The Thicket

by Joe R. Lansdale

Overview

Love and vengeance at the dark dawn of the East Texas oil boom from Joe Lansdale, "a true American original" (Joe Hill, author of Heart-Shaped Box).

Jack Parker thought he'd already seen his fair share of tragedy. His grandmother was killed in a farm accident when he was barely five years old. His parents have just succumbed to the smallpox epidemic sweeping turn-of-the-century East Texas -- orphaning him and his younger sister, Lula.

Then catastrophe strikes on the way to their uncle's farm, when a traveling group of bank-robbing bandits murder Jack's grandfather and kidnap his sister. With no elders left for miles, Jack must grow up fast and enlist a band of heroes the likes of which has never been seen if his sister stands any chance at survival. But the best he can come up with is a charismatic, bounty-hunting dwarf named Shorty, a grave-digging son of an ex-slave named Eustace, and a street-smart woman-for-hire named Jimmie Sue who's come into some very intimate knowledge about the bandits (and a few members of Jack's extended family to boot).

In the throes of being civilized, East Texas is still a wild, feral place. Oil wells spurt liquid money from the ground. But as Jack's about to find out, blood and redemption rule supreme.

In The Thicket, award-winning novelist Joe R. Lansdale lets loose like never before, in a rip-roaring adventure equal parts True Grit and Stand by Me - - the perfect introduction to an acclaimed writer whose work has been called "as funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm -- or Mark Twain" (New York Times Book Review).

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780316188449
Publisher:	Little, Brown Book Group
Publication date:	10/14/2014
Edition description:	Reprint
Pages:	368
Sales rank:	437,259
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.20(h) x 1.20(d)

About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of nearly four dozen novels, including Rusty Puppy, the Edgar-award winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. He has received nine Bram Stoker Awards, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.

What People are Saying About This

Dean Koontz

"Reading Joe Lansdale is like listening to a favorite uncle who just happens to be a fabulous storyteller. This book deals with dark and strange material, but it is hugely appealing as narrated in the first person by young Sue Ellen, who shines.

Editorial Reviews

" Hellish and hilarious . . . It's classic Lansdale, his own self peppered throughout by much piney backwoods philosophizing on everything from religion to whoring, [with] the author's long-ago trademarked heaping helping of wry, often delightfully vulgar humanism. The Thicket is a keeper and then some." —Austin Chronicle

"This latest work reads like a dark version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and feels like a Coen brothers movie. It's the perfect mix of light and dark, with plenty of humor mixed in." —Houston Chronicle

"Lansdale excels at giving his fans what they want...Many die, but what's really dying here, Lansdale says, is a romanticized way of life." —Dallas Morning News

"The Bard of East Texas is back. . . . He has been writing brilliantly about East Texas for three decades, but never has the region appeared stranger or more violent than it does here. . . . Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make The Thicket another Lansdale treasure." —Booklist (starred)

"Lansdale offers up a coming-of-age Western adventure as captivating as the best of Larry McMurtry and written in a style reminiscent of Mark Twain. With intriguing, sometimes bumbling characters and storytelling laced with bravado, good humor, action, and heart...this title cannot help but captivate readers." —Library Journal (starred review)

From the Publisher

Set in early 20th-century East Texas, this satisfying novel from Edgar-winner Lansdale (Edge of Dark Water) takes 16-year-old Jack Parker to darker places than he ever imagined. After Jack’s parents die of smallpox, his preacher grandfather determines to deliver Jack and his 14-year-old sister, Lula, to an aunt who lives across the Sabine River. While waiting for a ferry, they’re attacked by a band of men, who kill the grandfather, nearly kill Jack, and kidnap Lula. Having lost most of his family, Jack doesn’t intend to lose her and sets out after them. Soon he encounters an undersized bounty hunter, Shorty, and Eustace Cox, the grave-digging son of an ex-slave, who agree to help him rescue his sister for a price. As the body count rises, the narrative grows steadily more grim (if, at times, hilarious). Lansdale’s humor and skill at characterization come across well, though at moments the reader wishes for just a little more background detail. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

"The Bard of East Texas is back. . . . He has been writing brilliantly about East Texas for three decades, but never has the region appeared stranger or more violent than it does here. . . . Memorable characters, a vivid sense of place, and an impressive body count make The Thicket another Lansdale treasure."

