HAP AND LEONARD is essential
Photo: Karen Lansdale
Marvin Vernon on his THE NOVEL PURSUIT rates Joe R. Lansdale’s HAP AND LEONARD 5 out of 5 stars.
The best way to experience the East Texas odd couple is to start with book one and go from there. But even for Hap and Leonard beginners, this collection may be a great place to start too. We get two novellas, :Hyenas" and “Dead Aim”, of which I have already reviewed when they were in book form here and here. Then you have five shorter tales that add onto the persona and even give a little boyhood background. Also included; a Joe R Lansdale appreciation by Michael Koryta, an interview with Hap and Leonard and an afterword by Lansdale giving a little background on their origins. “Hyena” and “Dead Aim”, the novellas I mentioned earlier, are very typical adventures for the guys. They offer the meat for this dinner. Veil’s VIsit, a collaboration between Lansdale and Andrew Vachss, brings us a look at a minor character in the H & L canon but also an important insight. “Bent Twig” starts out as a thriller featuring Hap on his own but doesn’t stay that way. He and his girlfriend Brett are again saving her wayward daughter Tillie. Bret refers to her as not broken but a “bent twig”. Finally of the contemporary short works, there is “Death by Chili”, a lighter and delightful conceit in which Leonard does his own version of Sherlock Holmes.
That leaves two other stories which for me are the icing on this literary cake. “Not Our Kind” tells of the meeting of Hap and Leonard as teenagers. It gives us an understanding of their bond at a time when their friendship was not generally accepted. But the masterpiece short in this collection is the “The Boy who Became Invisible”. When I first read I I did not realize it was Hap who was the narrator until almost the end. It stands on its own as a poignant and disturbing look at childhood and the events that may form our view of life when we get older.
“Joe R. Lansdale interviews Hap Collins and Leonard Pine” is cute but doesn’t give the stalwart H & L fans any new insight. I’m sure it will be helpful for the neophytes. Finally, “The Care and Feeding and Raising up of Hap and Leonard” is a well needed look at their origins and the author’s development through the years with these two endearing but unusual crime fighters.
So altogether, I see this as an essential Hap and Leonard addition and one that would be helpful to those who come across the guys through the TV series. But to be fair, any Hap and Leonard is good for me.
James Purefoy and Michael K. Williams as the titular HAP AND LEONARD (James Minchin/SundanceTV)
DEADLINE reveals news about a second season of SundaceTV’s HAP AND LEONARD.
SundanceTV is close to renewing Hap And Leonard for a second season. The network is looking for a new showrunner, we’re hearing, so all the pieces haven’t formally come together yet. But if it does, James Purefoy, who plays blue-collar ex-con Hap Collins, and Michael Kenneth Williams as his unlikely partner and Vietnam vet Leonard Pine would both return. Like Season 1, Season 2 would be for six episodes.
The film version of the Lansdale crime fiction classic COLD IN JULY comes to Netflix on June 1.
For more info on HAP AND LEONARD, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover by Elizabeth Story
For more info on COLD IN JULY, visit the Tachyon page.
Cover design by Elizabeth Story
