A FINE DARK LINE

JOE R LANSDALE
2003

A FINE DARK LINE is a ‘Murder Mystery’ in the same way that Nick Cave is a ‘Blues’ musician; both take elements and staples of their respective genres but add darker, more sinister aspects, subsequently warping something previously thought familiar into the unknown.

In this case, we have what is essentially a coming-of-age tale, supported by backwoods folklore and an almost supernatural tone in parts. There is also a lot of violence in this book; towards women, African-Americans, children, and animals. Although some of it is quite brutal, it is never glorified or gratuitous, and always serves the story rather than detracts from it. Unfortunately, violence is the only language some people understand, and it is this ugly truth that informs many of the more aggressive situations that crop up during the course of the story.

And what of the actual story? We’re introduced to thirteen-year-old Stanley Mitchel, who lives and works at the Dew Drop Drive-In Theatre with his mother, father, older sister and black housekeeper Rosy Mae. It’s 1958 and summer in the small Texan town of Dewmont, and young Stan’s eyes are about to be opened to how the world really works…

"It was so wild the way the world and Dewmont really were. Probably all towns were like this and most people never found out. I wished I were most people. It was like once the lid was off the world, everything that was ugly and secret came out."

After discovering a metal box buried at the edge of some nearby woods, Stanley manages to open it and finds it filled with old diary pages and love letters between two people, referred to in the notes as only ‘M’ and ‘J’. And thus begins an investigation that involves murder, secret truths, and one of the most influential families in Dewmont.

Stanley teams up with a few people in his search for the truth, with perhaps the most influential in his young life being Buster, the near-alcoholic projectionist from the Drive-In. Buster is around seventy years old, and an extremely grumpy bastard. He is also a keen fan of Sherlock Holmes, and it’s this literary creation’s motto of ‘when you have eliminated the impossible, whatever remains, however improbable, must be the truth’ that he applies to the investigation into the love letters.

Some of the ‘twists’ in A FINE DARK LINE aren’t entirely unpredictable, but that’s not really a problem, or even that important to be honest, as the story keeps shifting your expectations and subverting the focus of both the plot and the story.

There isn’t one character or line of dialogue that feels false, and everything, from the father whose casual racism that gives way to real respect, to the creepy description of what might be a headless ghost, is excellent. I love this book. I could have quite happily wrote 600 synonyms for ‘brilliant’ instead of a proper review.

But, I did write a review and as such I need a closing statement for it. So, in reference to the opening comment (and because I feel it really is the most appropriate comparison): If this book were to be turned into music, it’d be a concept album by Nick Cave and the Bad Seeds - and it would probably be the best album of their career.