Rating: 
Summary: A master storyteller at the top of his game...
Review: A FINE DARK LINE represents Joe Landsale at the top of his game. In this bittersweet coming of age novel set in rural 1950's Texas, Lansdale manages to do just about everything right. All of the notes he hits novel are clear and in tune and a few manage to reach deep enough to stir up some seriously deep, dark and muddy emotions. Lansdale was an impressively talented writer fifteen years ago when he wrote THE DRIVE-IN, a bizarre and wildly fun novel about teenagers trapped by aliens in an all-night triple-feature, and he's only gotten better over the years. Fans of Lansdale's earlier work will recognize some perineal elements and themes in A FINE DARK LINE. As the title suggests, racial concerns feature prominently in A FINE DARK LINE. Lansdale is also concerned here with the choices we're forced to make as humans. Friendship and love-both spoken and unspoken-are also major elements in this highly entertaining and affecting novel. If you've read Lansdale before, you know what a talented storyteller the man is, and have shouldn't hesitate picking up this novel. It's one of his best yet. If you haven't read him, but are on the lookout for an author who knows how to mix laugh-out-loud humor with just the right amount of nostalgia, poetic observationl skills, and honest, sometimes soft, sometimes steely emotion, then Lansdale's your man and A FINE DARK LINE's your poison. Drink deep, and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A master storyteller at the top of his game...
Review: A FINE DARK LINE represents Joe Landsale at the top of his game. In this bittersweet coming of age novel set in rural 1950's Texas, Lansdale manages to do just about everything right. All of the notes he hits novel are clear and in tune and a few manage to reach deep enough to stir up some seriously deep, dark and muddy emotions. Lansdale was an impressively talented writer fifteen years ago when he wrote THE DRIVE-IN, a bizarre and wildly fun novel about teenagers trapped by aliens in an all-night triple-feature, and he's only gotten better over the years. Fans of Lansdale's earlier work will recognize some perineal elements and themes in A FINE DARK LINE. As the title suggests, racial concerns feature prominently in A FINE DARK LINE. Lansdale is also concerned here with the choices we're forced to make as humans. Friendship and love-both spoken and unspoken-are also major elements in this highly entertaining and affecting novel. If you've read Lansdale before, you know what a talented storyteller the man is, and have shouldn't hesitate picking up this novel. It's one of his best yet. If you haven't read him, but are on the lookout for an author who knows how to mix laugh-out-loud humor with just the right amount of nostalgia, poetic observationl skills, and honest, sometimes soft, sometimes steely emotion, then Lansdale's your man and A FINE DARK LINE's your poison. Drink deep, and enjoy.
Rating:
Summary: A Fine Dark Line
Review: A great coming of age novel written by a true pro.
I rank this one with the other great coming of age novels
such as: Boy's Life, Something Wicked This Way Comes, The
Traveling Vampire Show and Summer of Night. Horror, suspense
and a drive-in movie theatre. What could be better.
Rating:
Summary: Lansdale gets it right
Review: Although Lansdale's Stanley is few years older than I am, I can say that not much changed in East Texas from 1958 to the 1960's when I grew up. Although I grew up in Austin, Dewmont is like the small towns around the state that I visited as a little girl. Lansdale gets the atmosphere and dialogue dead-on. Of all the characters, Stanley's dad is my favorite. He reminds me so much of men that I knew when I was little---big-hearted and learning to get rid of the prejudices that were taught to them. He provides some hilarious moments as he rights wrongs against his family. This isn't deep reading, folks. It's just sweet, and strange, and authentic.
Rating: 
Summary: Not Quite Sure what the Author wanted to Acheive
Review: Having read and enjoyed most of Joe R. Lansdale's earlier mysteries, I approached A Fine Dark Line with pleasant anticipation. I finished the book yesterday evening slightly puzzled. I am not sure whether Lansdale is writing the coming of age story in the small southern town, a mystery, or a thriller. All these elements mix rather haphazardly as Stanley Mitchel Jr. discovers sex, ghosts, old dark mysteries, race relations, and child abuse in the small east Texas town of Dewmont. Lansdale is a skilled writer and once again he has created a narrative of power and grace. But the pieces do not fit together and this reader left the book scratching her head, wondering what the point was. The mystery is only partially solved, loose ends are tied up rather hurriedly at the end (the disappearance of Richard and the Roy Rogers boots) and we are not real sure what impact the events have had on Stanley's life. I realize that authors often make statements by not tying loose ends up neatly for the reader, but this narrative had so many loose ends that the reader is left confused as to the ultimate point of the book. The disparate themes in the book are covered by other writers in a much more cogent fashion.
Rating:
Summary: A Look Back
Review: I enjoyed The Bottoms so well that I thrilled to see another Joe Lansdale story set in East Texas. Underlying the unraveling of two murders that took place long ago, there is social history that is examined. As I read the book, I could remember the time and remember how attitudes were changing for many people, but staying the same for others. As typical of the time, Stanley went from still clinging to Santa Claus to learning about sex, murder, domestic violence and bigotry all in one summer. He struggled with knowing that events were against the law, but feeling in his heart that they were the right thing to do at the time. In every respect, this was a wonderful reading experience.
