I’ve discussed Walt Coburn’s work here before. He’s one of my favorite Western authors, while at the same time being one of the most maddeningly inconsistent. Today, though, I’m talking about his non-fiction, not his hundreds of pulp stories and dozens of novels. Coburn is the author of two memoirs, STIRRUP HIGH and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER, and they’re both well worth reading.
STIRRUP HIGH is the better of the two. It’s the story of Coburn’s life as a boy growing up on his father’s vast ranch in Montana around the turn of the Twentieth Century. Although there were a few modern conveniences, such as cars and telephones, ranch life in Montana at that time hadn’t changed much from the Old West days (which weren’t so old then, only a couple of decades past). Young Walt was a high-spirited kid, and STIRRUP HIGH is full of his adventures, many of them in tandem with the old cowboy who served as his father’s foreman. Even in Coburn’s worst pulp stories, there’s an air of authenticity, a feeling of “this is the way it really was” when it comes to ranch life, and when you read STIRRUP HIGH, you can see why that’s true. Now, you have to remember that Coburn was a born yarn-spinner, and like a lot of fiction-writers who turn their hands to non-fiction, he can’t resist embellishing a little bit. Some of the dates that he gives don’t quite add up, and some of the stories he tells in this book don’t quite jibe with established facts . . . but I’m not sure either of those things matter. The spirit is true, and STIRRUP HIGH is vastly entertaining.
WESTERN WORD WRANGLER covers some of the same ground but also carries the story on into Coburn’s later life and is fairly unsti
nting in dealing with some of the mental problems that plagued him throughout his adult years, along with the physical problems that made him give up cowboying and turn to writing. Much of the material in this volume is drawn from “The Talley Book”, the long-running column that Coburn wrote for the magazine TRUE WEST. That makes for a pretty episodic narrative, and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER is not nearly as polished as STIRRUP HIGH. It also doesn’t go into the amount of detail about his writing career that I wish it would have. But it’s still entertaining and filled with information.
Walt Coburn came to a bad end, tormented by alcoholism and finally dead by his own hand because he couldn’t sell his work anymore. His stories have made a small comeback in recent years, with several paperback collections of his pulp stories from Leisure, as well as a number of hardback and large print reprints of his novels. Everything he wrote in the Twenties and Thirties is worth reading, at least based on what I’ve read so far, and good stories can be found in his work from the Forties, Fifties, and Sixties, as well, although you might have to dig a little harder for it. He deserves to be remembered, and STIRRUP HIGH and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER are pretty good places to start.
It’s a good thing I have no street cred to start with, because tonight I watched HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL 3: SENIOR YEAR. We’d seen the first two, so naturally we had to watch the third one, too. I actually sort of like these movies, although they’ll never achieve the intellectual depth and comedic artistry of my beloved Beach Party movies. I especially like some of the supporting cast, like the girl who plays the piano, and I enjoy watching Ashley Tisdale because she seems to have so much fun playing the villainous Sharpay. Well, Sharpay’s not exactly villainous, I guess, but she’s definitely a troublemaker. The music is disposable pop, but it’s catchy enough, and some of the production numbers are surreal enough to be interesting. I assume there’s going to be a fourth movie, since the script for this one spends a considerable amount of time setting it up. If there is, I’m sure we’ll watch it, too.
(And where else but this blog are you going to read about Orrie Hitt and HIGH SCHOOL MUSICAL within a couple of days of each other? Man, now I need to throw in another Gore Vidal post . . . )
Check out this very excellent news over at The Tainted Archive. And heartiest congratulations to the Archavist his ownself, Gary Dobbs, whose upcoming debut novel THE TARNISHED STAR (written under the pseudonym Jack Martin) is now officially the fastest-selling Black Horse Western in history, without even being published yet!
