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The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark

Oct21

I just finished reading this classic Western novel by Nevada author Walter Clark, and I am amazed that I have never heard it strongly recommended before now. It’s quite a story, and if I were going back to teaching American literature for high school or college, I would try very to include The Ox-Bow Incident as part of the required reading. My immediate impression is that it ranks up there with Huck Finn and The Great Gatsby as one of the Great American Novels.

I have heard of the book before. I had a vague impression that it had something to do with a hanging or a lynching, and it does. But it’s really a psychological study of peer pressure and mob justice and all the different reactions that we have to sin and guilt and getting caught up in something that we know is wrong. One character, the narrator, is The Observer, similar to Nick in The Great Gatsby. Also like Nick Carraway, Ox-Bow’s narrator Art Croft is a peacemaker, a fellow who’s busy looking out for the other guy, trying in an unobtrusive way to make sure things don’t get out of control. And he’s everybody’s confessor. Several of the men in the novel tell Art their deepest thoughts and fears and sins. And yet Art Croft isn’t just an observer after all; he’s complicit in the extra-judicial murder that is the climax of the story.

There are a lot of characters to keep straight in this book: twenty-eight men are a part of the lynch mob that goes after a trio of alleged cattle rustlers and murderers. Then, there are the men who don’t accompany the lynch mob: the bartender, the judge, the preacher. And there are the accused rustlers themselves. And although the author doesn’t tell us about all of the twenty-eight mob members, he does characterize about ten of them enough so that they all become full characters in the reader’s mind:

Gil, who is Art’s buddy, a good-natured fighter, quick to take offense and quick to make up and forget.

Davies, the lawyer/scholar, who tries to stop the lynch mob in every possible way except for the one way that will work.

Preacher Osgood, a rather cowardly man, who says the right things but can’t convince anyone of his sincerity or his authority.

Tetley, the ex-Confederate officer who takes over leadership of the mob and infuses them all with deadly purpose.

Farnley, the friend of the man who has been reported shot, Kincaid. Farnley is singleminded and completely cold in his pursuit of revenge.

Winder, an old stagecoach driver who believes all of his and everyone else’s troubles can be accredited to the railroad’s takeover of the West.

Young Tetley, Tetley’s son, who looks like his dead mother and acts like a crazy person and laments the weak and predatory nature of all men while participating in an act that he knows is an example of that evil nature.

There are more, and none of them are cardboard, one-dimensional characters. I was so impressed with the author’s ability to write about real people placed in a situation that brought out the worst in all of them, in different ways. Anyway, I do recommend this novel for anyone who’s interested in the themes of mob rule and politics and persuasion and groupthink and judgment and guilt and responsibility. (There’s probably more in there that I have yet to think about. I’m going to be mulling over this one for a while.)

And now since I just read this Western novel, and I recently read a couple of novels by Western author Elmer Kelton, I’m going to make a list of the ten best Westerns I’ve ever read. And I’d be curious to know what Western novels (novels set in the U.S. West, nineteenth century or early twentieth century) you would recommend as the best of the genre.

In no particular order:

1. The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter Van Tilburg Clark.

2. The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton.

3. Shane by Jack Schaeffer.

4. My Antonia by Willa Cather. I’ve been told that Song of the Lark, also by Cather is even better, but I haven’t read it yet.

5. News of the World by Paulette Jiles.

6. Wait for Me, Watch for Me, Eula Bee by Patricia Beatty. Middle grade fiction, but good for adults, too. In fact, I recommend all of Ms. Beatty’s novels, many of which are set in the old West.

7. The Edge of Time by Louella Grace Erdman.

8. Where the Broken Heart Still Beats by Carolyn Meyer. YA fiction about Indian captive Cynthia Ann Parker.

9. True Grit by Charles Portis. Need to re-read, but I remember it was good.

10. Sea of Grass by Conrad Richter. Ditto, need to re-read.

I haven’t read Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey (or anything else by this acclaimed author), and I haven’t read Hondo by Louis L’Amour, although I have read other L’Amour novels and not been too impressed. I absolutely hated Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. So, what do you think are the ten best Westerns that you have read, or what one or more would you add to my list?

The Best Western Novels from The Western Writers of America.

