​I’ve reviewed several movies here, but not yet a book (except for talking up my own, which is still available on Amazon … just sayin’).  I thought to begin book reviews with a recent effort from the incomparable Larry McMurtry titled The Last Kind Words Saloon (2014).
This latest work from McMurtry has gotten some mixed reviews, and I suppose that’s what I intend to do as well.  As the Pulitzer Prize winning author of Lonesome Dove, McMurtry surely knows how to spin a tale, and his writing remains tight, his pacing solid and dialog oftentimes delightful.  But what in the hell are Wyatt Earp and Doc Holiday doing in this novel?!
The characters are solid, believable as far as it goes, except that they bear no – NO resemblance to their historical counterparts.  McMurtry goes so far as to put them in Tombstone and in tense relationship with the Clantons and McLaurys, and yet there is no gunfight at the OK Corral, only a few hard words.
The Last Kind Words Saloon is exactly why I have pause concerning historical fiction in which famous figures serve as the benchmarks or guideposts for a fictive tale.  If you put a famous historical figure in your novel, he or she had better pay off for those history buffs who will read your work specifically because their favorite historical character is in it, and an author who plays fast and loose with genuine history does so at his peril.  McMurtry knows this; his previous books (even Lonesome Dove) often featured real historical characters, but they were strictly walk-on parts, which kept them believable and – here is the important part – didn’t distract from the story McMurtry was telling.  In Kind Words, the historical figures are the protagonists, and it is highly distracting that their narrative arc wholly ignores their actual histories.  As a reader, I continued to expect the plot to weave itself into the real history at some point, but alas, the book ended without that payoff.
The only exception to what I’m formulating as a rule here is when authors write speculative fiction that consciously subverts the actual history, a “what if Hitler didn’t die in his bunker” kind of scenario.  I believe many history buffs give this a pass because the novel does not pass itself off as a real history of any kind, but McMurtry doesn’t give his readers any guideposts in this way, leaving them to muddle through the book on their own.
The books is worth a perusal on its own merit, if only the reader can trick themselves into substituting “Bill” and “Ted” for the historical names as these original characters sally forth on their Big Adventure.

Perhaps the most elemental conflict in the western genre is the range war; the vying for power and physical resources between two or more interests lies at the heart of the American experience.  There have been many famous historical range wars, the great Lincoln County War that spawned Billy the Kid, the lesser-known Pleasant Valley War in Arizona, and others. 

The Ballad of the Laurie Swain is my attempt to chronicle a range war by reconstructing a fictional ranch owner, Gregory J. Eley, who is building a vast ranching empire and has hopes and dreams of becoming the largest ranch in all of Texas, lining his deep pockets with beef contracts to the Army.  He uses his money to peddle influence with local law enforcement and seeks to push out the smaller ranches that border his land, especially the sheep ranches.

Joseph McGinty is a northerner who has travelled west to seek his fortune by joining his uncle, “Armadillo” Jack Delancey in Texas.  Armadillo Jack has been on the frontier for long years, serving in the mounted Dragoons.  They are joined by Emmett Jackson, a former Confederate of immense passions whose love for fighting is rivaled only by his love for ladies and drink.

As one might expect, a misunderstanding turns deadly, and Jack finds himself on the wrong side of the law … one thing leads to another and soon enough the whole trio find themselves in the unwitting employ of Mr. Eley, serving in ranks of his personal ranger company, tasked with forcing the smaller family ranches into submission.

Follow the adventures of this unlikely threesome as they try to escape their bond to Eley before they become wanted for even greater crimes – or are killed! 

So I’ve named my little blog “Writin’ the River,” which may seem a bit . . . counterintuitive to those who know me and know where I live.   As my wife said upon seeing the name of my blog, “what river?”

It’s true, Arizona is not really known for its rivers, especially here in the south.  We have the mighty Colorado, which still qualifies as mighty in certain seasons, up in the Grand Canyon and cutting along our western border.  That is certainly our biggest claim to fame, and our tourism export. There is also the Salt River, which winds its way out of the White Mountains and provides Phoenicians with some hot-weather relief as they tube down its length.  But by the time it reaches Phoenix proper, it’s pretty slim pickins.  As a general rule, rivers and creeks in AZ are more riverbed than river.

I was thinking about none of this when I chose the name.

I was thinking of a metaphoric river, and of the idea of “riding the river,” (see what I did there?).  The river represents boundaries, movement and journeys, but also the quality of people one wants to accompany them on such journeys.  There is an old saying that someone “will do to ride the river with.” This phrase is used to compliment someone by saying they were of good stock, reliable and dependable.  I believe this phrase began with the Texas Border Patrol, who quite literally rides along the Rio Grande as it marks the boundary between the U.S. and Mexico, and the phrase was popularized by the famous Border Patrolman Bill Jordan in his book, No Second Place Winner (see below) .  For men like Jordan, men whose livelihoods depended upon being able to trust one’s partner quite literally with their lives, it was no small thing to be considered good enough to ride the river with.

So this blog is named as it is in honor of my own humble aspirations.  In my professional life as a teacher, writer, and artist, I hope that my colleagues and students, and all my readers will find that I “will do to write the river with.”