Book Review : Joe R. Lansdale - Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap & Leonard (2022)
One thing every reader of Joe R. Lansdale’s Hap & Leonard series used to say before it was turned into an actual television show by SundanceTV is that it would make a terrific fucking television show. Because it is lean and funny and action packed and features two character you don’t need to identify with in order to relate to. In many ways, the Hap & Leonard novels & short stories feel like a novelized television show even if it’s actually the opposite and I mean it in the best possible way.
Hap & Leonard are primarily a kinetic experience and the stories in Joe R. Lansdale’s new collection Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap & Leonard feel, for better or worse, like actual episodes of the show.
Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap & Leonard is a short story collection that counts five (mostly quite long) investigations on weird and quirky crimes. In Coco Butternut, they are hired to rescue the mummified corpse of a dog held hostage for obscure reasons. This story is very much a textbook example of a Hap & Leonard adventure, where they’re mandated with investigating a wrongdoing that would’ve even qualify as a crime. But there’s always more than meets the eye when they’re involved.
That’s a recurring theme for the duo. Being from Texas, they are the essence of that distinction made in this State between law & justice. For better or worse, Hap & Leonard are righters of wrongs and whenever they investigate an alleged wrongdoing, they always end up having to deal with more than what the doctor ordered. Although they are openly progressive characters, they’re also the embodiment of a culturally conservative idea at heart: deinstitutionalized justice. That your survival is ultimately your responsibility.
Texas Justice
My favourite story in Born for Trouble is the second one Hoodoo Harry, where the pair investigates the death of a twelve years old kid who run them over with an old bookmobile. They are taking responsibility for an unspeakable tragedy and cross path with the most disinterested and infuriating support cast, who lack the emotional fortitude to bring justice to a kid who adults and institutions had already failed while he was still alive. Hoodoo Harry illustrates the depth and emotional range the two can have.
The other standout story in Born for Trouble in my opinion was Cold Cotton, which starts with Hap being prescribed some therapy. This is important because therapy is very much a progressive idea that is playfully turned upon its head here. Cold Cotton makes pretty dated argument that you can’t trust another human being to clean up a human being’s mind because all human beings are equally fucked up, but it isn’t made in bad faith. The weird therapist Dr. Cotton does not make a statement about therapists.
She’s just born crooked like most characters in the adventures of Hap & Leonard.
I thought the two other stories Sad Onions and The Briar Patch Boogie were decent if a little devoid of personality outside of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine’s trademark banter. The protagonists are always a lot of fun. What they have to deal with… not always. This is ultimately unimportant. When you buy a Hap & Leonard collection, you’re not necessarily paying for original and groundbreaking adventures, but our two protagonists crazy, devil-may-care perspective on them.
*
Born for Trouble: The Further Adventures of Hap & Leonard delivered exactly what I expected out of new Hap & Leonard book: new quirky adventures for the two quirky, relatable vigilantes. Nothing more. Nothing less. I was not emotionally overwhelmed nor disappointed in any way. Reading Hap & Leonard is like pouring yourself a glass of cold chocolate milk. You know exactly how it’s going to feel. It’s not going to change your life or make you a better person, but I’ll make the world sing for a while.
