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Western Book Roundup

Steven Rinella, author of American Buffalo, one of my favorite books from a few years ago, is the host of a new show on The Travel Channel, ”The Wild Within.” My television is not equipped with those fancy channels that you pay for, but there are several amusing trailers for the show available for cheapskates to view on the Travel Channel’s website.  In one, Rinella is out hunting with his brother, who discusses his idea to turn some elk ivories (the molars of an elk) into an engagement ring for his girlfriend.  In another, Rinella takes a boat he made out of a buffalo hide out in the Missouri River in Montana, and capsizes.

The show features Rinella hunting, chatting with hunting buddies, and expounding on his philosophy of only eating the meat of animals that he has killed himself.  You can also catch various Rinella tidbits on his Twitter feed.

New West Book Review

Best of the West 2010: New Stories from the Wide Side of the Missouri
Edited by James Thomas & D. Seth Horton
University of Texas Press, 246 pages, $19.95

Kent Meyers‘ insightful foreword, “Why All the Law?” is one of the best pieces in the 2010 edition of the recently revived annual anthology of Western short fiction, Best of the West. Meyers makes a cogent argument about what distinguishes Western American literature from any other regional literature. Meyers writes, “the outlaw has a peculiar relationship to Western American literature.” Often in Western lit, the outlaw is a “royal” figure, somehow deposed from power and left to make his existence on the outskirts of society. Meyers compares this glorification of outlaws to the tendency of some Western people to try to free themselves from the reach of law, taxes, and other trappings of government, as did Warren Jeffs. “The West makes promises to fictional kings,” Meyers writes, “it offers resources of space and land and solitude.”

Meyers’ conclusion seems eerily prescient in light of the recent assassination attempt against Representative Gabrielle Giffords in Arizona: “Literary authors find, as well as invent, their stories. In the American West, those stories often spring out of a concern with how the individual, so easily tempted toward moral solipsism, manages, or doesn’t, to stay connected to the needs of others, and so keeps from becoming a law unto himself. If an examination of these forces is what Western writers tend toward, it’s a gift the nation needs right now as it struggles with the conundrum of remaining true to its own laws while facing those who would not merely break the law but destroy it.”

Western Book Roundup

In this week’s Roundup I’ll take a look at some books of special interest to Western readers that will be published during the first half of this year:

January

• Kings of Colorado, the debut novel by Austin’s David E. Hilton is out this week.  To learn more about it, check out my interview with him or the review I wrote for the Dallas Morning News.

• Annie Proulx’s new memoir Bird Cloud is now in stores—it has been getting a strange mix of glowing and/or disapproving reviews.  Among the people who loved it are Tim Gautreaux, who covered it for the San Francisco Chronicle, and Donna Seaman, who gave it a starred review for Booklist.  Not as enamored were Alexandra Fuller and Dwight Garner, who both wrote about it for the New York Times—Garner’s review is really funny. 

Western Writers

David E. Hilton‘s debut novel Kings of Colorado (Simon & Schuster, $24) begins, “In the summer of 1963, when I was thirteen, I stabbed my father in the chest with a Davy Crockett Explorers pocketknife.” The narrator, the sensitive William Sheppard, attacked his father because he was beating his mother, and is sentenced to two years at the Swope Ranch Boys Reformatory in Colorado.  Will bands together with three other boys to try to endure the cruelties and violence of life at the reformatory, where one solace is the opportunity to help break mustangs.  Hilton lives near Austin with his family.  I interviewed him via email about the swayback horse named Bullet he briefly owned as a child, why he had to write part of this novel in the bathroom, and whether his experience as a middle school teacher inspired the violence in Kings of Colorado.  Hilton will discuss his book at BookPeople in Austin on January 13 (7 p.m.)

New West: How did the idea for Kings of Colorado come to you?  Did you begin with the plot or the characters?

David E. Hilton: Oddly enough, the characters did begin to crawl into my mind ahead of the plot, especially the one who became Benny Fritch.  I initially decided to break him up into two separate characters, but later realized it would be far more interesting to combine those traits into one person.  I set out to create a story that, at the core, was about friends finding each other while in a dark, controlled environment, a place where hope was hard to come by.  I’ve always been a sucker for prison stories, but in this instance, I had to incorporate that lost innocence of youth.  What blossomed was the juvenile reformatory ranch.

Western Book Roundup

Happy New Year, everyone.  Now back to work, right?  I’ve got a backlog of Western book news to share today, so here we go:

• A few weeks ago, the New York Times discussed the Montana writer Annick Smith’s efforts to block “Imperial Oil, a Canadian subsidiary of ExxonMobil” from moving “its oversize oil-processing equipment from a port in Idaho to Canada, along a path that includes some of the nation’s most scenic highways.” Other writers are joining the fight—David James Duncan and Rick Bass have written a book, The Heart of the Monster, and the proceeds will go to a group called All Against the Haul.  (Steve Bunk summarized the court battle over megaloads on Highway 12 recently for New West.) My new favorite website, Northwest Book Lovers, recently caught up with Bass and Duncan to discuss the project. Check out All Against the Haul’s Twitter feed for more information.

Also in the Roundup: Western writers in Poets & Writers magazine, the Brokeback Mountain screenwriters are at work on new westerns, a fundraiser for Charles Bock, and Pitchapalooza at the Tattered Cover.