21 Western Novels Every Man Should Read.

High Lonesome by Louis L’Amour

Aug20

I read this book partly to see if it would be appropriate for the young adults who patronize my library and partly just to see if I liked L’Amour’s fiction as much as I did his autobiography, The Education of a Wandering Man. I found two instances of mildly bad language (h— and d–n), not that I’m into counting. And there was a romance, but rather chaste even though the guy is an outlaw gunslinger and the girl is the daughter of an outlaw. I think it would be perfectly good for anyone fourteen or fifteen and up.

I don’t read many Westerns, but I can see how L’Amour’s books became so popular. This story of an attractive outlaw and a young but strong girl who falls for him has more going for it than just the romance. There’s male-bonding, a bit of bromance, and a lots of fighting and honor among thieves and standing up for what’s right even when it looks hopeless.

L’Amour’s characters are flawed, but likable. The peril they find themselves in is partly due to their own bad decisions, but partly just the luck of the draw. The idea is that everybody eventually has to choose to do the right thing or be a self-seeking coward, even those who have chosen the wrong side of the law in the past. And it’s not whether you follow the law that makes you a good man, rather it’s whether or not you follow your own internal compass of right and wrong and make the hard right choice when the crisis comes. I would argue that if you haven’t built up those muscles of choosing right in the minor issues you are unlikely to choose right when a really big choice requiring self denial comes along, but L’Amour’s characters don’t have that much nuance.

Considine, the hero of the novel, is a man who “had a way of getting to where he wanted to be without being seen.” “[T]he big, quiet man was very sure of himself, and was known to be a dangerous man with a gun.’ “Considine did not seem like an outlaw. He had the air of a gentleman and there was something undefined in his manner that set him apart.” “Nor were they free of the images their own minds held of themselves. The man on horseback, the lone-riding man, the lone-thinking man, possessed an image of himself that was in part his own, in part a piece of all the dime novels he had read, for no man is free of the image his literature imposes upon him. And the dime novel made the western hero a knight-errant.”

I’m casting, of course, John Wayne, in my mind’s eye as Considine. If you like that kind of movie or book or if you like dime novel western heroes, High Lonesome should be just the ticket. No irony here, just straight up shootin’ and ridin’ and honor and heroism with a little bit of bank robbing thrown in.

The Day the Cowboys Quit by Elmer Kelton

Aug15

Management versus labor in the Texas Panhandle ranching country, c.1883. Mr. Kelton’s novel is a fresh and fictionalized take on the story of the labor movement, but it is grounded in a real event, the Canadian River cowboy strike of 1883.

Hugh Hitchcock, the protagonist and viewpoint character of the novel, is a trail boss of sorts for a comparatively small rancher trying to move into the big leagues, Charlie Waide. Hugh is a man caught in the middle. He and Charlie are old friends, but Hitchcock is also a working man, friends with many of the cowboys who work under him and sympathetic to their troubles and aspirations. When the big ranchers insist that Charlie Waide join them in imposing order, their order, on the wild and loose customs and laws of the north Texas ranching country, Hugh Hitchcock can see their side. Ranchers can’t afford to let rustlers, even from among their own cowboys, steal and re-brand their cattle. The big ranchers, many of them from the East, are in it for the money, and they don’t intend to pay the cowboys any more than they must. The cowboys themselves are a feisty lot, and many of them are much more loyal to their own interests than to that of their employers.

However, Hugh himself is trying, like many of the other cowboys, to build up his own small herd of cattle. And he sees that the cowboys are only trying to better themselves as they brand mavericks, cows that are orphaned and belong to whatever man can burn a brand on them first. Hugh also believes that the cowboys and the ranch owners are in this business together and that they owe each other loyalty and trust, that they should share in whatever profits are made. When push comes to shove, Hitchcock must decide where his loyalties lie and what to do about his own inner conflicts and indecision.

Hugh Hitchcock is such a good character, a peacemaker with an inner core of ethics and responsibility. And as the Dallas Morning News reviewer Walter B. Moore wrote, “Texas cowboys think, act and talk like Texas cowboys in this novel.” (There is some cursing in the novel, but not that much, certainly not more than would be probable given the characters and setting.)I have read three or four novels by Kelton now, and I definitely plan to read more. His novels are my kind of Western, not at all formulaic or ridiculous in their portrayal of Texas and its history. Kelton’s cowboys have their own cowboy slang, but they are people just like people anywhere else in the world. I can’t say the same for another highly praised and best-selling Texas novel.

