Writer of the Purple Rage

Writer of the Purple Rage
by Joe R. Lansdale

About the Book:
Just when you thought it was safe to go into the bookstore, Lansdale's back. And he's stranger than ever.

The weird. The terrible. The fantastic. The real. It's all here in Joe R. Lansdale's latest and best collection yet. Stories from the dark side, the light side, and all shades in between, this is a masterful collection by one of the short story's modern masters. It doesn't get any stranger, more original, or better than this.

Sample these fantastic and horrible delights from the mind of Joe R. Lansdale:

• Elvis Presley, and black John F. Kennedy, whose brain resides in a battery-powered fruit jar at the White House, battle an Egyptian mummy who feeds on souls and writes hieroglyphics on bathroom stalls.
• A strange man with a weed-eater takes over another man's life through religion, wrestling, and a craving for home-cooked meals.
• Aided by Reptilicus and King Kong, Godzilla attempts to stop destroying cities and scorching people with his fire breath, but his good intentions go awry.
• A strange woman with a penchant for self-abuse and using her neighbors' phones, arrives at a family man's house and awakens deep, dark desires.
• A plastic love doll becomes liberated.
• Three boys in search of sex and adventure receive footwear fashion tips and bite off more than they can chew one summer night in 1968.
• A father who hates bad weather and fat thighs, makes a startling discovery when a tornado strikes a tornado magnet -- a double-wide mobile home -- and he and his son take a wild ride.
• A woman collides with a car on a mountain road and discovers strange and grisly horror.
• A baby's I.Q. is boosted dramatically when an alien possesses his diaper. But the diaper has a mind of its own.
• A cowardly trucker is pursued by a weird menace on a dark Texas highway.

And then things get weird!

With more than twenty books to his credit, Lansdale has been called "an immense talent" by Booklist; "a born storyteller" by Robert Bloch; and The New York Times Book Review declares he has "a folklorist’s eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur's sense of pace."

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.

Lansdale has won five Bram Stoker horror awards, a British Fantasy Award, the American Mystery Award, the Horror Critics Award, the "Shot in the Dark" International Crime Writer’s award, the Booklist Editor’s Award, the Critic’s Choice Award, and a New York Times Notable Book award.

Lansdale lives in Nacogdoches, Texas, with his wife, Karen, writer and editor.

 

Published in two states:
• Trade Hardcover Edition ($25)
• Slipcased Limited Edition of 500 signed and numbered copies featuring a comic book script, the actual comic, and an essay not collected in the trade edition, with introductions by Joe R. Lansdale

Editions

Excerpt

Artwork