A friend of mine with a growing interest in Westerns who
hasn't read much in the genre suggested that I do a blog post about my favorite
Western authors. After some thought, I decided that I can do that, with one
condition: I have to confine it to authors who are no longer with us. I know
almost everyone who's currently writing Westerns, and I don't want any of them
coming across this post and wondering why I didn't mention them. It's an
unavoidable fact: some writers I love as people but don't care for their books.
Others I love their books but don't . . . well, never mind. I'm going to
confine the list to ten, with the usual warning that if you ask me again
tomorrow, the selections might change. I'm also going to keep it to authors
whose work is at least somewhat readily available. I love Harry Olmsted's
stories, for example, but none of them have been reprinted and you'd have to
buy the original pulps to read them. Some are acquired tastes, too, real love
'em or hate 'em authors, so consider that fair warning.
Enough qualifying. On to the list, which is in alphabetical order.
Walt Coburn – Maybe the most inconsistent Western author ever, capable of
sheer, breathtaking excellence as well as utter mediocrity composed in a
drunken haze. But Coburn at the top of his game captured the authenticity of
the Old West probably better than any other author I've ever read. He also came
up with some of the most complicated plots filled with raw emotional angst that
you'll ever find in the genre.
H.A. DeRosso – The darkest of all the Western noir authors, the Jim Thompson of
the Western. He wrote only a handful of novels, but they're all good. Several
of them have been reprinted in the past fifteen years.
T.T. Flynn – Flynn's plots are pretty traditional, but he writes so well it
doesn't matter. Also, his novels are often more emotionally complex than they
appear at first.
Ben Haas – Writing as John Benteen, Richard Meade, Thorne Douglas, and Ben
Elliott, Haas was the best action writer of the Twentieth Century other than
Robert E. Howard. I've written plenty on this blog about him. Pick up anything
he wrote. I guarantee you're in for a good time.
Elmer Kelton – The man picked by a poll of the Western Writers of America as
the best Western author of all time. I have a hard time singling out one author
as the best of anything, but Kelton was very, very good for a long time. Nobody
was ever better at writing about the contemporary West. And he was one of the
nicest people you'd ever want to meet, too.
Lewis B. Patten – Patten's work is similar to DeRosso's, but his novels usually
have happy endings that keep them from being quite as bleak. His books became
more inconsistent as his career went along, so you're usually better off
looking for novels from the Fifties and Sixties, although he was still capable
of good work during the Seventies. If you run across a book you don't like,
give him another chance.
Leslie Scott – Scott is one of those acquired tastes. He wrote many of the Jim
Hatfield novels in the pulp TEXAS RANGERS under the house-name Jackson Cole.
You'll be more likely to find some of his long series of paperback novels about
Texas Ranger Walt Slade, published under the name Bradford Scott. His plots are
repetitious, his prose is really purple at times (especially when he's
describing landscapes), but he wrote great, over-the-top action scenes. His
stand-alones, often based on historical incidents, are also good. But if you
try one of his books and don't like it, there's not much point in trying
another, except for the fact that his earlier books generally have better
plots.
Gordon D. Shireffs – Almost the equal of Flynn, Haas, and Short when it comes
to hardboiled action Westerns, and his depictions of the American Southwest are
maybe the best of them all. He was also an excellent plotter.
Luke Short (Frederick D. Glidden) – Not quite noir, but his Westerns are
definitely on the hardboiled side and often have some sort of mystery angle. He
could write great action scenes as well. His books from the Forties and Fifties
are the best as far as I'm concerned, although all his work is worth reading.
W.C. Tuttle – Really the only humorous Western writer I like, and that's
probably because the comedy (which borders on slapstick at times) is balanced
by plenty of action and complex mystery plots. Tuttle is best known for his
stories and novels featuring range detectives Hashknife Hartley and Sleepy
Stevens, but he also wrote a long series of novellas in the pulp EXCITING
WESTERN about a similar pair known as Tombstone and Speedy. He's also famous
for a series about a W.C. Fields-like vaudeville performer who winds up the
sheriff of an Arizona town. His stand-alones are good, too.
I would have included Robert E. Howard if he had lived to write more Westerns,
as according to his letters he planned to do. He actually invented the Western
noir in stories such as "The Vultures of Whapeton", "Wild
Water", and "Vulture's Sanctuary". If you haven't picked up the
collection of his traditional Westerns from the Robert E. Howard Foundation
Press, I give it a high recommendation. (In the spirit of full disclosure, I
wrote the outline for that collection.)
So there are ten Western writers and a sort-of bonus eleventh one you'd be
well-advised to seek out if you're looking to broaden your Western reading
horizons. You probably won't like all of them, but I think the chances are good
you'll discover some new favorite authors among them. If any of you want to
throw in recommendations for other authors, feel free to do so in the comments.
If there are enough, I'll do a follow-up post based on them.
(The links below are just examples of some of the books by these authors. Many more are available on Amazon and other on-line booksellers and in used bookstores.)
