THINGS GET UGLY
The Best Crime Stories of Joe R. Lansdale
A Review by A.J. Devlin
“You’re remembered for the rules you break.”
That’s the infamous Douglas MacArthur quote used by Ben Affleck’s Nike co-founder Phil Knight in the excellent, recently released film AIR, about how the sneaker giant landed an endorsement deal with basketball “Greatest of All Time” G.O.A.T. Michael Jordan. But when it comes to crime fiction, especially all things pulp, noir, and humour, another equally formidable and legendary G.O.A.T. stands above the rest – and his name is Joe R. Lansdale.
You don’t get a nickname like Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe unless you do break the rules after all, and like His Airness on the court, or Tarantino in cinema, Lansdale does just that in numerous of the nineteen unforgettable crime tales featured in his stellar short story collection THINGS GET UGLY.
Whether it be the foul-mouthed and hilarious misadventures of an anthropomorphic, Smokey-esque, fire-preventing grizzly in “Mr. Bear” (which doubles as an odd couple, buddy road trip as only Lansdale could spin it) to making the transaction of a vile, racist, and reprehensible Elvis impersonator / hit man being hired for something unimaginable in “The Job” still so riveting – these characters, while not sympathetic, have no business being as dynamic, engaging, and, I dare say, fun to read.
Joe R. Lansdale doesn’t just break the rules – he shatters them.
That being said, the author’s irreverent yet deliberate assault on the paradigms of story structure cannot be limited to that of simply bucking the norms and fundamentals. In some stories, such as the dark and bleak “The Steel Valentine” – originally written for a crime-themed anthology about the holiday of love no less – Lansdale may not break the rules as much as he bends them. As a result, a simple tale centered around affairs of the heart morphs into a pulse-pounding plot and essentially a two-person play that is masterfully told with such spartan, yet graphic prose it creates a cutthroat claustrophobia that tempts one to turn the revenge-fueled pages so fast they risk paper-cuts and thus joining the blood-soaked mayhem.
This unique theme of mojo romance continues in “I Tell You It’s Love,” in which it only takes Lansdale three pages to do the impossible by making the twisted logic of a couple of Natural Born Killers sadists and murderers somehow understandable as they descend into darkness and allow their deadly sexual desires to become all consuming. And in “The Ears,” what first seems to be a simple date between two potential sweethearts soon spirals into a surprisingly macabre and emotionally engaging sequence of events that had clues to the outcome staring the reader right in the face from the very beginning.
“The Projectionist” stands apart as it ruminates upon the devastating effects of abuse and how it can create both moral boundaries and a principled, carefully calculated rampage, yet still effortlessly manages to make its protagonist endearing due to what remains of the young man’s innocence, exemplified through chivalry while escorting an attractive female co-worker home from their place of employment. And after what begins as a sweaty and southern take on infidelity in “Billie Sue,” Lansdale delivers a wallop with a bizarrely humorous payoff that provides answers, but also creates for more questions.
However, these dalliances into romance only make up a portion of these chronicles, as Lansdale’s signature trailblazing style continues with such standout devilish and dark renderings like “Drive-In Date,” “Boys Will Be Boys,” and “The Phone Woman.”
In these three bone-chilling accounts – the latter inspired by a real-life experience the author had at home with his family – Lansdale doesn’t just bend or break the rules. In these tales, he completely subverts them.
In one of his terrific introductions (which are done for each of the nineteen stories, giving new insight into how Champion Joe formulates and crafts his work) Lansdale explains to the reader how with “Drive-In Date” he wanted to provide a subtle social commentary that undermines the mythos of serial killers as masterminds. This is why, before revealing his characters as the wretched monsters they are and broaching topics as shocking and despicable as sexual assault, murder, and necrophilia, he is also able to showcase these men and their chest-thumping bravado and vulgarity in all of its unfortunate splendour. Having been in enough beer league hockey dressing rooms over the years myself, I can assure you the depiction of these alpha males is pitch perfect, and despite our efforts to think of such fiends as a different species, it remains an essential truth that all human beings are united by the mundane. The short “Boys Will Be Boys” also explores sociopathy but with a more youthful point of view, and the epistolary “The Phone Woman” ends on an unsettling development that almost shouldn’t work, let alone serve as an outstanding ending to a story that kicks off with three paragraphs worth of sidesplitting narration about dog poop.
In a way, it almost doesn’t matter whether Lansdale is breaking, bending, or straight-up subverting the rules of storytelling because every tale in this unforgettable anthology not only has its moment in the spotlight, but also shines brightly and sears livewire characters, crackling dialogue, vivid imagery, thrills, chills, and chuckles into the minds of readers.
Whether it be the pure, unfiltered classic noir, as seen in “Six-Finger Jack,” “Dirt Devils,” and “Rainy Weather,” the double-and-triple-crossing turmoil in “Santa In The Café” and “Booty And The Beast,” the beautifully backwater coming-of-age themes in “Driving To Geronimo’s Grave,” or the tragically all-too-relevant events in “The Shadows Of Kith And Kin” – nothing can prepare you for the sheer magnitude of emotion, contemplation, and escapist entertainment you will experience with this amalgamated masterpiece.
Hell, Lansdale even throws in a hair-raising supernatural one-off with “Dead Sister,” and if mind-blowing twist endings are your thing, then it is safe to say that master of suspense M. Night Shyamalan himself could learn from Champion Joe by reading his “Incident On And Off A Mountain Road.”
As Matt Damon’s character Sonny Vaccaro says in his final climactic pitch to Michael Jordan in AIR, “the rest of us just want a chance to touch that greatness.”
When you read THINGS GET UGLY, you will do just that.
A.J. Devlin grew up in Greater Vancouver before moving to Southern California where he earned a Bachelor of Fine Arts in Screenwriting from Chapman University and a Master of Fine Arts in Screenwriting from The American Film Institute. After working as a screenwriter in Hollywood, he moved back home to Port Moody, BC, where he now lives with his wife and two children.