Freezer Burn - Softcover

Lansdale, Joe R

Softcover

ISBN 10: 098625942X ISBN 13: 9780986259425

Publisher: Pandi Press, 2015

Synopsis

“There isn’t any line. The only line is the one you draw yourself.” - Gidget

Bill Roberts had a history of messing things up. Things with his poor dead mama, for one. For another, the firecracker stand job he was planning with Fat Boy and Chaplin. And then there was his face, of course. When Bill finally crawled out of the swamp that day, his face was swollen to unrecognizable with stings and bites.

Bill’s disfigured face and lack of smarts only serve to attract John Frost, manager of the Oddities of the World carnival and freak show. Bill fits in nicely with Double Buckwheat, Bim, Potty and the other carnival freaks. Frost runs the show with a beautiful blonde bombshell Gidget, a woman so desirable she can persuade Bill and the rest of the Oddities crew into doing just about anything. Before Bill knows it, he’s wrapped up in a dark scheme that threatens to burn everyone involved.

Freezer Burn will have you rooting for the underdogs, and cringing at the behind-the-scenes horrors of the freak show.

About this title

About the Author:

Where does Mojo storytelling come from? How does a fella learn to spin over-the-top yarns of any sort: horror, suspense, humor, science fiction, Western, what have you? First you got to see the world, like Champion Mojo Storyteller Joe R. Lansdale, who has lived everywhere from Gladewater, Texas to Mount Enterprise, Texas to Nacogdoches, Texas! “Texas is so wrapped up in myth and legend, it’s hard to know what the state and its people are really about,” says Lansdale. “Real Texans, raised on these myths and legends, sometimes become legends themselves. The bottom line is, Texas and its people are pretty much what most people mean when they use the broader term ‘America.’ No state better represents the independent spirit, the can-do attitude of America, better than Texas.” The second ingredient to good Mojo storytelling is learning how to take a punch. Or a kick. Or a poke in the eye. And then learning how to avoid them. Lansdale is a student of the martial arts for more than thirty years. He’s a two-time inductee into the International Martial Arts Hall of Fame, one such honor bestowed upon him for his founding of Shen Chuan, Martial Science. He holds belts in Daito Ryu Aikijujutsu, Combat Hapkido, American Combat Kempo, and Aikido, amongst others; in fact, his standard day is six hours at the typewriter, three hours at Lansdale’s Self Defense Systems, the martial-arts studio which he owns and at which he teaches.

From Publishers Weekly:

Professional loser Bill Roberts's mother has died, and if he buries her he'll lose her pension checks, which he's also afraid to cash. Out of money and food, he joins two idiot friends and concocts a robbery of a neighboring firecracker stand. They botch the job and flee into the swamps, where Bill escapes, his face so swollen with mosquito bites that John Frost, manager of a traveling carnival and freak show, takes him in. Frost is married to the gorgeous, blonde Gidget, a virtual sex-machine and the most desirable woman Bill has ever seen. Bill is soon immersed in a world of freaks, where he makes friends with Conrad the Wonder Dog and U.S. Grant, the bearded lady, and quickly becomes embroiled with Gidget in a Double Indemnity-style plot to kill Frost and take over the business. Lansdale outdoes himself in rendering sophomoric sexual fantasy and graphic, stomach-turning passages of lurid behavior. There's also an inordinate amount of concern with penile size, bouncing breasts and tiny jeans shorts. As protagonist, Bill is not as much a hero as victim of circumstance, a man who "everywhere he turned is socked by the mallet of stupidity." But at the story's climax, Lansdale reveals Bill to be a true sucker, and unfortunately, readers may not be sympathetic to or appreciative of his folly. The details of East Texas swamps and forests seem on target, although the humor often misfires with overloaded similes and strained attempts to be outrageous. Still, this a page-turner suitable for bus or beach and for anyone with a predilection for tacky raunchiness and a yen for what teenagers call "gross-outs." (Sept.) FYI: Lansdale is the winner of the British Fantasy Award, the American Horror Award and five Bram Stoker Awards from the Horror Writers of America. He has written or edited 31 books, including 16 novels.
Copyright 1999 Reed Business Information, Inc.

About this edition

• Publisher: Pandi Press
• Publication date: 2015
• ISBN 10: 098625942X
• ISBN 13: 9780986259425
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 226
• Illustrator: Serra Daniele