Western Writers

Denver’s Cortright McMeel works for Rainbow Energy, teaches at the Lighthouse Writers Workshop, founded Murdaland, a crime fiction literary magazine, and writes accomplished short stories and novels.  His thirteen years of experience as an energy trader provided the source material for Short (Thomas Dunne Books, 304 pages, $24.99), a talented and funny debut novel of duplicitous and morally bankrupt traders and brokers.  In Jess Walter’s review of Short for The Washington Post, he noted that McMeel “revels in juicy descriptions and office anecdotes, which have the unmistakable feel of insider lore.” I recently interviewed McMeel via email about Short.  We discussed why he originally thought of his novel as a “trader Western,” another novel he’s working on about Doc Holliday, and his trademark “Dad who has two kids under six writing technique.” Cortright McMeel will discuss Short at the Tattered Cover (Colfax) on Wednesday, January 5 at 7:30 p.m.

New West: What brought you to Denver?

Cortright McMeel: My wife has always wanted to live here near the mountains so we could ski more. I got a look at an energy trading firm out here three years ago and we took the shot. It’s been excellent, especially for the kids, and we’ve never looked back.

NW: Your first novel, Short is set mainly on the east coast—have you set anything you’ve written in Colorado?

CM: As soon as I arrived, I found out that Doc Holliday died in Glenwood Springs. I took a trip to visit his grave. Ever since I have been doing research on a novel about his final stint in Leadville. One chapter is written, and the project is one that is very personal to me and one that I am excited about.

Western Book Roundup

I like the funny ones best.  That statement applies to everything, really—people, bears, hats—but especially books.  Throughout the year, I try to make note of the funniest lines and passages I come across in my reading.  Sometimes this proves problematic, as with Brady Udall’s funny-all-the-way through book, The Lonely Polygamist.  When I was typing out my selections from that one, my husband asked, “Why are you retyping that entire novel?” So here’s my second annual list of funny passages from the western books I read this year.  This one goes out to everyone who proudly sports a blue smear of a tattoo that once read “Charlene.”

• From Kevin Canty’s Everything

“She came inside as ever with her basket and jar and several other bags and bundles.  She moved though life in the middle of her own rummage sale, surrounded by rummage.  Some of it was knitting, some of it was food.”

“RL used to love the hippie girls—yes, he did—before they all turned thirty and became strict and sour.”

“She was good for her age but it was not a good age.”

Words for the Western Landscape

In his introduction to Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, editor Barry Lopez writes, “The land beyond our towns, for many, has become a generalized landscape of hills and valleys, of beaches, rivers and monotonous deserts…almost without our knowing it, the particulars of these landscapes have slipped away from us.” Published this year in a paperback edition by Trinity University Press, Home Ground (480 pages, $19.95) seeks to preserve terms that describe the natural landscape by compiling definitions written by accomplished writers.  Over the past month, New West has featured excerpts from Home Ground.  Today’s term is “sawtooth,” as described by Pattiann Rogers.  Rogers is an award-winning, Colorado-based poet.  Her most recent book is The Grand Array.

Words for the Western Landscape

In his introduction to Home Ground: Language for an American Landscape, editor Barry Lopez writes, “The land beyond our towns, for many, has become a generalized landscape of hills and valleys, of beaches, rivers and monotonous deserts…almost without our knowing it, the particulars of these landscapes have slipped away from us.” Published this year in a paperback edition by Trinity University Press, Home Ground (480 pages, $19.95) seeks to preserve terms that describe the natural landscape by compiling definitions written by accomplished writers.  Over the past several weeks, New West has featured excerpts from Home Ground.  Today’s term is “racetrack valley,” as described by Stephen Graham Jones.  Jones is the author of several books, including the new story collection The One That Got Away.

Western Book Roundup

First, I want to thank all the readers who participated in last week’s book giveaway contest by leaving a comment on one of the three Best Books in the West posts.  I wrote everybody’s names on slips of paper and my daughter drew the winner from a bowl--she can’t read, so she couldn’t cheat.  Congratulations to Liz Clift of Ames, Iowa.  Your copy of Benjamin Percy’s The Wilding is on its way.  It’s convenient that she lives in Ames, because Percy lives there too, and she can track him down to sign her book.

And I have to say that I think New West Books & Writers readers and commenters are the best in the web—you are all so smart, well-read, and polite.  Even when I make a stupid mistake, you let me know with such tact.  It’s not like this everywhere on the web, compadres—for proof, just click over to the comment threads on any of New West’s articles about wolves or wilderness management.  Thanks for taking the time to share your thoughts.  I hope to do more book giveaways soon.  Okay, enough with the mushy stuff!

• The biggest news in the book world last week was Google’s announcement that its eBookstore opened for business.  Many indie bookstores had been sitting on the sidelines while Amazon and its Kindle and Apple and its iPad duked it out for digital book supremacy.  Google’s eBookstore allows indie booksellers to get in the digital book game because it provides e-books that are not formatted for a particular device (they work on most browsers, e-book readers, and iPhones), and Google allows individual bookstores to sell these e-books from their websites. 

Also in the Roundup: More on Google eBooks, The Denver Post reduces its book section, Craig Lancaster sells a Christmas story for charity, The Whitefish Review celebrates a new issue, and CutBank hosts a writing contest.

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