Joe R. Lansdale's Hap and Leonard stories are American classics. These tales cover the duo's origins (*contents may have been retconned, but who cares?), from two unlikely East Texan strangers to the most bizarre of brothers. Hap's a redneck with a heart of gold, and Leonard's a gay black Republican. Although it sounds like the setup for a bad joke, the bond between these two is unbreakable, and their company is always enjoyable. Give to anyone looking for shenanigans with a moral compass and some witty repartee.

Great as short stories, but would probably be more enjoyable if I had the prior knowledge of the characters in the book. Apparently it's a tv show now and I was not aware. I did pick up on characters' personalities and dynamic pretty quickly, but I do think I would have enjoyed it more if I had known of the characters and series before.

This book is a must for Hap and Leonard fans!

It contains a number stories from Hap and Leonard's youth and childhood including a story about the night they met. We also get to learn about Hap's childhood and growing up in 1960's America.

In these stories we get to see poverty, racism, stunted lives and survival. We also get to see community, friendship and family all from the perspective of the duo as they recount these stories for Chance and Brett.

I really enjoyed the way that Hap tells these stories to Chance and by doing so shows us his life before Leonard and also some of the gut churning adventures he has had with Leonard. Their's is a friendship that goes way, way back.

Hap has always been a bit of a maverick but he has had a childhood of love and family and a safe place to observe the racism and brutality of rural life in 1960's America. We also get to see Leonard and his back stories show us that Leonard has always been bold, courageous, mouthy and a fighter and never one to be in the closet. Black, gay, proud and a first class maverick and not afraid to take someone down.

The stories add to the richness of these characters and leave the reader wanting more. It is great that this series is still developing and even better to know that the duo have made it to tv. Having said that tv is great but the stories coming alive in the imagination just cannot be beaten.

WE WANT MORE!

I didn’t come across the characters of Hap and Leonard until a year or so ago. Since that time I’ve devoured all of the books and sat waiting for more. When I heard this one was coming out I dove in immediately. I wasn’t disappointed.

If unfamiliar the characters are Hap Collins, a white working class man who tends to lean left who served time in prison for refusing to serve in Vietnam. Raised in Texas he made friends with Leonard Collins, a black gay conservative who did fight in Vietnam. What some would think of as too different to be friends they are instead the best you will find. They joke with one another about their various attitudes and accept everyone for who they are. Both have a strong sense of what is wrong and right and that often leads to predicaments that result in a new novel.

In BLOOD AND LEMONADE we are presented with a collection of short stories involving the two. Most of them take place in the past and that’s a good thing. It tells us stories of the two of them growing up, together and apart. We get to learn more about what developed who they were and who they’ve become. It fills in the missing parts we may have found in the books putting more meat on the bones of both.

Select stories are referenced in previous books but here reflect the whole tale. All are told in the smoth writing style that author Joe Lansdale displays. I’ve read that he ruminates over every word he chooses to put down to page but while reading it they all flow so smoothly you feel like you just sitting on the porch listening to the words just escape his mouth as he delivers the next story he’s kept in his mind for years. The words read like songs that capture a mood, a feeling, a location and carry you off to those places with ease. I for one find it rare that an author can do so. Why there isn’t more praise for Lansdale is beyond me.

Many are now acquainted with these characters because of the Sundance Channel series that began in 2104. It was a delight to see them come to life on screen and I’ve enjoyed those as well, always looking forward and hoping for another season to come. But the books give as much life to the characters as the actors on screen, even more so. This books is a great starting point for some, a way to learn about who each one is. It’s also a great book for those who are fans to learn more. In the end it just makes you long for the next books. Until then we can always re-read the rest.

Blood and Lemonade provides a series of vignettes from Hap and Leonard's past that likely provides insights into their past adventures together and separately. If you have followed this series, you will likely run into gotcha moments when different scenes now make more sense, but you can just read these tales as friends hanging out, telling stories, and shooting the bull. A nice quick read for a warm day.

