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Title details for Sunset and Sawdust by Joe R. Lansdale - Available

Sunset and Sawdust

by Joe R. Lansdale
Deborah Marlowe
Audiobook
1 of 1 copy available
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1 of 1 copy available
He has been called “hilarious . . . refreshing . . . a terrifically gifted storyteller with a sharp country-boy wit” (Washington Post Book World), and praised for his “folklorist’s eye for telling detail and [his] front-porch raconteur’s sense of pace” (New York Times Book Review). Now, Joe R. Landsdale gives us a fast-moving, electrifying new novel: a murder mystery set in a steamy backwater of Depression-era East Texas.
It begins with an explosion: Sunset Jones kills her husband with a bullet to the brain. Never mind that he was raping her. Pete Jones was constable of the small sawmill town of Camp Rapture (“Camp Rupture” to the local blacks), where no woman, least of all Pete's, refuses her husband what he wants.
So most everyone is surprised and angry when, thanks to the unexpected understanding of her mother-in-law—three-quarter owner of the mill—Sunset is named the new constable. And they're even more surprised when she dares to take the job seriously: beginning an investigation into the murder of a woman and an unborn baby whose oil-drenched bodies are discovered buried on land belonging to the only black landowner in town. Yet no one is more surprised than Sunset herself when the murders lead her—through a labyrinth of greed, corruption, and unspeakable malice—not only to the shocking conclusion of the case, but to a well of inner strength she never knew she had.
Landsdale brings the thick backwoods and swamps of East Texas vividly to life, and he paints a powerfully evocative picture of a time when Jim Crow and the Klan ruled virtually unopposed, when the oil boom was rolling into and over Texas, when any woman who didn't know her place was considered a threat and a target. In Sunset, he gives us a woman who defies all expectations, wrestling a different place for herself with spirit and spit, cunning and courage. And in Sunset and Sawdust he gives us a wildly energetic novel—galvanizing from first to last.

  • Creators

  • Publisher

  • Release date

    December 16, 2003

  • Formats

    • OverDrive Listen audiobook

      • ISBN: 9781415952948
      • File size: 378384 KB
      • Duration: 13:08:17

  • Languages

    • English

  • Reviews

    • AudioFile Magazine
      Joe R. Lansdale is a superb storyteller who serves up a gem in SUNSET AND SAWDUST. Set in East Texas in the 1930s, the story focuses upon Sunset Jones, who has just killed her abusive husband, Pete, who was the town constable. Unexpectedly, Sunset's mother-in-law, who owns the mill in the company town where they live, forgives Sunset and appoints her constable. Both naive and street savvy, Sunset finds herself embroiled in controversy, murder, and hatred. Deborah Marlowe's gentle, almost innocent, Southern voice is ideal, meshing wonderfully with Lansdale's prose. Marlowe has a soft, yet emotional, style, which allows the listener to focus on Lansdale's characters. D.J.S. (c) AudioFile 2004, Portland, Maine
    • Publisher's Weekly

      February 9, 2004
      The prolific Lansdale's novels (The Bottoms
      ; Rumble Tumble
      ; Bad Chili
      ) are always wild and wooly, and this redneck noir stand-alone is no exception. Lansdale has shifted the time frame to the 1930s, but the novel is still set in his usual series location, East Texas—and it's still peopled by the oddest bunch of characters ever to leap off the page. The book opens in the midst of a cyclone as beautiful red-haired Sunset Jones is being beaten and raped by her no-good husband, Pete, in their ramshackle home. Fearing for her life, Sunset picks up Pete's .38 revolver (he's the town constable) and shoots him dead, just as the cyclone carries off most of their house. After recovering from the beating ("She felt as if she had been set on fire and put out with a yard rake"), she's elected to complete the remainder of Pete's term as constable, and she's more than equal to the task. A couple of dead bodies and a land fraud scheme come to light, along with some of the creepiest low-life bad guys to ever crawl out from under a rock. The mystery is only mildly engrossing here; the great pleasure of Lansdale's work lies in his pitch-perfect vernacular prose ("He had greeted them as they climbed into the car, and they hadn't said so much as eat shit or howdy"). The book opens with a cyclone, ends with a plague of grasshoppers and in between there's insanity, extreme violence, sex, grotesques aplenty and an excellent dog. What's not to like? (Mar.)

      Forecast:
      Lansdale's fan base is rabidly loyal and has been slowly expanding. A hip, new-look cover may help push him out of the realms of cult favorite and into the literary mainstream
      .

    • AudioFile Magazine
      In an East Texas sawmill town at the beginning of the oil boom, a rape leads Sunset Jones to shoot her husband. He had been the constable of the town, which is still a place of prejudice against women, blacks, and anyone who gets in the way. When she's appointed the new constable by her influential mother-in-law, Sunset takes the job seriously, and all hell breaks loose. Joe Lansdale delivers an effective yet unhurried story that puts the listener at ease while being shocked by the goings-on in the backwoods, where the Klan rules and women had best obey their men, or else. B.J.P. (c) AudioFile 2007, Portland, Maine

Formats

  • OverDrive Listen audiobook

subjects

Languages

  • English

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