The Beetle Leg is a novella written by John Hawkes. Released in 1951, it tells of the misfortunes of the town of Mistletoe.
Characters[]
- Muige Lampson
- Luke Lampson
- Camper
- Harry Bohn
- Fin
- Cap Leech
- Sheriff Wade
rest to be added
Publisher's summary[]
Mistletoe, "a few hundred brown houses" and a terrible, year-round boredom. Ten years earlier, during the dam's construction, Muige Lampson was buried alive with a tracked tractor under a massive mudslide. Since then, idle and destitute, they wander aimlessly, ill at ease: Luke, the dead man's brother, who lives with the widow and a Mandan woman; Camper, back in the village with his wife and child bitten by a snake; Harry Bohn, a former dam worker; the disabled Finn; Cap Leech, a sort of folk healer... Sheriff Wade keeps an eye on everyone and keeps a group of lowlife bikers at bay. John Hawkes's great skill lies in the way he seems to sharpen his words on the very stone of the landscape, preparing them for a creeping massacre. The meticulously described gestures unfold like a choreography, heralding misfortune. The protagonists of this drama, having set out on the cursed reservoir for a fishing trip, are haunted by this scrap-metal graveyard, the festering sore of the entire place. When they reach the shore, the inner barrier that had numbed them will have broken. A torrent of pus, racism, and violence will engulf them. The main themes of Hawkes's work are all present in this 1951 book, bound together by the same phrase: literature draws its sustenance from the splendors of misfortune.
See also[]
| Title | Author | Release date | Significance |
|---|---|---|---|
| Blood Meridian, or the Evening Redness in the West | Cormac McCarthy | 1985 | A similar Western |
| The Place of Dead Roads | William S. Burroughs | 1983 | A similar Western |
| As I Lay Dying | William Faulkner | 1930 | A novel with similar themes |
| Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down | Ishmael Reed | 1969 | A similar Western |
Sources[]
- Wikipedia
- Goodreads
| Works of John Hawkes | ||
|
Novels (1940s-1950s) | ||