The townsfolk don’t seem to care about the murder because of the victim’s race, but Jacob’s conscience and morality push him to investigate nonetheless. Their father, Jacob, is the town’s constable-in addition to being a farmer and town barber-and sets to investigate the next morning.

Harry and Tom eventually lose the Goat Man but encounter the mutilated body of a black woman who has been tied to a tree using barbed wire. The Goat Man of The Bottoms lives near the “Swinging Bridge” and is used mostly as the children’s scapegoat (sorry) for the horrors and harshness of the times. The Goat Man is a take on an old Texas urban legend of a half-man, half-goat monster that haunts Old Alton Bridge and the surrounding woods around Denton and Copper Canyon, Texas.

Harry and Tom get themselves lost in the woods after dark and get spooked by what they think is the Goat Man chasing them. Main had the general store, courthouse, post office, doctor’s office, the barbershop my Daddy owned, a drugstore with a nice soda fountain, a newspaper office, and that was about it. Marvel Creek wasn’t much of a town really, not that it’s anything now, but back then it was mostly two streets. Lansdale transports us so fully to his East Texas that it feels like reminiscing about experiences shared. The Great Depression looms in the background, while issues of race, oppression, justice, and morality haunt the foreground. The story is told from the point of view of 13-year-old Harry, who spends most of his days choring and exploring with his younger sister, Tom (Thomasina), in East Texas in the early 1930s. But what I got was part mystery, part horror, and part coming-of-age tale all wrapped up in a beautiful homage to Harper Lee’s classic To Kill a Mockingbird. When I first picked up The Bottoms, I was expecting a Hap & Leonard tale. Lansdale’s writing was “genre.” But after reading The Bottoms (and subsequently seeking out some of his other stories), I realized I couldn’t be farther from the truth-Joe Lansdale is simply a phenomenal storyteller.

I was aware of his accolades and fame and near-cult-like following, and I wrongly assumed based on my limited exposure that Mr. Lansdale’s The Bottoms by admitting that my only exposure to his work prior to this 2001 Edgar Award winner was a love of the film adaptation of Bubba Ho-Tep (which I only recently learned was based on a Lansdale short story) and a general understanding of the Hap & Leonard TV series that came from editing/producing Thomas Pluck’s reviews on this very site.

The Bottoms by Joe R. Lansdale