Review: Robert E. Howard: The Life and Times of a Texas Author - Willard M. Oliver

I never get tired of reading about Robert E. Howard and his work. I’ve read several biographies and books about his writings and countless articles on those subjects. So I am definitely the target audience for ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR, the massive new REH biography by Willard M. Oliver published by the University of North Texas Press in hardcover and e-book editions. (It doesn’t hurt that I’m a graduate of UNT, or as it was known when I went there, North Texas State University.)

I really enjoyed the other biographies I read, even the deeply flawed DARK VALLEY DESTINY by L. Sprague de Camp, Catherine Crook de Camp, and Jane Whittington Griffin. It was the first real REH bio, and a friend of mine helped the de Camps with the research. Plus we didn’t really know at the time about much of the stuff they got wrong or misinterpreted. Anyway, before I wander off in the weeds . . .

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR will likely be considered the definitive REH biography from now on, since it’s exhaustively researched, extensively footnoted, and brings together in one place all the information that’s available about Howard’s life, plus adding some things that I’ve never come across before in nearly 60 years of being a Howard fan. Academically, I just don’t see how anybody could ever top this volume.

However, I’m not an academic. I’m a guy who likes Howard’s yarns and have ever since I spotted the Lancer edition of CONAN THE USURPER in Barber’s Bookstore in downtown Fort Worth lo, those many years ago. And I feel a strong kinship toward Howard dating back to the moment I opened that paperback with its purple-edged pages and read in L. Sprague de Camp’s introduction that Howard was from Cross Plains, Texas—a town I’d heard of all my life because both sides of my family come from the same general area in west central Texas. I mean, here was a guy from a little town in Texas who forged a career as a writer when everything seemed stacked against him, and that was exactly what I wanted to do!

So what I look for in a biography of Robert E. Howard is a sense of who he was, what he did, how and why he did it (as much as it’s possible to figure out the why), and the same feeling I get when I stand in the Howard House in Cross Plains and look into that tiny room where Bob lived and worked . . . and this new book delivers on that. It delivers on that magnificently, in prose that’s clear, straightforward, sometimes poignant, and very compelling.

I haven’t been to Cross Plains for Howard Days in a number of years and I’ve never met or been in contact with Will Oliver, so I say this not as a friend of his but as a long-time reader and fan of Howard’s work.

ROBERT E. HOWARD: THE LIFE AND TIMES OF A TEXAS AUTHOR is the best book I’ve read this year. For Howard fans, I give it my highest recommendation.

Forgotten Books: On A Silver Desert: The Life of Ernest Haycox - Ernest Haycox Jr.

I always enjoy reading about writers, and that inspired me to pick up a copy of ON A SILVER DESERT: THE LIFE OF ERNEST HAYCOX, a biography by the Western author’s son Ernest Haycox Jr. I’ve never been a big fan of Haycox’s work, although it’s grown on me in recent years. I’ve found that I really enjoy his early pulp novellas, more so than his later novels, which he regarded as more serious and ambitious. But you know me—give me a bunch of ridin’ and shootin’ and fightin’, and I’m happy.

Although I’m more interested in Haycox’s work as a writer, Haycox Jr. does a fine job with the family history and in painting a vivid picture of his father’s personal life to go along with the professional. I learned a lot about Haycox and his career that I didn’t know, and perhaps most importantly, this biography makes me want to read more of his work.

The one thing in the book I’d take issue with is a comment in the foreword by Ronald L. Davis which mentions that the Western Writers of America referred to their annual awards as the Erny (after Haycox) until they changed it to the Spur Award. I don’t believe this is right at all. I seem to remember reading that there was some discussion among WWA’s membership (at the time, many of them were founders of the organization) about calling the award the Erny, but that never got off the ground and it’s always been the Spur (and not the Golden Spur, another common mistake that people keep repeating).

One quibble in a lengthy book admittedly is pretty minor, so I don’t hesitate to give a high recommendation to ON A SILVER DESERT. (The title comes from an early Haycox novel, THE SILVER DESERT, which I’ve read and enjoyed.) For anyone interested in the history of Western fiction or in the life of a professional writer in the first half of the 20^th Century, it’s well worth reading.

Forgotten Books: Hammett: A Life at the Edge - William F. Nolan

Evan Lewis's recent posts about Dashiell Hammett and the Continental Op have put me in the mood to reread some of Hammett's work. I haven't gotten around to doing that yet, but when I ran across a copy of this 1983 biography of Hammett at Half Price Books, I didn't hesitate to pick it up. Not only am I interested in the subject, but the book is also by William F. Nolan, who's written a number of other books, both fiction and non-fiction, that I've enjoyed.

I've read quite a bit about Hammett over the years, but this is the first actual biography of him that I've read. Not surprisingly, I already knew something about many of the events Nolan covers, but there was a considerable amount of information that was new to me as well, such as a detailed look at the abandoned novel that Hammett wound up turning into THE THIN MAN. I wasn't aware of just how many times he started other novels, only to give up on them, either. And this book includes the most detailed account I've read so far about the time Hammett spent serving in the army during World War II, stationed in the Aleutian Islands.

Of course, I was most interested in all the stuff about Hammett's writing career. It's always fascinating to me to read about what an author wrote, for who, and how much he got paid for it. I love all those behind-the-scenes publishing stories. Nolan does an excellent job of striking a balance between presenting the facts and offering some critical analysis of Hammett's work without ever getting too heavy-handed about it. If anything, this book just made me want to reread the novels and stories even more, which I suppose is one thing a good biography of a writer ought to do.

I don't know how Hammett scholars regard this volume, but I never claimed to be a scholar of any kind and I thoroughly enjoyed it. If you're a Hammett fan and run across a copy like I did, it's well worth reading.