Fri 16 Apr 2010
Archived Western Reviews: AL CODY, BRIAN GARFIELD, & LEWIS B. PATTEN.
Posted by Steve under Reviews , Western Fiction[6] Comments
AL CODY – Bitter Creek. Avon T-431, paperback, no date [1960]. Hardcover edition: Dodd Mead, 1947. Earlier pb reprint: Pocket #769, December 1950.
When a one-armed Civil War veteran comes home to his ranch and fiancee, he discovers that both his ranch and fiancee have been stolen from him by a long-time rival. This is my favorite type of western story, I think, and this one has some sharply pleasing twists of coincidence to go with it. Tightly plotted, with many of the characters a solid notch beyond cardboard.
BRIAN WYNNE GARFIELD – Vultures in the Sun. Ace F-300, paperback reprint, no date [1964?]. Hardcover edition: Macmillan, 1963. Later paperback reprint: Bantam, 1987.
Another common theme in western novels is that of the gunfighter who would like to quit and settle down, but can’t. In this one, when Ethan Scott agrees to rid a town of outlaws, he knows full well that when the job is done, he won’t be wanted around much longer. The story is moody and introspective, and it often seems static and unmoving, but the characters are strong and memorable. Good stuff.
LEWIS B. PATTEN – Home Is the Outlaw. Gold Medal #778, paperback original, June 1958.
An echo of the preceding book, developed in a much more obvious fashion, and punctuated instead by almost constant action. Gunfighter Morgan Orr returns to his home town to try to make a new life for himself, only to find the woman he remembers no longer available, and a guilty secret ready to burst the town wide open. This is a violent book, but one that’s tough to put down.
November 1993.
[UPDATE] 04-16-10. A footnote to these three reviews at the time says that I’d just purchased a lot of 600 western paperbacks, of which I’d kept 450 for myself. As I recall, until I obtained this lot, I hadn’t been reading westerns as part of my regular diet for quite a while — ever since the mid-1960s — so I was devouring them quickly.
Also note how short these reviews were. I was going through a kind of writer’s block at the time, and I was forcing myself out of it by making my reviews as brief and concise as I could.
April 16th, 2010 at 10:38 pm
The thing about a just average western or crime novel from this general era was how entertaining they tended to be. Nothing great or revolutionary, but they delivered what they promised and did so quite effectively. I’m not sure you can pick up the equivalent today and be as sure of a good time and a competent read.
Or maybe age has just made me nostalgic.
April 16th, 2010 at 10:59 pm
No, David. I’m a lot younger, and I agree totally with you. The novels I’ve read from that era seem to have been written with a more ordinary, everyday kind of competence.
Of course there are aways exceptions, but writers back then might of had a better grasp of the mechanics of writing, possibly because so many had learned their craft in and from the pulps.
April 16th, 2010 at 11:02 pm
I agree about westerns of the 1940’s, 1950’s, 1960’s being of great interest. Like Steve, I have hundreds of western paperbacks and find them to be very enjoyable and a change of pace from mystery and detective novels. I’ve recently been reading Ernest Haycox, W.C. Tuttle, and Luke Short. Short especially is very impressive and I can recommend the two novels I just finished: AND THE WIND BLOWS FREE, about a young man coming of age during the period of the cattle drives, and CORONER CREEK, a tale of revenge. CORONER CREEK was also made into an excellent Randolph Scott film. This started me on watching several Randolph Scott westerns and I’d have to say he’s probably the best among the the many actors who starred in films of the west.
Right now it’s close to midnight and my favorite time to watch film noirs but I think I’ll view ABILENE TOWN. By the way, CORONER CREEK is available only on vhs and is a great argument against throwing away your tape recorders and keeping just dvd players. Why film lovers do this is big puzzle to me because alot of great films are still available only on vhs tapes.
April 17th, 2010 at 3:05 am
Walker
Can’t disagree about the westerns of the period or the writers you mention though Short, Tuttle, and Haycox are certainly well above the average.
Can’t disagree about Randolph Scott either, though I like Joel McCrea’s films almost as well.
Re Short’s books made into films two are outstanding — BLOOD ON THE MOON with Robert Mitchum, Nancy Olson, Walter Brennan, and Robert Preston, and STATION WEST (based on a short story) with Dick Powell and Jane Greer. Both are good examples of noir westerns, the former very dark and moody and the latter a tough tale of an undercover agent.
Dozy
I think the simple explanation is that the writers of that era were better read in a broader area of literature than those today (westerns tend to be written by people who grew up only reading westerns in some cases), editorial standards were higher — at least regarding literacy, and young writers had markets where they could learn their craft. There were places where you could get paid as you learned and where you could be bad and still learn from it.
The western market today comes closest to that since it is still something of a closed shop where writers work outside of the broader literary field in many cases, but those markets where you could hone your skills are gone. The result is we get writers who have a novel published before they have had time to learn their craft. Some of the simple craft of writing may be missing even when they have talent and ability.
Look at all the soft porn churned out by Lawrence Block, Donald Westlake, Robert Silverberg, and others. What a marvelous place to hone their skills while getting paid to write. There is nothing equivalent to that today. There is no market and no incentive to learn the craft the way an earlier generation of writers were able to do.
As one old pro once complained, there’s no place to get paid for being bad anymore.
April 17th, 2010 at 8:29 pm
I certainly agree with what you’ve all been saying, but I have to point out that some of the western paperbacks published back in the 1940s and 50s were not all that good either. Less than average, you might say. If you stay with the big names, like Luke Short, Ernest Haycox, Norman Fox and a few others, you can’t go wrong.
But I’ve been looking ahead in the same issue of MYSTERY*FILE where I found these first three reviews, and well, let me warn you ahead of time, I was pretty honest when I was talking about some of them…
— Steve
April 18th, 2010 at 7:45 am
Of course there are always bad books, but I think what I’m talking about in part is the percentage of good average writers that used to work in the field. Not masters by any means and certainly not the Tuttles, Haycox’s, or Short’s. Just journeymen writers who never really went anywhere but learned their craft and churned out entertaining books that achieved what they set out to do and were mostly forgotten when read.
Those mid level writers are what is missing today. To some extent there are few markets where they can still learn, but nothing like their once was. What always amazed me about the pulps and then paperback originals wasn’t the high end of the quality, or even the absolute dreck, but how broad that middle range was — yeoman like writers who produced stories and books that if not memorable were readable.
And frankly I can’t tell you how many major selling writers today don’t pass my minimum requirements for simple storytelling skills, and I think it is largely because their success came before they had time to learn how to write. They seem unable to construct a plot like the lowest level writer from the Gold Medal line. It’s the inability to follow the line of suspense, to construct a plot, to create the framework of storytelling that they haven’t learned. They are great at the razzle and dazzle, but sometimes you would give anything for the simple skills of an Edward Aarons.
When you find yourself fondly recalling how well Carter Brown got from point A to point B it’s a sad comment on today’s writing schools.