Two Tough Guys
Joe Lansdale’s Hap & Leonard Take the Vanilla Ride

By John Hood

It’s hard enough to create one compelling character and then write him into being. Try creating two, and then not only writing ’em into being, but making ’em compelling enough to live with over and over again. Not many scribes are built with the kinda moxie it takes to attempt such a feat, let alone the kinda stamina required to keep it real; hell, that’s probably why few even dare try. But among those who can, and do, I count two: Chester Himes and Joe R. Lansdale.

Himes, you may recall, was the cat who found Chandler while doing a stretch in an Ohio State pen, vowed to do likewise, only from his side of the tracks, then eventually moved to Paris and did so.

Himes’ dynamite books include A Rage in Harlem, The Real Cool Killers, All Shot Up, The Heat’s On and Cotton Comes to Harlem, all of which feature the wild doings of Coffin Ed Johnson and Gravedigger Jones, a pair of Big Bad Apple detectives who see no need to obey any kinda law but their own. Like I said, the books are dynamite, as much an inside look into mid-20th century uptown life, as they are keenly-driven crime sprees soaked in blood and honor. And though ostensibly part of a series, each can easily be considered classics in their own right.

Lansdale, in contrast, sets his smart-ass stories in the wilds of East Texas. And instead of having a couple cops as his antagonizing protagonists, he’s got a couple ne’er-do-wells who seem to be constantly under the cops’ watch. Their names are Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. And they are unquestionably the most ass-kickingest twosome since the invention of the boot.

A salt-and-pepper team in a part of the country which is still somewhat unconvinced about civil rights, Hap and Leonard already have one strike against them. Add the fact that Leonard’s not only black, but he’s outspokenly gay, and you’ve strike two. You might think that Hap’s being a good ol’ boy would help. But it doesn’t. If anything, it only further puzzles the bad guys they go up against.

And in Hap and Leonard land, there is no shortage of bad guys to go up against – and to bring down, hard.

Take, for instance, Vanilla Ride (Knopf, $23.95). The name of an assassin who hires out mainly for the Dixie Mafia, Ride’s ruthless, relentless and the last person anyone would wanna see coming down the street gunning for ’em. Ride also happens to be the one to call when all else fails. And with Hap and Leonard, failure is just another way of ending a successful day.

The backstory goes like this:

A pal o’ the trouble-making twosome has got a granddaughter who’s fallen in with a buncha lowlife drug dealers and he asks Hap and Leonard to go fetch the girl and bring her home. Since Hap and Leonard never miss a chance to stand up for anyone, let alone a friend, they agree. Because there’s also a good chance that the two will get to kick some scumbag ass, they agree wholeheartedly.

And scumbag ass they do kick, with utter relish. They also flush a shitload of drugs. The only problem is that the scumbags work for and the drugs belong to the Dixie Mafia, and those good ol’ boys don’t take kindly to strangers fucking up their action.

So they send out the killers, who end up looking like clowns. Then they send another crew. Who face the same fate, only different. And by the time to red dust settles and the gunsmoke clears, there are a whole lotta bodies lying around with holes in ‘em.

I shan’t spoil any more of the sordid story, except to say it’s the best combination of right cross and left uppercut a self-righteous pair of sociopaths ever threw. That it happens to be the seventh in Lansdale’s searing series only makes it all the more flooring. This is enlightened pulp, dig? Egghead thuggery in a flat-top world. It’s brutal, it’s bloody, it’s unbowed. It’s Bronson by way of Crumley; The Equalizer as imagined by Crews. And it’s just the kinda altruistic pugilism this namby-pamby world needs if it’s ever gonna get back its spine.

I rang Lansdale at his East Texas home and got myself an earful. Here’s how I heard it:

John Hood: First off, congratulations on Vanilla Ride – it’s dynamite! I read it back-to-back with the few Hap and Leonard novels I hadn’t yet read, and to hit it bam! bam! bam! was quite the thrill. I wanted to go back and start all over again!

Joe R. Lansdale: Well, good! There’s a new Hap and Leonard coming out next year.

Really? Great! Do you have a title?

Well, I’ve got a title – Devil Red – but it may not be the title that is retained. But at this moment it’s called Devil Red.

I’ll be looking out for it. Speaking of Hap and Leonard, are their names by chance an homage to Elmore Leonard?

You know it isn’t, though it certainly could be, because Elmore Leonard is certainly a writer worth having an homage to. But in this case, no. I happen to have an uncle whose name is Leonard. And my brother’s middle name is Leonard.

I see, I see. Your family’s all in East Texas?