Hap and Leonard have come to grow on me. They've burrowed into that soft spot of nostalgia that makes me think of being a kid and listening to my dad tell stories. When I "listen" to Hap tell his stories in Blood and Lemonade, it reminds me of sitting around the kitchen table listening to my dad tell stories about his childhood. Granted there are about a 1000 miles between where Lansdale's tales are taking place in East Texas and where I grew up in southern Michigan, but the settings have some amazing similarities and the era Hap grew up in coincides perfectly with my dad's storytelling of his childhood. So, yes, I have a soft spot for Lansdale's yarns about Hap and Leonard. But outside of that, these are great little snippets in Blood and Lemonade. Lansdale calls it mosaic storytelling and it's not told in any order. You could read any of these short stories randomly and the impact would be the same. They are the filling in the cracks that binds Hap and Leonard to our psyche. It brings them more to life and makes them seem like real people. If you've never read any of the Hap and Leonard tales, you could get away with making Blood and Lemonade your first one, but I would recommend going back to the beginning. If you've already discovered the magic of Hap and Leonard, then Blood and Lemonade will be like sitting around with 'ol Hap by the campfire and letting him tell you tales of his childhood. And he'll have your attention the whole night.

5 Co'Colas out of 5


This ARC was provided by NetGalley in exchange for an honest review.


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“Blood and Lemonade” is a collection of short stories by Joe Lansdale. It features great backstories from the early lives Hap Collins and Leonard Pine. Be advised that Hap and Leonard are, as always, rude, crude, and very funny. If you are not prepared for “colorful” language and politically incorrect scenarios, do not read this book. If you want to laugh and recollect along with Hap and Leonard, then this book fills-in the gaps and background that you might have missed.
It is all about Marvel Creek, East Texas and all the good, the bad, and the in between who lived there. It’s about, as Hap puts it, “the rough kind of life that was below the surface, the stuff that the people with money didn’t know about or didn’t want to talk about.” It’s about the 60s, fishing, cars, ninth grade, sex, cowboy movies, and segregation. It’s not mean spirited, just daringly honest.
NetGalley gave me a copy of this book in exchange for my honest review. This is not my first Hap and Leonard book, and I loved it. I both laughed, and cringed all the way through.

It's referred to as a Mosaic Novel.


That means it is more a collection of short stories by the same author about the same characters over a period of time.

Hap Collins and Leonard Pine have been friends since high school from a burg so rural that they can't even seen the poor side of the next closest town. Some young toughs were engaging in a frequent ritual, sort of like Fight Club. Hap and Leonard meet while attending with other friends. Not a bad idea to go armed a bit. Leonard has some martial arts chops and decides he can take on that evening's top dog. Leonard hands his rifle to Hap who casually lays it across his arms. Leonard is taunted without mercy in the initial few seconds, but that changes when Leonard lays his dipshit opponent in the dust.

The beginning of a lifelong friendship in East Texas.

On the surface, the book covers a couple slow days many years after that first fight. Hap is now married and has two kids. Leonard, on the other hand, is still single, Republican, black, and gay. No secret. Leonard let Hap know right from the start. And they stayed the closest of friends even as they opened up a quasi-PI business.

We see Hap and Leonard headed across town for some ice cream. The sight of a boarded up store triggers a memory. They cross railroad tracks to 'the other side of town' and another story pops up. They sit on the porch of Hap's home with Hap's family and the wife, son, and daughter each prod one of the two to weave a tale from back in the day. Each chapter is its own story and need not be read in order.

Not all the stories are of Hap and Leonard. Plenty are about one or the other. These guys grew up in the East Texas of the late 50s and 60s. Rough. Racist. Crass. Cruel. Profane. Bigoted. Homophobic. Mysogynist. A place and time filled with assholes and basic jerks. The East Texas presented by Lansdale is not a place most would have wanted to drive through much less live. Trust me, you'll have no sympathy for the cretins who populate the locals towns.

But you most certainly will like Hap and Leonard (and gain some begrudging respect for Hap's dad). The closeness of their friendship leaps across the pages with insights on why these two seeming opposites have come to carve out a friendship for life. Hate the locals, but you'll want to know more about this pair. Some of the best writing is when Hap and Leonard are (figuratively speaking) just lounging on a porch on a hot summer's night sipping some ice tea or a beer and picking at each other.