Booklist (starred)

"This latest work reads like a dark version of The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and feels like a Coen brothers movie. It's the perfect mix of light and dark, with plenty of humor mixed in."

Houston Chronicle

"The Thicket presents Joe Lansdale at his finest-which is to say, at the high-water mark of all storytelling."

Michael Koryta

"Too often overlooked in American literature is that lineage descending from our early humorists such as Bierce, and from Twain: regional, darkly comic, bizarre. That's where Joe Lansdale lives. He's very Texan, very American, very funny -and a stone brilliant writer."

James Sallis

"THE THICKET starts off with a bang and ends in a shootout as thrilling as anything since Shane. It's set in a time and place in Texas-the Big Thicket, at the turn of the 20^th century-where anything can happen and usually does. This is classic American storytelling: Mark Twain leavened with dashes of William Faulkner, Charles Portis, and Cormac McCarthy. The result is all Lansdale, and he mixes good and evil, along with generous portions of laughter and even love, like nobody's business. God, can he tell a story."

Jim Donovan

"It has been a while since I have read a book which is such fun, not fun but the thing next to fun where there's a big rolling story — dark and light — told in a voice so alluring and deadpan that it makes you smile and then look around to see who saw you smile. Lansdale takes us on a wicked, charming journey."

Ron Carlson

"THE THICKET is a novel that earns a place on the same bookshelf as Charles Portis' TRUE GRIT and Cormac McCarthy's ALL THE PRETTY HORSES. Joe Lansdale is a supremely gifted writer, and his novel is one of the most enjoyable reading experiences I've had in years."

Ron Rash

"A doozy of a read, the kind of book we call an 'all nighter'...It's that kind of great, and it's pure-blood Lansdale, crammed to bursting with plot twists that recall the snaky bends of the Sabine River...This sucker moves...It's our favorite book of the year so far, and one of Lansdale's best, ever."

Austin Chronicle

"As funny and frightening as anything that could have been dreamed up by the Brothers Grimm-or Mark Twain."

New York Times Book Review

2013-08-15
If the Coen brothers' film version of True Grit gave readers an appetite for more underage period Western bounty hunting, Lansdale (Edge of Dark Water, 2012, etc.) is eager to oblige. "[O]ne thing for sure, this ain't your day," the retiring deputy of Sylvester, Texas, tells Jack Parker. He doesn't know the half of it. After Jack's parents are carried off by smallpox, his grandfather packs Jack, 16, and his sister, Lula, 14, onto a wagon and heads for their Aunt Tessle's in Kansas. The wagon makes it only halfway across the Sabine River on a suspiciously expensive new ferry when three men spoiling for a fight shoot Caleb Parker and the ferryman, leave Jack in the river and ride off with Lula. Jack's obligation to rescue his sister is clear, but the means aren't, until he runs into tracker Eustace Cox--part black, part Comanche, and maybe a hint of Parker mixed up in him--and his buddy Reginald Jones, a philosophical dwarf everyone calls Shorty. Offering to swap the deeds for his family's land for some timely assistance in dealing with "Cut Throat Bill," "Nigger Pete" and "Fatty Worth," Jack interests the unlikely pair in his quest. Soon enough, they're joined by Jimmie Sue, a whore with a heart of flesh; Winton, ex-rancher, ex–bounty hunter and ex-sheriff; Spot, his assistant back in the Sylvester jail; and Hog, Eustace's hog. The many shaggy conversations, anecdotes and back stories that emerge among the group gradually reveal to Jack what he's going to have to do to rescue Lula, what sort of allies he's enlisted for the job and what sort of person he is himself. Alternately violent and tender, with a gently legendary quality that makes this tall tale just about perfect.

Kirkus Reviews