Set against the turbulent backdrop of the Depression-Era American Southwest, a coming-of-age story follows Totsy Woods as he discovers the wonders of sexual experimentation, until one chance encounter hurls him into an adult world where he must learn a hard lesson about love, trust, and growing up. Reprint.

High Cotton is an extraordinarily rich account of the dreams and inner turmoils of a new generation of the black upper middle class, capturing the essence of a part of American society that has mostly been ignored in literature. The novel's protagonist journeys from his childhood home in the midwest to college, a stint in New York publishing, and Europe, yet the issue of his "blackness" remains at the heart of his being.

This book is the synopsis of three areas of an individual's life and his family. It begins with his ancestors in the mid 19th century and concludes with the present life of his family in 2011. It includes his family life on cotton farms as a youth and his careers as a football, basketball and track coach and finally several years as a minister.

This is a first hand account about the binding human experience we all share, seen through he eyes of a natural born son that could easily be of any background, and told with a voice that articulates stories of challenges, opportunities, and achievements. Rich in experiences shared by all Americans such as family, emotions, loss, and achievements, it allows us to experience living in someone's shoes that most of us have never been able to slide into. It is a story about America, our past, our present and our future. Beginning during a quiet period in our nation's history that sets the stage for upcoming turbulence, the story envelops and takes the reader through time, and through challenges that we all collectively share. While the author is coming of age, we are drawn to understand how our country comes of age during his lifetime. We all love, and lose, and win, and we all experience life individually and as part of multiple groups. We have differences, and we have commonalities that make us who we are. We are America.

This collection of Joe R. Lansdale stories represents the best of the "Lansdale" genre--a strange mixture of dark crime, even darker humor, and adventure tales. Though varied in setting and theme, all the stories are pure Lansdale--eerie, amusing, and occasionally horrific. In "The Pit," modern gladiators square off against one another using Roman methods. An alternate-history tale called "Trains Not Taken" shows Buffalo Bill as an ambassador and Wild Bill Hickok as a clerk. Lansdale's love of large lizards and humor are evident in the stories "Godzilla's Twelve Step Program" and "Bob the Dinosaur Goes to Disneyland."