This is our first book by Lansdale (at least according to the blog's archive) who has quite a collection of titles and a ton of awards and honors to his credit. He has written over 40 books and this is the 12th in the Hap and Leonard series. Even learned that the characters have their own series on the Sundance Channel that has just started its 2nd season - I've already set my DVR and am hounding the library for earlier titles. If I were a betting man, I think it's possible that, if I can get my hands on them, I could be setting up for a reader's version of 'binge watching' of a new (to me) story series.

Last time I did that was Craig Johnson's Longmire. And that's saying something.

ECD

Hap and Leonard, the early years. This collection of short stories fills in a lot of the missing material concerning the beginning and evolution of Hap and Leonard's friendship. As a long-time fan of the series, I enjoyed reading about the experiences of the young friends and though it differs some from what Sundance has produced with the TV series, according to Lansdale himself, this is the official record of events. Many of the stories in this collection remind me of my dad, who grew up in roughly the same time and only a few hundred miles away from Lansdale's East Texas. He, like Hap was also threatened with homemade haircuts from those who didn't approve of his long hair and decided that a straight razor would work just fine. And, in many of my dad's own stories the Dairy Queen plays a prominent role. I was hoping that Coco Butternut would be included in this collection, but alas, no luck. A big thanks to Netgalley and the publisher for allowing me to read and review this title, I will be purchasing a copy for my library.

This collection of stories and anecdotes, loosely connected by an evening of driving around and reminiscing is a "mosaic" novel--an effective way of filling in fans on Hap's childhood and youth, including his first meeting and experiences with Leonard. Lots of funny pieces, but definitely more enjoyable for existing fans than those who are new to the series. As a long time reader of this series and other works by Lansdale, I enjoyed every word

I've read some of these. I love short stories, and it us nice to have them collected.

Best buddies Hap and Leonard have some time to kill so they end up sparring, eating ice cream, and generally farting around as they bullshit extensively about their past.

If this sounds more like a trip down memory lane or a clip show episode of a TV series than the fellas having a new crime adventure then you’d be right because the idea of H&L wandering around to some of their old haunts is just the framework used to string together some short stories about the good ole days which weren’t always so good. Along the way we hear about their first meeting as well as the early days of their friendship, and there’s a lot about Hap’s childhood and teen years with stories that involve his parents as well as good deal about racial issues.

Overall, there’s some interesting stuff for H&L fans, and I’d only seen a couple of the stories before. However, by sticking to their early days we don’t get much of the what I love which are the guys bumbling their way through some kind of mess as they try to play detective and usually get themselves in a whole lot of trouble. There’s still some crime elements to it, but I gotta say that Hap ran across so many dead bodies in his younger days that he probably missed his true calling of being an undertaker.

They’re all pretty decent, but it fell into a weird grey area for me where I felt like I was getting more history than I really needed or wanted about the guys rather than another one of their hilarious adventures.

Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade is the latest in Joe R. Lansdale’s long running “Hap and Leonard” series. It’s a mosaic novel – a collection of short stories, with a framing story wrapped around them to provide context.

This is Hap and Leonard, the early years. The Texas here is owes far more to the forties and fifties than the sixties. Racial and gender discrimination are in rude health, and those with power and privilege are as anxious to preserve them as ever. The framing device – a day of Hap and Leonard training, driving around, chewing the fat and telling tales, has a gentleness to it, a relative security which comes backed by their history together. The prose lets you feel that comfort, though – the warmth between the two leads is undeniable, if somewhat prickly; sort of like two porcupines mating.

In any event – the world Lansdale shows us is one we may not be proud of. The casual racism, segregation, homophobia and sexism rise off the page like sewer stench. It’s unpleasant, but vividly realised stuff. This just (or indeed mainly) a book about social issues, however, even if they do permeate the world. It’s also one exploring the lifestyle of East Texas in that period – from the bare-knuckle fights under the blazing shadows of a tire fire, to school shootings after high school abuse. In some cases, the social issues are the core – in one story there are consequences when a couple of (white) veterans stand up for a (black) fellow veteran in the face of bigotry. This is a place where there’s enough space to spread your arms and run free – but also one where everyone is constrained by society, and where conformity to expected social norms is backed with the potential for violence.

