Joe R Lansdale's Mojo storytelling

November 5, 2004 12:17 PM

Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back
The tattoo is of a great, blue mushroom cloud, and in the cloud, etched ghost-like, is the face of our daughter, Rae. Her lips are drawn tight, eyes are closed and there are stitches deeply pulled to simulate the lashes. When I move fast and hard they rip slightly and Rae cries bloody tears. That’s one reason for the martial arts. The hard practice of them helps me to tear the stitches so my daughter can cry. Tears are the only thing I can give her.
East Texas writer Joe R Lansdale has written horror, science fiction, fantasy, mystery, suspense, westerns, "men's adventure," and just about every other kind of writing you can think of. On his website (see main link) Lansdale makes a story available for free every week to his readers.
Lansdale also wrote a novella featuring an aging Elvis Presley who teams up with a delusional, African American John F. Kennedy to battle an ancient Egyptian mummy with a predilection for anal soul-rape. It made it to the big screen, too: Bubba Ho-Tep. With Bruce Campbell and Ossie Davis. More inside.
posted by matteo (9 comments total)

I've mentioned on MeFi in the past another genius Lansdale story:
GODZILLA'S TWELVE STEP PROGRAM

There's also good stuff in Amazon's Quotes from Bubba Ho-Tep
posted by matteo at 12:20 PM on November 5, 2004

I didn't appreciate wine until I had a really good wine. Same can be said for short stories. That excerpt about the stitches and tears, that is great art.
posted by tomharpel at 12:34 PM on November 5, 2004

Good stuff. As good as Bradbury's Illustrated Man, if not better. I'd argue that Lansdale doesn't leave enough to the imagination in that story, but obviously that's not what he's going for.
posted by loquacious at 1:29 PM on November 5, 2004

Bubba Ho-Tep was awesome. I'll definitely have to read up this guy's stuff.
posted by DrJohnEvans at 2:02 PM on November 5, 2004

That was pretty great. Thanks!
posted by LittleMissCranky at 2:10 PM on November 5, 2004

Proving It is really amazingly good.
posted by stoneegg21 at 4:49 PM on November 5, 2004

Matteo is like a crack dealer with the Joe Lansdale. He crossed oceans and continents just to leave a Joe Lansdale book at my house...forcing me to become addicted....that bastard.

I swear, if he weren't such a dear friend, I'd a fed him to the dogs for addicting me to another author. (Matteo that is, not Joe. I'm sure Joe is perfectly nice and doesn't need to be fed to the hounds.)
posted by dejah420 at 5:04 PM on November 5, 2004

It's good to see the site hasn't deteriorated in two months.
posted by joaquim at 7:51 PM on November 5, 2004

Joe Lansdale was my martial arts instructor for about a year and a half when I was going to college in Nacogdoches. He's about as nice and down to earth as they come. And he can hurt you in ways you won't believe until you see the bruises the next day.
posted by Cyrano at 12:08 PM on November 8, 2004