Edge of Dark Water - by Joe R Lansdale (Paperback)

About the Book

May Lynn is a pretty girl who dreams of becoming a Hollywood star, until her dead body is dredged up from the Sabine River. May Lynn's friends and mother set out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood. But a few people never want to see May Lynn leave--in any form.

Book Synopsis

Mark Twain meets classic Stephen King -- a bold new direction for widely acclaimed Edgar Award winner Joe R. Lansdale.

May Lynn was once a pretty girl who dreamed of becoming a Hollywood star. Now she's dead, her body dredged up from the Sabine River.

Sue Ellen, May Lynn's strong-willed teenage friend, sets out to dig up May Lynn's body, burn it to ash, and take those ashes to Hollywood to spread around. If May Lynn can't become a star, then at least her ashes will end up in the land of her dreams.

Along with her friends Terry and Jinx and her alcoholic mother, Sue Ellen steals a raft and heads downriver to carry May Lynn's remains to Hollywood.

Only problem is, Sue Ellen has some stolen money that her enemies will do anything to get back. And what looks like a prime opportunity to escape from a worthless life will instead lead to disastrous consequences. In the end, Sue Ellen will learn a harsh lesson on just how hard growing up can really be.

Review Quotes

"EDGE OF DARK WATER describes a trip downriver that is one-half Huck Finn, one-half Deliverance, and entirely Joe Lansdale. If you aren't familiar with the work of this true American original, and master of hillbilly noir, climb in the boat and hang on for dear life: the water is rough."--Joe Hill, author of the New York Times bestseller Horns and A Heart-Shaped Box

"Joe Lansdale always transports me. In EDGE OF DARK WATER, he takes me to the mysterious brooding landscape of Twain and Faulkner, with a compelling twist that is all Lansdale."--David Morrell, New York Times bestselling author of First Blood and Creepers

"Joe Lansdale has long been one of our finest and most difficult to classify writers. You can call his writing supernatural, horror, crime, or plain Southern, as long as you remember to call it great. Always a generous storyteller, in EDGE OF DARK WATER he offers a beautifully spun tale of life in the sticks, friendship and mortality, and tells it with the wit, humor and pure-dee power we've come to expect of him."--Daniel Woodrell, author of Winter's Bone

"Joe R. Lansdale has a folklorist's eye for telling detail and a front-porch raconteur's sense of pace."--The New York Times Book Review

"Scenes that stand your hair on end while you fall out of your chair laughing."--Chicago Sun-Times, on Leather Maiden

"The strongest, truest, and most pitch-perfect narration since Huck Finn's. Marvelous and terrifying, EDGE OF DARK WATER is the result of real genius at work. A masterpiece."--Dan Simmons, author of The Terror and Drood

About the Author

Joe R. Lansdale is the author of nearly four dozen novels, including Rusty Puppy, the Edgar-award winning The Bottoms, Sunset and Sawdust, and Leather Maiden. He has received nine Bram Stoker Awards, the American Mystery Award, the British Fantasy Award, and the Grinzane Cavour Prize for Literature. He lives with his family in Nacogdoches, Texas.