Into this rather regimented space step Hap and Leonard – younger, yes, but no less prone to smarting off. They’re still working up to the comfort level of their later relationship, but the banter is still sharp and on point. There’s a wry humour worked through the dialogue between the two – all casual insults and slight edges are here, building the quality we see later in their personal timeline. The dialogue is pitch perfect too – well paced, sometimes charming, often belly-laugh funny. But much like the world that Hap and Leonard inhabit, there’s darkness shifting around in here, razor-edge smiles mixed with a savage poignancy.

If Hap and Leonard are the antibodies to their environment, there’s more than enough other characters sharing the stage with rather fewer scruples. Small town boys with racial epithets to hand, and full blown bayou drug smugglers are perhaps the least of it. Each has the small, sordid ordinariness that defines their villainy and makes it real. They help make the small Texas towns feel alive, reluctantly dragging their feet into the future we inhabit.

The stories themselves are great fun, a mixture of quiet moments of humanity, thoughts on the world and Hap and Leonard’s place in it – and outbursts of violence. The blood and Lemonade of the title is here in the stories – the best and worst of people’s lives thrown open for our enjoyment. It’s stellar stuff – and makes for a compulsive read. I read it before looking at the Hap and Leonard novels, with passing familiarity of a few short stories; coming back to it after getting some context gave the collection some extra depth, but wasn’t required to enjoy the stories for what they were – tales of family, brotherhood, death and happiness, humanity our common factor with the past. So yes, this is a great collection – thoughtful, rather clever, and with enough bullets and banter to satisfy the most demanding reader. Give it a try.

The novel belongs to the famous series based on the adventures of Hap and Leonard, notorious protagonists of lots of Joe Lansdale's novels.

The book is a mosaic one: Hap and Leonard remembers some stories of their childhood - like when the met each other - and tell them to their families and friends.

In the end its a collection of stories linked by a common thread; like other mosaic novel or collections not every story is at the same narrative level, and only some of them leave a mark.

One of the major topic is racism (the setting is mostly in Texas) and the struggle to overcome prejudices (Hap's mother is a truly positive example).

Overall it's a nice book, but I still prefer the "standard" novels of the series that deal with a single aventure with a wider scope.

Thanks to the publisher for providing me the copy necessary to write this review.

Episodic back stories to the Hap and Leonard arc we are familiar with through the book and TV series. How the protagonists met and part of the detail of what made them who they are. Very enjoyable and, as always with Lansdale, eminently readable. Recommended.

Hap & Leonard is a mystery/thriller series that I discovered a year or two ago and have been slowly making my way through. The basic premise is that Hap is a liberal white straight ex-hippie, Leonard is a black gay conservative Vietnam vet, and together they fight crime! And also are best friends in rural East Texas, despite the problems that caused in the 60s and 70s and sometimes still today. Lansdale writes with an ironic, self-deprecating tone that makes the series appeal to me much more than a more straightforward 'tough guys beat up bad guys' take on the same idea would.

This book is collection of short stories, though Lansdale himself describes it as a "mosaic novel". In summary: Hap and Leonard spend a night driving around town, shooting the shit and doing nothing much in particular. As their conservation drifts along and they pass by places they used to know, memories spark off flashbacks which lead into short stories, mostly about Hap's childhood, his parents, and particularly his relationship to racism, but also covering the first time Hap and Leonard met and the first time they got into trouble together. (Two of the stories were published previously in another context, but they're integrated so well into the rest that I wouldn't have known if I hadn't already read them: "The Boy Who Became Invisible" and "Not Our Kind".) But despite mostly taking place in the past, I don't think this would make for a good introduction to the series; a lot of the power of the stories depends on already knowing these characters and having an emotional connection to them and their relationship. On the other hand, if you do know them, this is a wonderful expansion of their history.

https://www.goodreads.com/review/show/1899606254

Little tales from Hap's infancy, the meeting with Leonard, their beginning (that could have been their end too) and life in the '50 and '60 in rural south U.S. where being a "nigger's friend" or a black homosexual could mean a very bad end.

Piccole storie tratte dall'infanzia di Hap, il suo incontro con Leonard, le loro prime avventure (che avrebbero potuto benissimo essere le loro ultime) e la vita tra gli anni '50 e '60 nel profondo sud degli Stati Uniti, quando essere "amico di un negro" o un nero omosessuale, poteva significare una brutta fine.

