“The Bottom of the Fox” 1

In 1981, Eddie Joubert was hacked to death in the cellar of his bar, The Bottom of the Fox, in Delaware Water Gap, Pennsylvania.

Delaware Water Gap is both a village and a place.

The place is where the Delaware River cuts through the Appalachian Mountains, which, in Pennsylvania, form series of long, unbroken ridges, rather than the irregular bumps and valleys and gaps farther south in Maryland, Virginia, and the Carolinas.

The village is a town that has suffered ups and downs–mostly downs–over the years. It is located on the northeastern edge of the area loosely known as “The Poconos,” though Mt. Pocono itself is to the southwest. Though a relatively short distance from New York City, Delaware Water Gap was then far, far away from urban centers.

In The Bottom of the Fox, Shaun Mullen traces the multiple influences which, in his view, led to that and to other murders occurring during the 70s (and 1981 is close enough to the 70s to be included in that decade, while the persons involved were definitely of the 70s); he sees a common influence in a number of deaths. He also portrays how a relatively isolated and depressed area can become culturally inbred and corrupt–not corrupt in the common political sense of bribery and kick-backs, but corrupt on a much deeper and more dangerous level.

The first chapter describes the murder.

Successive chapters look at the various threads–the development of resorts in the Poconos, the coming of Interstate 80, the repeated efforts to dam the Delaware, and others–that the author sees as leading to the first chapter.

About two-thirds of the way through the book, I was wondering whether the author would be able to pull the threads together into a coherent and satisfying conclusion.

He does.

It is not a pretty story. My friend was unable to finish it because it was too depressing.

The book betrays Mr. Mullen’s long career as a journalist. It is readable and direct. The language is plain-spoken and blunt, facts not theory, but with creative turns of phrase that had me saying from time to time to my friend, who is an editor by trade, “Listen to this.” It even sent me looking up a word.

Buy the book.

Mullen, Shaun D., The Bottom of the Fox, (Charleston, SC: Fishy Business Press, April 2010, ISBN 1-4515-2361-0) 125 pp.