My next Elmer Kelton novel will be Good Old Boys, another story about dealing with change in the ranching country of West Texas. My favorite Kelton novel so far is The Time It Never Rained, but The Day the Cowboys Quit is a close second.

The Edge of Time by Louella Grace Erdman

Feb7

Bethany and Wade Cameron begin their journey by wagon from Missouri to the Texas Panhandle on their wedding day. They take with them, or acquire along the way, a few necessary items: a milk cow, a horse, seeds, curtains, a rag rug, and a rosebush cutting from the rosebush in Bethany’s parents’ front yard. When they reach their homestead in Texas, they will have no near neighbors, no railroad nearby to bring in supplies or take crops to market, and no extra resources other than their own faith, courage, and stick-to-it-tiveness. Bethany is not even sure of Wade’s love for her; he was originally pledged to marry another girl who jilted him, and he only turned to Bethany when she rashly promised to go with him anywhere.

One reviewer on Amazon said of this book: “I started reading this book and thought it was going to start off slow. It wasn’t slow just in the beginning… I think it was a horrible pointless book.” I disagree, but if you’re looking for a modern thriller or romance, you will be as disappointed as the Amazon reviewer was. Bethany’s and Wade’s story unfolds slowly; their love and commitment grow over time. And the story is as much about their love affair with homesteading and with the land as it is about their marriage and their love for each other.

Two things impressed me. I was reminded of the old song from the musical Oklahoma:

One of the major themes of the book is the inevitability of change, and the conflict between the ranchers and the new farming homesteaders. Wade and Bethany are determined to make a go of farming in the new lands that the state of Texas is selling to homesteaders. Their neighbors and friends are mostly cowboys and ranchers who are kind and helpful to the new couple but not at all sympathetic to the fences and the plows that are breaking up the open range lands.

The other thing I noticed was the pattern of Bethany’s and Wade’s marriage. The story takes place in the late 1880’s; the book was published in 1950. The Camerons’ relationship displays the customs and expectations of both time periods. Wade is the strong, silent type. He makes the decisions and expects Bethany to agree with him. Bethany also expects things to be this way, although there is a scene in which she wants him to consult her about a major financial decision, but realizes that he can’t show that kind of “weakness” in front of other people. He later admits that he should have asked her about the decision, “that it was cowardly not to have asked her . . . But I just—well, I just couldn’t tell him—” And Bethany ends up glad that Wade didn’t embarrass himself and “come trailing in to ask [her]”.

It’s a different kind of marriage relationship than very many people would try nowadays. But perhaps our lack of trust in one another, and our need to always have everything “equal” and “fair” with all decisions being joint decisions, 50/50, creates its own set of problems and incongruities.

Louella Grace Erdman was a Texas writer who penned a number of books for adults and for children, mostly set in the Texas Panhandle where she lived the majority of her life. Ms. Erdman was a teacher of creative writing at West Texas State College, and she wrote about fifteen or more novels about pioneer and frontier life in Texas and elsewhere and a couple of volumes of memoir. I’m definitely going to keep an eye out for more of Ms. Erdman’s books.

Her books include:

Tales of the Texas Panhandle series. The Pierce family–father, mother and five children—are homesteaders in the Texas Panhandle during the late 1800’s. For middle graders and young adults.
The Wind Blows Free
The Wide Horizon
The Good Land

