Within a few days, life will change for everyone in Galveston, Texas. But especially for Little Arthur Johnson. He is African American and has defeated the local white boxing champion. A scandal. So the organisers have brought from the north John McBride, a fighter with no morale, with the aim to fight and, if possible kill, Johnson. But fate will meddle in this plan because Galveston will be destroyed that day by the 1900 hurricane. Throughout the narrative, getting to the fight, we will follow a boat that sinks, a couple that drowns and their baby, a young woman who commits suicide involuntarily and many others. And then the ending of this hurricane and of the fight between the two men, incredibly touching. Lansdale intertwines here the real story of the hurricane that killed around 8000 people and the story of the real boxer from Galveston, Jack Johnson. The language is crude, violent, very sexually imaged, but the story catching. I didn’t think O would like this novella, but I really took pleasure.
“Then do it. I hate your type. I hate someone I think’s your type. I hate someone who likes your type or wants to be your type. I’d kill a dog liked to be with you. I hate all of you expensive bastards with money and no guts. I hate you cause you can’t whip your own nigger, and I’m glad you can’t, cause I can. And you’ll pay me. And go ahead, send your killers around. See where it gets them. Where it gets you. And I hate your goddamn shitty hair, Beems.”
Listened to as an audiobook