Joe Lansdale, author of Cold in July, answered some quickfire questions for Mulholland Books, who published several of Lansdale titles including The Thicket and Edge of Dark Water.
Cold in July is the fourth and best cinematic offering from director Jim Mickle and his regular co-writer Frank Damici. Their previous works, particularly the apocalyptic Stake Land and the bizarrely touching We Are What We Are, hinted strongly that this was a creative pair on the ascendant, and Cold in July is the film where everything comes together.
Based on the novel by genre bending Joe R. Lansdale (you might know his work from other adaptations such as Bubba Ho-Tep and the Masters of Horror episode, Incident On and Off a Mountain Road) Cold in July is astoundingly faithful to the spirit of its source material. Set in 1989, this is a film that oozes ‘80s cinematic nostalgia from its synth score to its subdued neo-noir pacing.
Near the end of the review Jones makes mention of a forthcoming Mickle-Lansdale project.
Mickle recently announced that he was developing Lansdale’s Hap Collins and Leonard Pine novels for television. If that series is as well-crafted and as respectful to the books as Cold in July, then we’re all in for a Southern fried treat.
In conjunction with the series, next year Tachyon is publishing the first ever collection of the shorter Hap and Leonard stories.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
Cold In July — Easily the most “indie” of the smaller counter-programming films on this list, and a very welcome summer surprise. Feeling like an early Coen Brothers movie adapting an Elmore Leonard novel, it’s actually directed by Jim Mickle and based on Joe R. Lansdale’s book of the same name. Featuring a top-notch cast and a story that suddenly pivots into a completely different, unexpected story you don’t see coming, Cold in July was a tense dramatic thriller for adults in the middle of blockbuster season driven by a lot of effects-laden escapism. Not that such escapism is bad, and indeed several such films are on this list; but it’s always great to see films willing to take a chance on decidedly non-Summer-blockbuster tales, and in fact go outside the box of typical summer counter-programming. It’s one of my favorites of the year, and the sort you rarely see these days.
Cold in Julythe movie, starring Michael C. Hall (Dexter), Sam Shepard (Black Hawk Down), and Don Johnson (Miami Vice), is now available on DVD and Blu-Ray.
I was engrossed from start to finish. Lansdale has created a suspenseful novel filled with likable and funny characters, that caused me to laugh out loud. But hidden away in the thrill of the chase is a subtle message about family and relationships and how sometimes you have to make your own choice when it comes to answers – how much do you really want to know?
Cold in July started as a slow read, but quickly became a fast and thrilling ride.
I first read this one some twenty years ago. It was among the first two or three that turned me into a serious Lansdale fan and one I’ve been itching to re-read for some time. It stands up very well, even though Lansdale has definitely gotten better and his voice more distinctive since. Terrific book.
So, yeah. Crazy stuff. Lansdale without a filter, basically. The first novel has a nice, flying by the seat of your pants feeling, as if Lansdale is making it up as he goes and is having a helluva good time. The second one is more cohesive, and maybe a bit more satisfying in the long run. But both of them are well worth reading.
All the stories are fun and profane in the best Lansdale tradition. Not too many writers can balance grim against funny, horrifying against goofy, the way Joe Lansdale can, and the result of that is a handful of stories that only HE could have written.
Read about the rest of Lowrance’s binge at Psycho Noir.
For more information about Cold in July, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story.
For more information about Flaming Zeppelins: The Adventures of Ned theSeal, visit the Tachyon page.
His prose is lean and tight, dialogue and scenes have you in and running the the tale through his voice whipped in a well good sentence.
An author breathing amongst us the likes of the great authors James M Cain and Jim Thompson.
A pulp styled good tale but deeper without too much deepness in narrative just the right amount to be enjoyable wherever you restart reading the tale, right chapters sizes, right story length, all hallmarks of Lansdale’s skill as a storyteller.
For more information about Cold in July, visit the Tachyon page.
3. The Random Question: What are you reading currently?
I am reading Joe Lansdale’s COLD IN JULY, and plan to see the movie after I finish it. I love Joe’s ability to pull you into the story and fully engage you with his characters. Every time I read a Lansdale book, I have trouble putting it down, and the characters stay with me. He is definitely one of the most underrated American writers working today.
Read the rest of the Newstein interview at Maggie’s Blog.
For more information about Cold in July, visit the Tachyon page.
EDGAR AWARD-winning author and creator of the Hap and Leonard mystery series Joe R. Lansdale “returns” with a shocking standalone crime thriller to chill even the warmest summer night. By turns harrowing and hilarious, “Cold in July” is now the basis of a major motion picture starring “Dexter’s” Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard and Don Johnson.
“Returns” is the operative word. Lansdale’s latest is actually a reprint of a book he published in 1989. It’s been in and out of print since then and has been hailed as a fan favorite and cult classic. No matter what you call it, you’ll want to catch it while it’s back in print, because it’s worth staying up all night and calling in sick the next morning.
Originally published in 1989, the book is now published by Tachyon Publishing as a tie in to the movie starring Michael C. Hall, Sam Shepard, and Don Johnson. The read is incredibly good. If the movie closely follows the book, and one gets the idea it will from the forward written by film director Jim Mickle and the afterword from the author, it should be one heck of a movie. Cold In July is one heck of a read and very much worthy of your time.
For more information about Cold in July, visit the Tachyon page.
Lansdale (Bubba Ho-Tep, Edge of Dark Water, The Thicket) is the gonzo prose-laureate of East Texas and this novel is a brilliant example of his writing at its tightest. He slowly turns up the tension in the first third of novel as Russel becomes an eerie force of menace, tormenting Dane and his family in the finest noir tradition. Then the story takes an abrupt turn into a straight-up crime novel as Dane, his wife Ann, Russel, and the competently egotistical PI Jim Bob Luke begin to put together pieces of the mystery that neither Dane nor Russel can let go of–even when what they find challenges their definitions of humanity. Finally, in its bloody and blazing climax, the novel transforms again into a pulpy action triumph. Even throughout these transitions, Lansdale manages to add another layer of storytelling to the mix, that of the psychological turmoil of the protagonist (Dane) and his questioning of what it means to be a man and “do what a man has to do”, his ability to be a good father, and the burden of his own sense of honor. All of this in a tidy, 250-page package.
The characters Lansdale creates are vivid and lively. Ann Dale is a lovely, strong woman who can easily go toe-to-toe with these über-masculine men she finds herself involved with. Dane is a sensitive, but rock-solid man, the salt of the earth. Russel is a man with a soul-sucking darkness in his heart, but is also a man full of regret and a basic humanity that keeps him from becoming a monster. And Jim Bob Luke has enough personality for ten characters, but Lansdale manages to keep him from hogging all of the available spotlight.
Finally, as he usually does in his fiction, he evokes the very spirit of its setting. You feel the heat, smell the stifling air, and taste the salt of the sweat in the stifling sauna that is an East Texas summer. He paints a vivid picture of the brimstone and fire of South Texas refineries and the desolate scrub of the country outside the asphalt jungle of the city. Texas itself is as much a character in the story as the players.
Needless to say, this is probably my favorite Joe Lansdale novel yet. And that’s saying something.