Classic Westerns - book review

 CLASSIC WESTERNS

Collected and introduced by Peter Haining, published 1998.

Haining brings together twelve Western short stories, many of which were the templates for movies.

Among these are: Three-ten to Yuma by Elmore Leonard, Stagecoach by Ernest Haycox, Hondo by Louis L’Amour, The Misfits by Arthur Miller, and A Man Called Horse by Dorothy M Johnson.

Other stories feature characters who subsequently appeared in TV or film: The Cisco Kid, Hopalong Cassidy, and The Virginian.

My favourites, besides those film titles above are ‘The Caballero’s Way’ by O. Henry, ‘Dust Storm’ by Max Brand,  ‘The Great Slave’ by Zane Grey, and ‘One Man’s Honour’ by Jack Schaefer.

There’s a good amount of fine prose to be found amongst this selection of mostly moral tales.

DRIFTER'S REVENGE - Book review

DRIFTER’S VENGEANCE

Max Brand

 

Originally published 1932, this edition 1974. A slightly off-beat melodrama with humour about the likeable character of Speedy, a drifter who becomes the deputy sheriff of lawless Sunday Slough.

Speedy lives up to his name and uses unarmed combat to good effect against the bad guys, in effect kung fu many years before the TV series popularised that martial art.

The usual tale about claim jumping, robbery and crooked lawmen, enlivened by the unique character, Speedy. Nobody proves a match for him.

A fast-paced yarn from a bygone era.

The Giant book of the Western

Published in 1991 as The Mammoth Book of the Western, this is a reprint dated 1995 with a slightly revised title.Superb cover!

Twenty-seven short stories. Great value. There are excellent tales by the late Elmer Kelton, Willa Catha, Max Brand, James Warner Bellah, Elmore Leonard, Jack Schaefer and Loren D Estleman – several of them actually Spur winners.

Of late, there’s been talk about how revisionist westerns now deal with the Indians in a more balanced way. Yet the issue of the noble savage had been around quite a while, as editor Lewis points out in his introduction. ‘… amplified by the decision of the Curtis magazine group that the Indian point-of-view must not be shown in its journals, a decision which stemmed from the audience outrage that greeted Zane Gray’s fictional attempt in 1922 to depict a love affair between a white woman and Amerindian man, in Ladies’ Home Journal. From the 1950s, however, the American Indian began to be more sympathetically – and realistically – portrayed in the popular western…’

This can be exemplified by the included stories of John G Neihardt’s ‘The Last Thunder Song’ (1907), Oliver La Farge’s ‘The Young Warrior’ (1938), Dorothy M Johnson’s ‘A Man called Horse’ (1949), and Steve Frazee’s excellent ‘Great Medicine’ (1953).

Recommended.

A Fistful of Legends - Swedish review

Swedish magazine Swingbed:
http://hangmattan.site90.net/tidningen/hangmattan131.pdf
page 5:

A FISTFUL OF LEGENDS
Edited by Nik Morton
Express Westerns 2009
Soft cover

Länge trodde jag att den gamla ”hederliga” wild weststoryn
var död och begraven för många år sedan. Det var under min
ungdomstid på 50- talet som man fortfarande gav ut wild west romaner,
ja ända in i 70-talet rentav. De kom ut på Wennerbergs förlag och själv
samlade jag på den i mitt tycke baste av dem alla – Max Brand eller som hans riktiga namn var Fredrick Faust. En av världens mest produktiva författare med
böcker i praktiskt taget alla genrer. Han var krigsreporter och
blev skjuten under andra världskriget. Hans Stora hjälte hette
Jim Silver.

Här har engelsmannen Nik Morton sammanställt 21 nya wild west stories,
med varierande innehåll. Här finns faktiskt alla varianter på en bra western
och för alla älskare av den idag nästan utdöda genren är den här boken ett
absolut måste. Själv har Nik bidragit med en novell under namnet Ross Morton.
Varför inte göra ett besök på några av websidorna Nik tipsar om:
www.halebooks.com www.blackhorsewesterns.org
www.blackhorsewesterns.com
Iwan

Rough translation:
For a long time I thought that the old "Honest" wild west story was dead and buried for
many years ago. It was during my youth of the 50s that the Wild West novels were published, even
well into the 70s. They came out on Wenner's publishing company imprint and I collected them.
In my opinion, the best of them all was Max Brand (real name Fredrick Faust). One of the world's
most prolific writer with books in virtually every genre. He was a war reporter and
was killed during WWII. His great hero was Jim Silver.

Here the Englishman Nik Morton has compiled 21 new wild West stories, with varying content.
They are actually all variants of a good western, and for all lovers of today’s almost extinct genre,
this book is an absolute must. Nik has contributed a short story under the name Ross Morton.
Why not visit some of the websites where Nik is spreading the word: www.halebooks.com, www.blackhorsewesterns.org, www.blackhorsewesterns.co

VALLEY THIEVES by Max Brand - review

I’ve got two editions of this book – recent gifts from Swedish friend Iwan. An American edition, 1933 plus the first UK edition, 1949, and the dust jacket is from the latter. While I’ve read a number of Max Brand books, I haven’t read any of his Silvertip stories, so this is a first for me.

Narrated in the first person by Bill Avon, it relates Jim Silver’s continuing battle of wills and wits with his arch-enemy Barry Christian, in the process of which Silver’s wolf Frosty and his powerful horse Parade are abducted. We also meet the enigmatic Harry Clonmel, another bigger-than-life character.

There’s no indication when the story takes place, though a few references may suggest the mid-1890s. Silvertip’s pal Taxi seems to have a penchant for modern inventions; he owns an automatic pistol (1893) and carries an electric pocket torch (the first 2-candlepower lantern, weighing in at 2lb would make his pocket very heavy; invented 1892; the tubular torch, 1898). The evil Barry Christian has a concealed derringer up his sleeve, operated by elastic; elastic braid or knicker elastic came out about 1887 while elastic bands were around post-1845.

The writing style isn’t particularly great, but Brand delivers on storytelling. Here, he writes about a West where there are good men and true, where even villains seem to possess some humanity. Old Man Cary is the patriarch of a family of bad blood; he’s well drawn and multi-faceted: he reeks evil yet has a sneaking regard for Silvertip.

Silvertip – so called because of the ‘tufts of grey hair over his temples, like the beginning of little horns’ – is not an anti-hero but a mythopoeic hero. As Avon says, ‘… a hero is a property of every ordinary man and because of such men as Jim Silver the rest of us stand straighter. He was a man who had never been found in a cruel, mean, or cowardly action.’ These heroes are necessary, even in this day and age. Too often, so-called heroes espoused by the media have feet of clay. Perhaps there’s a need for more honest and true sportsmen, movie stars and politicians around to set examples to the young. Maybe loss of faith has something to do with it, now our world is overwhelmingly secular and acquisitive. Bill Avon said of Silvertip, ‘His faith in me made me strong. Another man’s faith always multiplies one’s own, I think.’ Self-belief and self-worth grow from the influences of others.

I came away from a relatively simple western tale with these thoughts, which surprised me a little. Brand doesn’t openly preach, but his tales clearly have a moral tone, which may appear quaint these days, and yet perhaps many of his readers dearly wish to go back to those simpler times.