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The Big Blow

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About this listen

Peculiar weather settles over a bustling Texas sea port, a city made prosperous off the cotton trade and thick with racial inequality. The sky above Galveston, Texas, darkens to the sickly green of a healing bruise, the sea turns black, and the inhabitants of the city have no idea the force of the hammer about to drop on them.

The wild wind blows boxer John McBride into town, a white prize fighter with seemingly superhuman fury and skill. As black boxer Jack L'il Arthur Johnson prepares to fight this fierce opponent, the storm closes in. If he can survive the ring and the vicious undercurrents of the Jim Crow south, L'il Arthur will still have to fight his way through the storm winds, the rising flood waters, and the violent night.

On September 8, 1900, a hurricane ripped apart Galveston, Texas, killing nearly 8,000 people and nearly obliterating the town. Lansdale's story brings dimension to many who lost their lives that day, and a few who survived.

Contains mature themes.

©2000 Joe R. Lansdale (P)2023 Tantor Biographical Fiction Fiction Genre Fiction Small Town & Rural Biography Natural Disaster
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What a fantastic find! I hadn't read / listened to any Joe R Lansdale before this, but I'm excited to find more based on this.
A brilliantly compact story with a host of well-limned characters. The monstrous McBride is a real highlight, a terrible, but not entirely evil, piece of work.
The time-based structure gives a real sense of momentum, and nothing feels wasted.
Furthermore, the narrator is excellent, bringing real dimension to the prose. Thoroughly recommended.

Absorbing and Beautifully Told

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An extremely racist boxing match is arranged for the day of the catastrophic Galvestown Flood. The white boxer, as loathesome a piece of work as ever appeared in a Lansdale book, is supposed to kill the black boxer. Also, everybdy has lots of sex, some in healthier and less toxic ways than others. Actually, no, most of it is nasty and toxic. Meanwhile, out on the Gulf, a storm is building the likes of which has never been seen before. The waters start to rise, people start to get nervous, but the boxing match must go ahead.

Lansdale's deliberately rough and raw storytelling is matched by the savagery of the storm. The ending is gutwrenching, but Lansdale's a master, so it's also unexpectedly moving. Still one of his most memorable works.

Hurricane

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