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.
When I was growing up, we watched SO many western movies and shows, I didn’t want anything to do with the genre. I’ve heard great things about Zane Grey and Louis L.Amour, but just haven’t been able to bring myself to try them. Books would probably be fuller and more varied than movies, though. The only westerns I can recall reading are some Christians fiction ones by Al Lacy when I was looking for something my father (a new Christian at age 61) might like. I’ve read and enjoyed some of Robin Lee Hatcher’s western novels, too, though I like her contemporary ones better.
For what it’s worth, my favorite western movie was High Noon.