens our heroine is trapped in her home . A twister rages outside and inside her husband is giving her the beating of a lifetime. She grabs his side arm and aims. Hours later Sunset Jones begins the walk to her in-laws home. Her house is a ruin, her marriage is very over and she may face murder charges. And Lansdale has you hooked. The man writes Texas style. Big. His narrative rings with open wonderment. In the tale that follows his voice paints a picture that seems to be more an oral legend passed from generation to generation than the amazing accomplishment this work is. Characters leap from the pages larger than life as Sunset begins the second part of her tale. A story of hidden crimes and people who are both less and more than they seem. We have the matriarch and the dashing stranger amongst this tome. There is the daughter, the opportunist, the lost soul coming to make amends and the urchin hoping for a better life.
Lansdale has managed to create a Texan Canterbury Tales within the mystery genre. With SUNSET AND SAWDUST he has become the owner of the Texas book in the same manner Pelecanos owns Washington and Rankin owns Edinburgh. This is his bailiwick. Sit back and revel in an unique reading experience.
Ruth Jordan - RAM
Reprinted with permission. Do Not repost without permission from the author, Ruth Jordan - RAM
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