High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale explained

High Cotton is a collection of short fiction by Joe R. Lansdale, initially published in 2000. In his introduction, Lansdale cites it as the "Best of Lansdale", and has called this work a companion piece to the 2004 collection Bumper Crop. Initially issued as a hardcover, it has been reissued as a trade paperback.

He provides a brief introduction before each story, offering a description of his intent, and contextualizing each within the history of his career.^{[1] [2]}

Contents

The collection contains:

• "Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland"
• "Booty and the Beast"
• "By Bizarre Hands"
• "By the Hair of the Head"
• "Drive-In Date"
• "Dog, Cat, and Baby"
• "The Fat Man and the Elephant"
• "Godzilla's Twelve Step Program"
• "Incident On and Off a Mountain Road"
• "The Job"
• "Letter From the South, Two Moons West of Nacogdoches"
• "Mister Weed-Eater"
• "My Dead Dog Bobby"
• "Night They Missed the Horror Show" (winner of Bram Stoker Award)
• "Not from Detroit" (based on scene from The Nightrunners)
• "The Phone Woman"
• "The Pit"
• "The Steel Valentine"
• "Steppin' Out, Summer, '68"
• "Tight Little Stitches in a Dead Man's Back"
• "Trains Not Taken"

Reception

The Denver Post wrote that it "serves as a good introduction to Lansdale's fiction... The tales are as weird and hard-edged as we've come to expect from Lansdale."^[3] The Rocky Mountain News called it his best collection.^[4] Fantasy & Science Fiction reviewed it, noting it is a compilation of "the stories that built Lansdale's reputation as one of the most audacious writers to come out of the eighties... High Cotton is only for the strong at heart, the fearless reader who can face its powerful subject matter as unflinchingly as did the author."^[5]

Notes and References

1. Lukowsky, Les (July 2000). "High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale", Booklist 96 (21): 2013–14.
2. D'Ammassa, Don (October–November 2000). "High Cotton", Science Fiction Chronicle 22 (1): 56.
3. Shindler, Dorman T. (September 24, 2000). "Author Lansdale poised for national spotlight", The Denver Post, p. H8.
4. Graham, Mark (October 8, 2000). "High Cotton: Selected Stories", Rocky Mountain News, p. E4.
5. De Lint, Charles (January 2001). "High Cotton: Selected Stories of Joe R. Lansdale", Fantasy & Science Fiction 100 (1): 26.