THANKS TO NETGALLEY FOR THE PREVIEW!

I would like to thank Netgalley and Tachyon Publications for an advance copy of Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade, a mosaic novel with episodes from Hap's youth.

I hadn't heard of the term mosaic novel before Mr Lansdale used it in his afterword but it is a wonderful description for this novel. It opens with present day Hap and Leonard discussing current education policies and segues back into a memory from Hap's childhood to make Leonard's point. As they go out for a drive it pulls them back down memory lane for a series of tales from Hap's youth in 1950s and 60s East Texas.

It is many years since I read Hap and Leonard but I always enjoyed the humour, the defiance of stereotypes and the gleeful adventure of it all. Sadly, much of that is missing from Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade which, I think, has been written in reply to a television series and sets out Mr Lonsdale's vision of his character, Hap Collins, and how he came by his values.

Obviously, as this is, mostly, a first person narrative by Hap, Leonard takes a bit of a back seat and there isn't the same amusing banter between the characters. Also the episodic nature of the narrative makes it hard to get fully immersed.

On the other hand I found the scenes set in the 50s and 60s with their overt racism extremely well done and a timely warning in our modern times of how history has a habit of repeating itself. It does not make for pleasant reading, but is, I imagine, realistic of the era.

It was interesting to re-visit old, well loved characters and get an insight into their formative years, albeit in a different format from their usual adventures.

Fifteen new, nostalgic stories about Hap’s childhood and the main social problems in the USA’s in the 60’s.

The frame of the story is that Hap and Leonard are talking at home, or while they are driving around the city, and Hap tells a story about every place where he has a memory. For example the first is related to a school violence article what Leonard had read in a newspaper, so Hap tells Leonard how he defended himself for the first time in school against bullying.

All the stories are nostalgic: Hap introduces Marvel Creek and the surrounding areas, the forest, the river, the diners, and he tells his opinions about things like friendship, racism, honor, animal hunting… After he introduced the area, the real story begins with an actual social problem. Most of the stories are about racism – one of the greatest is about how Hap met Leonard for the first time. Hap went hunting with one of his black friends, and they saw a fighting on the riverside. There was Leonard, who fought for money, but obviously the whole thing almost went to linching…

The dramas are really exciting in most of the novellas, there’s murder, sex, school bullying and racism as well. The dialogues are in Hap and Leonard’s well-known, great style, and there’s no political correctness around, but racism in almost all of the other characters’ talking. The reader meets with Hap’s family too: his mother takes home a 9 year old black boy, and there are even more stories about Hap’s father, who generally hated the niggers, but liked many black guys, and he was fair and very-very strong…

The best story is the 8th, where Hap and Leonard found a dead family in a boat under the water, and later they became captives of drug-dealers, who have drug in that boat. It’s exciting and it has interesting twists – it was my personal favorite in the book.

The novellas are weaker only when Hap tells things about their personal life, but these nostalgic tales are not part of the actual story. How they moved around the states, how they had chickens, how the local cinema worked, how the trees have been chopped – you have to be a very big fan to be interested in these details of Hap’s childhood.

But the overall quality of the stories are high, almost all of them are very exiting or touching. If somebody doesn’t want to start the Hap and Leonard series with the very first book, this 13th would be a good selection, and it’s obviously recommended for the existing fans too.

Hap and Leonard: Blood and Lemonade by Joe R. Lansdale- These fourteen laid back stories of the Texas duo of Hap Collins and Leonard Pine are mostly side-trips, reminiscences of past happenings and coming-of-age background on the pair. One story, "Tire Fire" tells of how the two near life-long friends first met and the ordeal they had to go through upon meeting. All the tales are full of Joe R. Lansdale's love for East Texas, a sharp eye on each character, and his patented brand of homespun justice. This book will accompany the second season of the television show featuring these unsung heroes, who are just trying to get through life by doing the right thing. I've read most of the Hap and Leonard stories and this was a welcome edition though not as tense as some of their other escapades. It's nice to see how things got started and how these two young men developed into the mature men they became.