Moon Lake by Joe R Lansdale

 

Lansdale is kinda a legend in genre circles--he's written in a lot of genres, and well--and this novel is a pretty good example of why. It's a gritty small-town/rural noirish novel, steeped in East Texas and Deep South history, culture, and sensibility, then woven into something both grotesque and beautiful. Hints of Horror, both in terms of grotesqueries and in terms of supernatural, but very grounded. His turns of phrase are delightful, and his characters are human all the way through--even many that are arguably villains. A noirish fashion, a bittersweet ending, but honest and earned. I'll have to see what else by Lansdale I can find, and read it.