Other books for adults and teens:
Separate Star. A young schoolteacher’s first year of teaching.
Fair Is the Morning Connie a young school teacher moves the to rural town of Hickory Ridge to write a thesis on rural schools. The job soon proves to be a greater challenge than she had first imagined.
Lonely Passage. Coming of age story about a young girl growing up in a family of strong women.
Many a Voyage. Fiction about Kansas senator, later territorial governor of New Mexico, Edmund G. Ross through the eyes of his wife.
My Sky Is Blue.
The Far Journey. A young woman is reluctant to join her husband, Edward, on the Texas frontier, but eventually she does as they make a life together.
Room to Grow. French immigrants move to the Texas Panhandle from New Orleans.
Another Spring. Civil War era romance about families displaced by Order Number Eleven at the end of the Civil War.
A Bluebird Will Do. “Orphaned in San Francisco during gold rush days, a sixteen-year-old girl travels east by way of the Isthmus of Panama to seek out relatives in New Orleans.”
Save Weeping for the Night.. A fictional account of the life of Bettie Shelby, wife of the Confederate hero, General Jo Shelby.
Three at the Wedding. The wedding of Meredith Dunlap and Rodney Carlyle in the town of Linston, Texas shortly after World War II changes the lives of three other women in various ways.
The Years of the Locust.. The life and influence of an eighty year old farmer, Dade Kenzie, after his death in rural Missouri.
Life was Simpler Then. “Memories of the author’s Missouri farm childhood, within the framework of the four seasons.
A Time to Write.. Writing memoir.

Blog post on Louella Grace Erdman and her books at From Sinking Sand.
Handbook of Texas entry on Louella Grace Erdman.

10 Best Adult Fiction Books I Read in 2017

Jan22

News of the World by Paulette Jiles. It’s a surprise, even to himself, when in Wichita Falls Captain Jefferson Kidd agrees to deliver ten year old Johanna Leonberger to her relatives near Fredericksburg. Johanna has been a captive of the Kiowa for four years, and now the girl has been recovered. But, unfortunately for her, Johanna still believes she is Kiowa, but the Indians don’t want her back and the only choice Johanna has is whether or not to go quietly to her unremembered relatives’ home in German country.

The Scent of Water by Elizabeth Goudge. A lovely novel about enduring suffering and finding one’s place in the world.

Safely Home by Randy Alcorn. American businessman Ben Fielding discovers the truth about the persecuted church in China when he goes to visit his former college roommate, Li Quan.

The Glorious Cause by Jeff Shaara. A fictionalized history of the American revolution as seen through the eyes of George Washington, Nathaniel Green, Benedict Arnold, the Marquis de Lafayette, British Generals William Howe and Henry Clinton and Charles Cornwallis.

State of Wonder by Ann Patchett. Dr. Annick Swenson is working, in the heart of the Amazon jungle, on a fertility drug that will revolutionize the world, if it can be brought to market. The trouble is that Dr. Swenson can’t be bothered to communicate with the pharmaceutical company that is sponsoring her work and that hopes to make a fortune by selling her discovery. The company has already sent one person down to Brazil to find out what’s going on, Anders Eckman. But he’s disappeared, reported dead. Now, they want Dr. Marina Singh, a researcher who worked with Eckman, to go to Brazil, find out exactly what happened to her friend and colleague Anders Eckman, and bring back a firm timetable for the completion of research on the fertility drug.

Frederica by Georgette Heyer. Solid Regency romance with strong characters and witty and slangy repartee. I liked the romantic leads quite a bit, and I even felt sympathy for the ingenue parts, played by Frederica’s sister Charis and her crush.

The Light Between Oceans by M.L. Stedman. World War I veteran Tom Sherburne, returns to Australia and takes a job as the lighthouse keeper on Janus Rock, a small, isolated island off the coast of western Australia. He marries a local girl, Isabel, and although the marriage is happy, the isolation of the lighthouse leads Isabel to make a fateful decision.

Kindred by Octavia Butler. Dana, a twentieth century black woman, is transported back in time to the early nineteenth century in a slave state where she is forced to decide again and again whether she should do something to save the life of a young white slaveowner, Rufus.

Demelza by Winston Graham. This second book in the Poldark series ends with death, destruction, and loss. From its hope filled beginning with the birth of a child for Ross and Demelza Poldark to the end when all is dark with only a hint of light in the last line of the novel, the story is an engaging look at late 18th century Cornwall and its politics, characters and social customs.

Jeremy Poldark by Winston Graham. The third book in the Poldark saga.

P.K. Pinkerton and the Pistol-Packing Widows by Caroline Lawrence

Jun8

P.K. Pinkerton fills yet another niche in detective fiction for middle graders with a high-functioning autistic detective who is half Lakota Sioux/half white. I haven’t read the first two books in this series, but I want to read them both after having enjoyed The Pistol-Packing Widows. There are a few caveats that might discourage some readers:

1) Some reviewers have lambasted the first two books as stereotypical and offensive in their portrayal of Native Americans. I didn’t find this book to be so, but I may not be as sensitive to this issue as other people are.