Yeah. My mother and father are dead. But my family, yeah. My kids even live here. My daughter’s a singer; she goes to Nashville and back. And my son’s a journalist and he works for the newspaper here in our little town –The Daily Sentinel. My brother’s over in Tyler, which isn’t far from here. And his family is all over in that area.

That’s great. Is there a real Laborde [where the Hap & Leonard novels are set]?

It’s a combination of several places: Tyler and Nacogdoches, even a little town called Mount Enterprise. Although a lot of people recognize a lot of the places in the books because I use a lot of Nacogdoches’ geography; though I do change it some; add things. I always see Laborde as just a little bigger than where I live.

So the locals can spot some of the stuff, right?

Yeah they can, ’cause I do borrow some of the stuff from it. Once in awhile they’ll spot places outside of the town that I’ve named and that’s nice.

What do the locals think of Hap and Leonard?

Well, the reception’s really been pretty good. A few people have said ‘they sure are nasty’ and I say “yeah, they sure fucking are!” I mean, you’re in the Bible Belt here. But strangely enough that’s not a big thing. Most people respond to them real well. I sell extremely well just in this little city. And, of course, throughout Texas, and everywhere. I haven’t had that big major bestseller like Elmore Leonard and people like that, but I sell steady. I certainly have a good career. And I’m certainly proud of the people here who respond so well to the work.

Hap and Leonard have a code of honor that – whether in a small town or large town – all humans can get.

Yep. You know I’ve had a lot of people who said at first ‘some of the stuff that you have in your books put me off, but I just find the characters so much fun, so interesting, and I like the dialogue and the way you write.’ And I always feel like you can’t get a bigger complement than that.

So they don’t have a problem with Leonard being gay?

I’m sure there are some who do, but as a whole… I respond to that through the books and I think it sort of indoctrinates people to realize that maybe some of their cherished beliefs are not necessarily so cherishable.

I also read that there’s a Steve Austin State University in Nacogdoches; that’s not by chance named after the Six Million Dolan Man, is it?

(Laughs) No, it’s named after Stephen F. Austin, one of the earliest settlers in Texas. In many ways he’s the father of Texas. In fact I’m sitting on a bench outside of Stephen F. Austin right now because I’m due to teach in about 15 minutes. I teach a screenplay writing class here, just for the summer.

So I guess that’s where Austin Texas gets his name?

Yes.

Speaking of screenplays, do you have anything coming up?

Yes, I’m doing The Bottoms, which is a novel of mine, for Bill Paxton to direct, and we’ll see if that happens. I still lack some revisions on it, but I’ve been running so much and doing so much promotion for this book… And I’m going to Italy tomorrow. So when I get back I hope to have a day of rest and then dig back into it and finish it up.

Well, congratulations. Bill Paxton’s really cool.

Yeah, I like him a lot.

You’re a big star in Italy, right?

Yeah, it’s kinda strange. But people recognize me on the street a lot of times. Not constantly; I’m not like Paul Newman or nothing. But an amazing number of people and paparazzi all know who I am. It’s very strange.

I’d read an interview where you’d said that Italy’s been very kind to you, and to Italians Texas is like Mars, so they really get off on the writing.

My last three books, including this one, actually appeared in Italy first, for that very reason. I gave them a bit of respect and let them publish them first.

Do they publish in English or do they translate them into Italian?

Oh no, they translate them into Italian.

And are the translations OK?

Well, I just have to go by other people because I don’t know Italian. I mean I’ve picked up a few words over the years and sometimes I can follow what people are talking about if it’s in context and I’ve been there for a while. I just got back from a month over there. I spent a month over there doing a documentary of Southern Italy. I understand that the translations are pretty good. There’s always somebody who will say ‘eh, that’s not a good translation’ and the next person will say how wonderful it is.

But they must be pretty good because the books are doing pretty well. [My wife] Karen and I like to joke that somebody makes up stories in Italian and he’s the real star. (laughs)

That’s funny. But Europeans are more literate, they do like to read, and they dig fun stuff.

They sort of get that the books are crime novels and that they’re suspense and so forth, but they also get the literary aspects of them. And they realize that they’re kind of a mixture of the tall tale, and satire, and that kind of stuff. And I’m real happy that they respond to that. Lately, American readers are beginning to respond to that too; they’ve liked the books but they’re starting to realize that there’s something else there. I mean, I’m not gonna give them anymore credence than they deserve. But I do like that aspect.

Yeah, yeah, yeah. It’s literary pulp. It’s for your back pocket, but it’s for the back pocket of someone who’s a little keener than the next person.

Yeah. Kinda like back alley literature.

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