Moon Lake

My main impression of 'Moon Lake' was formed by the dissonance between the content and the storytelling style that kept knocking me off balance and held me at arms-length from the emotions in the book.

At the start, I thought I was heading towards a Southern Gothic tale like 'The Elementals'. The opening paragraph was:

"My name is Daniel Russel. I dream of dark water."

How gothic is that?

Then we get:

"My first memory of Moon Lake was as a youngster, on a dark night in October 1968 with the nearly full moon seeming to float on the surface of the water. I remember its glow and the way the shadows of the trees on the side of the lake reached out for it like chocolate fingers groping for a silver platter."

Well, that's atmospheric even if the show more simile is a little odd.

The next paragraph sounds another gothic note as we find young Danny in a potentially scary situation:

"Me and my dad were parked on a long, narrow bridge that went over the lake. The bridge was made of rusty metal and cables and rotting wood. not to mention a few lost dreams, for the town beneath the water had been flooded and the great lake was supposed to be the new town's savior. People were expected to come from miles around to picnic on its shores and fish its depths.

They didn't. At least not enough of them."

That last line should have been my warning that this story's style wasn't going to be the one I'd expected. That comment doesn't belong to Danny the fourteen-year-old boy, on a bridge in the dark who is wondering why he's there and what his father is going to do next. It belongs to the older Daniel, a novelist and reporter with a penchant for editorialising.

What happens next is dramatic and unexpected and lived up to all my gothic expectations BUT, as soon as the action is over and Danny is recovering, we get back to the storytelling style that persists throughout the novel. The adult Daniel who is telling the tale, gave me the impression of a man sitting comfortably in an armchair, relating events that shaped his life once upon a time but which are now just another part of who he used to be. The tone seemed to me to be that of a folksy tall-tale but with ragged, discordant edges, spiked with vulgarity and sarcastic hits against the taken-for-granted white supremacy of South East Texas where the spirit of Jim Crow still cruised the streets in the cars of respectable white people.

I was almost able to immerse myself in Danny Russel's childhood experience in the months after the incident of the bridge but the writing style didn't allow it. A hatred of white supremacy and a suspicion of white authority figures sat just beneath the surface of the almost Huck Finn style first-person account like razor blades in ice cream. It meant that, as a reader, I knew I couldn't relax, even when good things were happening because worse things were on their way and they were already casting a shadow. Part One of the book felt like an exercise in protracted dissonance.

The tone changed in Part Two when the narrative lept forward a decade and Daniel Russel returns to Moon Lake because his father's remains have been found. The plot turned firmly in the direction of Daniel Russel, investigative journalist, takes on the powers that be and Daniel's too-progressive-for-South-East-Texas-in-the-Seventies politics fit more comfortably with the content of the story.

The pace of the story remained what might be politely called unhurried but I soon found myself bound up in the story of a small town dominated by a small, self-appointed, Council. They and their crimes were larger than life and I enjoyed seeing Daniel piece it all together.

Even so, there was something off about the style. Normally, I'd expect a first-person account of tales of intrigue, discovery and violence, to give a sense of immediacy and involvement in the action. This first-person account had a late-nineteenth-century folksy raconteur tone that adds a fire-side chat feel to the storytelling that reminded me of Herman Melville's 'Bartleby The Scrivener' only updated to be more vulgar and sprinkled with similes that tried too hard.

Even when I was watching Daniel fighting for his life against the bad guys, I never felt any real sense of danger.

The book ends with the same two sentences that opened it:

"My name is Daniel Russel. I dream of dark water."

but by then I had difficulty seeing Daniel as a man who had too firm a hold on his emotions to be much troubled by anything, including dreams.

I recommend the audiobook version of 'Moon Lake'. Jason Culp does a good job of capturing Daniel Russel's tone. Click on the SoundCloud link below to hear a sample.

https://soundcloud.com/hachetteaudio/... show less

When Daniel Russell is 13, his father purposively drives the two of them off the bridge and into a lake. The father dies, but a black mermaid, a black girl Daniels' age, jumps into the lake and saves him. Daniel lives with her family for a few months and then is taken in by his worthless aunt. Years later, Daniel returns to the town to take care of an inherited house, and then discovers his father's suicide is part of a much darker history of the town.

I found the book totally absorbing. Lansdale's prose is top notch, and his characters fascinating, especially the relationships between then. The mystery is great, though maybe a touch predictable in some aspects, but even so, the last few chapters are really exciting page-turners. show more Recommended. show less

Joe R Lansdale is my favorite living writer. He is one hell of a great story teller. The story in Moon Lake is great, the problem is Lansdale included a lot of bad similes/metaphors. You can read other reviews on the internet for examples. That's not to say all of them were bad, but when they were bad or indecipherable to what they were trying to convey, it really took me out of the story. Also, there was some continuity errors with some files (they were in an abandoned house, then they were in the trunk of his car, then they were back in the house. I'll read anything Lansdale writes, but I don't think I would ever re-read this one.

It's incredible how I could possibly not have heard of R. Lansdale. This is very close to Steve King, a classical gloomy setting and background story, supernatural advances, homecoming to a place of forgotten / buried memories and a classical good vs. bad setup, with the bad side untouchable archvillains. And very well written. In fact, in humour, Lansdale is highly superior to King.
The only things that didn't convince me were inappropriate metaphors and similes that are stylistically misplaced as can be, the missing depth of the protagonists (compared to King) and the final battle. Oh my this battle would have been the natural crescendo of things if King had orchestrated it and would have left you gawping. It has everything it takes, show more and it might have been epic. But it's not, as it is.
Lasrt negative: not a good reader at all! I like the southern drawl (I like 'it wadn like that'), but the reading is not purposeful enough and often he has to catch his breath in the middle of the sentence. show less

Joe Lansdale reliably turns put hugely enjoyable thrillers, but every now and then he produces something exceptional, like A Thin Dark Line, or his masterwork, Paradise Sky. This is close to the latter, with its evocation of a traumatised childhood and a rotten town full of corruption and murder. Utterly brilliant.

Lansdale expertly knows how to reel his readers in and this smooth flowing excellently paced narrative with resonant themes grips the reader until the very last page.

Daniel Russell has had an unsettled childhood into adulthood. His mother left him and his father. His father attempts to kill them both by driving into Moon Lake, a place of superstitions and controversy. Daniel, a young white boy, is rescued by a nurturing African American family until a crotchety aunt assumes custody of him, moving him away from all he knows. Now an adult, Daniel returns to his hometown hoping to find answers to the nightmares that still plague him.
At times this richly observed story is devastating as it exposes the deep secrets/betrayals of race show more violence and corrupt power strongholds yet is strangely exhilarating as humanity triumphs in unexpected ways.
A powerful gripping story that is an engaging blend of mystery, history and appealing wily characters that is a welcome addition to East Texas noir and southern literature.
I received a copy of this book from the publisher in exchange for an honest review. show less

I think a proper rating would be that I really enjoyed it. Moon Lake was entertaining as can be. Like so many novels, this one will be read and poked back in a paperback corner, fondly remembered for a rollicking good time.

It also had plot holes that even Wile E. Coyote couldn't miss. The characters were neatly placed into their slots of reluctant hero and his tough-as-nails love interest, pure evil, and finally, the mislead or misunderstood victims of themselves. Do not deviate from this course.

Lansdale takes a lot of swats at southern stereotypes and small towns in this book. Some are fair, some aren't. It's shorthand that authors use and I understand that. Writing against a stereotype takes time, energy and caginess. For the reader show more it can get a bit tedious after awhile.

All in all, I'd give this book a rec though. It's so much fun and there's so little brainwork involved. show less