2) P.K. is supposed to be a devout Methodist Christian, and for the most part he acts like a Christian. However, there is a brief scene in which P.K. consults his “spirit guide” (who turns out to be a worm?). I wish the author hadn’t included that scene since it’s not really integral to the plot or characterization, but there it is.

3) P.K. also talks about and associates with ladies he calls “soiled doves”, a euphemism for prostitutes. He’s tolerant of their profession, if he really understands what it is they do. P.K. is fairly innocent about the world, and he may be oblivious to the true nature of prostitution.

All that stuff aside, I loved this book. P.K. is an engaging character, something of a savant and quite an astute observer, even if he doesn’t always understand what he is observing. In this particular episode in the career of P.K. Pinkerton, private detective, P.K. is observing the Nevada politicians in Carson City as they give out toll road franchises to the highest bidders and negotiate with one another over the possibility of Nevada Territory’s becoming a state. He’s also trying to save his friend Poker Face Jace from the clutches of a “black widow” named Violetta de Baskerville, and in his spare time, he’s helping his new friend Miss Carrie Pixley keep an eye on her beloved, Mr. Sam Clemens. P.K. has a busy life.

There’s a big reveal about three-fourths of the way through the book, and I didn’t see it coming. For those who have read the first two books, I think the cat is already out of the bag. But for me, it was an adjustment to my thinking. Anyway, it’s a fun read with plenty of action and a thoroughly likable young detective. Reading this one not only made me want to read the first two books in this series, but it also made me interested in looking up Ms. Lawrence’s Roman Mysteries series.

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton

May16

If there was ever a piece of fiction that should be adopted as a manifesto and banner for the conservative/libertarian movement in American politics, it’s not any of that nonsense by Ayn Rand. (I never could get through either of her most famous tomes although I tried . . once . . each.) Elmer Kelton’s The Time It Never Rained is a Western classic, a conservative classic, and a cracking good story. It should be recommended reading for all little conservatives-in-training.

So, in the 1950’s, about the time I was born, West Texas ranchers and farmers endured a seven year drouth. Seven years with little or no rain. Seven years. Charlie Flagg has lived through drought before, and he’s sure he can make through this one. But seven years is a long time, and no one, of course, knows that the drought will last so long or when or even if it will ever be over. Charlie, cantankerous and set in his ways even before the drought begins, only becomes more so as he faces the loss of his cattle, his sheep, his family and friends, and finally most of his land. Still, Charlie never gives up, never gives in to what he believes is wrong.

And one thing Charlie believes is wrong, at least for himself, is accepting government aid and price supports. As it turns out, the government aid offered to the ranchers to help them feed their animals and survive the drought comes with strings attached, and artificial prices confuse the free market so much that the ranchers can’t make a living even when the rains return. Charlie must change, accepting the idea of raising goats in addition to the sheep that have been his mainstay, but he never compromises his principles.

Charlie Flagg isn’t perfect, and the author shows us his faults as well as his strengths. Charlie and his wife have grown apart, mostly because Charlie is the strong, silent type, not much of a communicator (Charlie’s attitude: He told her he loved her when he married her, and he’d be sure to let her know if anything changed.) Charlie is an old-style patron to his Mexican American workers, and he sometimes patronizes them and treats them with the kind of “separate but equal” attitude that was the trademark of the fifties relationship between Anglos and Latin Americans, as we used to call them. Charlie doesn’t hire illegals, but he respects them for their work ethic and their willingness to cross the border to find work. He wishes the government would just leave everybody alone, including the Mexicans who come to work in the United States, and especially including the ranchers who are just trying to make a living raising cattle and sheep and goats.

That’s the typical attitude of the typical West Texan that I knew growing up. I grew up in San Angelo, Mr. Kelton’s hometown. And most people there, at least thirty years ago, would have told you they just wanted the government, state and federal, to leave them alone. Some older men and women I knew were “yellow dog Democrats” and others were newly-coined Republicans, but all of them shared the desire to be left alone to raise their families and do their work without interference or help from the government.

QOTD: How do you respond to adversity or failure? How do you want to see yourself respond to hard times?