Saturday, May 30: Mississippi Mud
LOOKING WEST
by John M. Floyd
This week I’m straying, as I sometimes do, from the usual subject of short stories and the mystery/crime genre. The reason?
I’ve been reading (gasp!) western novels. And I don’t mean novels about western civilization. I mean novels about the rip-roaring, wild-and-woolly American West of the late 1800s. And boy has it been fun.
Boston to Arizona, Taxicabs to Stagecoaches
Specifically, I’ve been reading westerns by Robert B. Parker, an author who usually writes mystery fiction with crimefighters like Spenser and Jesse Stone and Sunny Randall. But not always. In 2002 Parker ventured into the Old West with an interesting novel called Gunman’s Rhapsody, which included the Earps, Doc Holliday, etc. — and more recently has created a series of three books starring fictional gunfighter Virgil Cole and his friend Everett Hitch. These two sometimes-lawmen are more fun to read about than any characters I’ve found since Texas Rangers Gus McCrea and Woodrow Call.
The novels are Appaloosa (2006), Resolution (2008), and Brimstone (2009), whose titles are taken from the towns in which they’re set. Having just finished the latest one, I can tell you I enjoyed all three, mainly because of the way Parker writes his stories.
A Matter of Style
He takes a bare-bones, no-nonsense approach that really appeals to me. These three books, like his crime novels, are heavy on dialogue and light on description, and extremely fast-paced. You hardly have time to catch your breath. And there are a lot of long exchanges, many of them consisting of short, clipped sentences, between the two protagonists (who remind me at times of Spenser and Hawk). I like that. It seems real, and reads the way I think these folks would actually speak. Elmore Leonard would be proud.
Another similarity in the way Parker handles his two genres is that both feature characters who, while not admirable in every way, have a keen sense of personal honor and of the difference between right and wrong. Or at least what they consider to be right and wrong. They live by a code of ethics that can never be broken, no matter what. This concept works especially well in westerns, since that’s a genre where Good and Evil are usually easy to identify, in spite of what color the hats are.
Putting Faces to the Names
As some of you know, Appaloosa was made into a movie last year, with Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen in the lead roles and Renee Zellweger as Virgil’s love interest. I enjoyed the film, mostly because the screenplay was so faithful to the book but also because of the strength of the actors — especially Harris and Mortensen. I hope the other two novels will be adapted for the screen as well, with the same director (Harris) and the same cast.
Western Influence
Do I, as a writer of mostly short mystery fiction, feel a little guilty about reading horse-opera novels when I should be reading the kind of thing I like to write? Nope. The best way for any of us storytellers to improve is to read well-written stories, in any genre — and Parker delivers the goods. He can pack more backstory into a natural conversation between characters than almost anyone else I’ve read, and it somehow doesn’t seem to matter that he seldom describes anyone or anyplace in police-report detail. In your mind, you can see the buckboards rattling along in the street, taste the dust, smell the whiskey, feel the tension before a gunfight, hear the clang of the blacksmith’s hammer. He makes you think you’re there.
A master at work.
Thanks for the tip about Parker’s westerns. Didn’t realize he was writing them. I enjoy Loren Estleman’s westerns but haven’t found any recent ones.
I agree about reading well-written stories in any genre, although I draw the line at science fiction, romance and fantasy.
I’ve read the first two and BRIMSTONE is on my short-list. I agree – his spare style fits a western story well.
For western short stories, nobody beats Elmore Leonard, in my opinion. Though he doesn’t write them anymore, the collection published a few years back is a treasure-trove.
I too like Estleman’s westerns, and Elmore Leonard’s. What bothers me about Parker is that he never wrote any short stories, at least none that I know about.
Two magic words to catch my attention: Ed Harris and Viggo Mortensen. This movie was perfect for me and my Western-loving husband. He’s into the authenticy of the weapons, clothing and accuracy of how society was then…I’m into the great writing and oh yeah, those two hot guys starring in the film. BTW, I am a stickler for credits…how many of you heard Ed Harris singing near the end of the credits?
Hey Deborah — Talking about being a stickler for credits, did you realize that Ed Harris’s father, Bob, played the judge during the trial? And Robert B. Parker’s son Daniel played the lawyer who defended the bad guy (Jeremy Irons).
I always watch the credits roll. (It’s also a good way to get names for future story characters.)
Horse-opera?
I laughed when I read that, then I couldn’t decide if you were serious–I thought you were being horsey? 🙂
I liked your article.
Strictly speaking, alisa, I think a horse opera is a western movie or TV show, sort of a frontier soap opera. Also called an “oater,” for obvious reasons.
I love ’em, probably because I grew up in the fifties and sixties, which was their heyday.
Hi John,
I had to laugh at the phrase “horse opera.” Having grown up in the same decades you did, I remember the phrase well.
Another great mystery writer who has done some excellent westerns as well is Ed Gorman.
Terrie
A couple of other mystery/western crossovers are Bill Crider and Bill Pronzini.
I knew that some of the folks y’all have mentioned have also written westerns, but I wasn’t aware of others. This gives me some new reading opportunities!
I think it’s sort of interesting that Parker only recently got into the western genre, while Leonard started out there and then switched to crime novels. And folks like Estleman have always written both.
I’ve never really understood the steady decline in the popularity of western fiction, both short and long, over the past 40 years or so. When I first started publishing stories in ’94, there were still a few places you could sell short westerns, like Big Sky Stories, Louis L’Amour Western Magazine, Western Digest, etc. — but even those have now put all four feet in the air. Anyone know of any current western short story markets?
Are you aware of a bunch of paperback anthologies published by Fawcett in the ’80’s, ’90’s (edited by Pronzini and Greenberg) of western short-stories each book having a theme like “The Arizonians” “The Cattlemen” or “The Montanans”? Later books in the series carried the subtitle “The Best Of The West.”
Yours from Patrick Henry Antrim’s hometown,
—-jeff
I swear, Jeff, I find out something new from you all the time. (You were the one who put me onto the SMALL FELONIES collection by Pronzini, which I loved.)
I will search out that Pronzini/Greenberg western series. Many thanks!
Leigh,
Thanks for using my cover in today’s column; however, since most of that part dealt with self-publishing, I want your readers to know that the Callie Parrish Mysteries are not and have never been self-published. I went the traditional route and found a great agent who pitched and sold to Prime Crime Berkley, a wonderful division of Penguin.
Fran
John, you’re welcome! Not quite in the series but by the same editors was “Christmas Out West” a collection of Christmas-themed western stories and poems.