Gabino Iglesias Reviews The Legend of Charlie Fish by Josh Rountree
The Legend of Charlie Fish, Josh Rountree (Tachyon Publications 978-1-61696-394-1, $16.95, 192pp, hc) July 2023. Cover by John Coulthart.
One of the best things about reading and editing anthologies is that you’re exposed to the work of many talented writers who are new to you or new to writing in general. I remember reading Josh Rountree’s work here and there and then publishing his work in an anthology. Every time I encountered his short fiction, I was blown away, which means I always wondered what he’d be able to do with something longer. The answer to that question is The Legend of Charlie Fish, a strangely heartwarming short novel that has some amazing dialogue, plenty of action, and a group of memorable characters.
Floyd Betts has to return home to bury his father, which he wants to do as quickly as possible so he can get out of the dirty, hateful small town he lived in and go back home to Galveston, Texas. However, his trip takes a weird turn when he sees how the local priest treats two orphaned siblings, Nellie and Hank. Nellie comes from a long line of witches and can see into future as well as inside people’s minds, and Hank is a crack shot. Floyd does the right thing and takes Nellie and Hank with him back to Galveston, but on the way they run into two men abusing a creature they pulled out of a river. The creature turns out to be a fish-man, and the two men want to put him on display and charge people to see them, but Nellie can see the abuse in the fish-man’s future. The trio intervene, rescue the fish-man, and take him with them to Galveston. Along the way, Nellie uses her gift to communicate with the fish-man, whom they name Charlie. They make it safely to Mrs. Elder’s house in Galveston, and she agrees to take the kids, but there is a bad storm coming, and the bad men they rescued Charlie from are following them to get him back. Together, Floyd, Nellie, Hank, and Mrs. Elder must survive the storm and the evil men while helping Charlie get back home.
The Legend of Charlie Fish delivers on everything Rountree’s short fiction has promised for years. This is a short novel and the pacing and alternating chapters (some from Floyd’s point of view and some from Nellie’s) make it a quick read, but it has so much heart and humor that it quickly turns into a very satisfying read. Also, the mix of genres – Western, science fiction, mystery – works incredibly well. Also, Charlie Fish, whose ‘‘dialogue’’ in the narrative is a few bleats, has a gentle, melancholic, amenable personality that wins you over immediately, and that makes you care about what happens to him.
Stories about a ragtag group of outcasts coming together to do something good aren’t new, but this one feels fresh, and Rountree’s voice is so strong that it merits comparisons to superb storytellers like Joe Lansdale, especially when it comes to snappy dialogue. Also, Nellie is young, but her ‘‘whisper talk’’ gift is extremely interesting and she emerges as an outstanding character who, along with the indomitable Mrs. Elder, makes women the strong heroes in a Western narrative full of violence and guns, which is something we rarely see.
The Legend of Charlie Fish has a wonderful cinematic feel to it and will hopefully serve to put Rountree on the map as someone who is more than a purveyor of great short fiction; he can also deliver novels that are as good as any of his short stories.
Gabino Iglesias is a writer, journalist, professor, and book reviewer living in Austin TX. He is the author of Zero Saints and Coyote Songs and the editor of Both Sides. His work has been nominated to the Bram Stoker and Locus Awards and won the Wonderland Book Award for Best Novel in 2019. His short stories have appeared in a plethora of anthologies and his non-fiction has appeared in the New York Times, the Los Angeles Times, and CrimeReads. His work has been published in five languages, optioned for film, and praised by authors as diverse as Roxane Gay, David Joy, Jerry Stahl, and Meg Gardiner. His reviews appear regularly in places like NPR, Publishers Weekly, the San Francisco Chronicle, Criminal Element, Mystery Tribune, Vol. 1 Brooklyn, the Los Angeles Review of Books, and other print and online venues. He’s been a juror for the Shirley Jackson Awards twice and has judged the PANK Big Book Contest, the Splatterpunk Awards, and the Newfound Prose Prize. He teaches creative writing at Southern New Hampshire University’s online MFA program. You can find him on Twitter at @Gabino_Iglesias.
This review and more like it in the September 2023 issue of Locus.
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