Rating: 
Summary: My first time with Lansdale
Review: I liked very much the book. I've just finished American Pastoral and I was looking for something different. It was my first time with Joe R. Lansdale. I like the town's descriptions, the plot and the characters. In a way I found too many issues put together (the racial one, the discovery of hate and lust, the sexual education) but very well mixed up. It's a very good draw of fifties America and I could visualize every situation described. I will surely buy the other Lansdale's book available in Italy even if I think the original version is surely better to read.
Rating:
Summary: Simply Amazing
Review: I think everyone else who's written a rewiew as pretty muched summed up the story so I'll keep it simple. This book is one of the best I've read. I'd compare it to To Kill a Mockingbird and Homer Hickam's Rocket Boys. Same tone, different story obviously. His characters are superb and writing style flowing and descriptive in his very East Texas way. No question, pick up this book and you'll be taken to another time and engaged wholeheartedly. VERY highly recommended.
Rating:
Summary: ANOTHER WINNER FOR THIS GREAT AMERICAN WRITER!!!
Review: In Joe R. Lansdale's newest novel, A FINE DARK LINE, the reader is carried back to the summer of 1958 when thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchell, Jr. and his family move to Dewmont, Texas to take over the ownership of the town's only drive-in movie theater. This is the summer that Stanley will lose his childhood innocence and learn that there's no Santa Claus, what sex is really about, the ugly truth concerning racism, and the painful reality about death, murder and the human monsters that hide behind the masks of one's next-door neighbors. It's also the summer that young Stanley begins to learn about the power of friendship, family, love, and the unrelenting courage that's needed in the face of horror. Stanley's journey into adulthood begins when he finds a half-buried metal box filled with old love letters near a burnt-down house in the woods behind the drive-in theater where he and his family now live. The letters belonged to a young girl who was gruesomely murdered almost two decades before. The fact that the crime was never solved triggers Stanley's curiosity. With the help of his older sister, Caldonia, and his new friends Richard Chapman and old Buster Lighthorse Smith, he begins to slowly, but persistently, dig into the past, not knowing that what he discovers will change his life forever. Brilliantly written by one of America's top authors, A FINE DARK LINE carries us back to when comic books were a nickel, Tarzan movies played on TV in the mornings, and a young boy could believe that the fictional John Carter of Mars actually existed. This was a time when anything seemed possible, and small-town life during the hot, sweltering summer months was slow and relaxed, and the local teenagers flocked to the drive-in theater at night to see the newest movies and to make out in their cars. Mr. Lansdale is able to capture the pure ambience of these forgotten memories with a simplicity of words that draws the reader into the story as if he/she was walking the streets of Dewmont with Stanley and his dog, Nub. Each of the main and supporting characters are fully developed individuals that you either love or hate, and one can't help finding themselves laughing out loud as Stanley learns about the "birds and the bees" from Caldonia and Buster, or feeling the soul-wrenching emptiness as he experiences first hand from the Mitchell's housekeeper, Rosy Mae, how terrible men can be toward the women they love. This is not only a journey for Stanley, but one for the reader as well. You'll come away with a little more knowledge of what it means to be a human being in all of its mixed-up aspects. Like Mr. Lansdale's previous award-winning novel, THE BOTTOMS, this book is what I would call a "life experience," and it's one I would highly recommend to any person wishing more than a casual read. Entertaining, thought provoking, and nostalgic, A FINE DARK LINE is a true masterpiece from one of America's most gifted writers.
Rating:
Summary: powerful coming of age historical tale
Review: In the summer of 1958, the Mitchel family moves to Dewmont, East Texas to run the drive-in movie theatre, which they just bought. They hire half black-half Indian Buster Lighthouse Smith to operate the projector and a black woman Rosy to help Mrs. Mitchell with the cooking and the cleaning. Thirteen year old Stanley Jr. becomes closer to Buster and Rosy than he does to his parents because they listen to his dreams and fears. While playing with his dog Nub, Stanley finds a half-buried chest. When he opens it he discovers inside a bunch of love letters written in 1942. There are no signatures on the letters only initials and Stanley becomes obsessed with finding out who wrote them and what happened to them. He figures out who the writers were by questioning various townsfolk. He and Buster, a former Seminole police officer, investigate further, an action that puts him, his family and his two friends in danger. A FINE DARK LINE is a powerful coming of age tale set in a place and time when people of influence can get away with murder. The summer of 1958 is a traumatic time for the protagonist as he learns about sex, incest, homosexuality, and wife beating while someone tries to kill him. He successfully blackmails the town's most powerful citizens yet understands his experiences are meaningless in the greater scheme of life. Joe R. Lansdale once again transcends genre to write a haunting historical novel focusing on the human condition. Harriet Klausner
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