A couple of weeks ago, I read and enjoyed Jeff Lemire’s graphic novel, TALES FROM THE FARM. Now I’ve read the other two volumes in his Essex County trilogy, and they’re almost as good. Volume 2, GHOST STORIES, tells the story of two hockey-playing brothers, Lou and Vince, and covers more than fifty years of their lives, courtesy of flashbacks by an elderly Lou. Volume 3, THE COUNTRY NURSE, centers around a middle-aged woman who’s a visiting nurse, checking in on patients throughout the county several times a w
eek.
Some of the characters appear in all three volumes, as their storylines wander in and out with each other. Like real life, in other words. But all three volumes, read together, form a fairly coherent history of a couple of interconnected families over the past ninety years. It’s a little soap opera-ish, what with all the infidelities, hidden pregnancies, madness, and death. I’d be tempted to call it Canadian Gothic, if not for the fact that Lemire approaches his subject matter in such a terse, almost hardboiled manner. The plot may be a little over the top, but Lemire’s storytelling never is.
I don’t think GHOST STORIES and THE COUNTRY NURSE are quite as good as TALES FROM THE FARM with its superhero influences, but they’re still very good, and the trilogy as a whole is well worth reading. If your tastes run more toward literary fiction and you’ve never tried a graphic novel, the Essex County Trilogy would be a fine place to start.
After my post about Orrie Hitt the other day, I received an email from someone who knew the Hitt family quite well. Here’s an excerpt from that message, quoted with permission:
"I don't know which daughter you heard from, but I grew up and graduated with one of them. We were friends for years and I was in her home many, many times. I remember her 'dad' sitting at the kitchen table, cigarette in his mouth, with the old typewriter in front of him. I and her other friends never thought a thing about it and we had no clue as to what he was doing. It wasn't till our latter teens did we find out what he was doing and then we went on a search of his books... we found them in one store, in the back, and no we didn't, nor could we buy them. I asked my mother about it and she had some of his books which I secretly confiscated and read.. wow, was that an eye opener.
I think, due to the small town, his occupation was not a topic of discussion and was kept low key. I don't think I ever said anything to his daughter, my friend, nor did anyone else. It didn't matter that he wrote racy books, we were all just friends growing up in small town USA."
The description of Hitt’s working methods matches what we’ve heard from other sources, and I love the image of the teenage girls trying to find his books.
I’ve illustrated this post with another Hitt cover scan I found on-line. Man, I want to read HOT CARGO right now. It looks like it could have come right out of a SPICY ADVENTURE pulp and reminds me a little of Robert E. Howard’s Wild Bill Clanton stories.
I don’t recall hearing much of anything about this movie when it came out. I knew it was based on a video game, and my impression is that the reviews weren’t very good. Bad reviews have never stopped me from watching a movie, though.
MAX PAYNE opens like a pretty typical hardboiled cop movie. The title character is an apparently burned-out homicide detective who’s little more than a glorified file clerk in the Cold Case division. On his own time, though, he’s trying to track down the murderers of his wife and child. But then, a little way into the film, the plot takes a sudden twist with the introduction of a new designer drug that makes people hallucinate about sinister winged creatures . . . or are those creatures actually real? Then there are more bizarre elements piled on, so for a little while you don’t know if you’re watching a cop movie or a fantasy movie or what.
And then MAX PAYNE proceeds to take the most utterly predictable road it possibly can. The explanation for all the weird stuff that’s going on? It’s exactly what you think it is. You sit there and think, “Well, this guy’s dead meat,” and sure enough, a few minutes later, he is. The blinking neon signs identifying the bad guys couldn’t be much bigger or brighter.
But (you knew this was coming) I kind of liked it anyway. The cast is good, the photography is really nice at times, and the pace never lets up for very long. Most of the action scenes are okay, although there’s some of that quick-cut editing most of us old geezers don’t like. And despite the predictability of the plot, there are a few moments that are actually pretty suspenseful. You can’t help but like and root for Max Payne as played by Mark Wahlberg, who’s become a pretty dependable action star. There’s even a set-up for a sequel at the end, and if they make it, I’ll probably watch it.
So while I think MAX PAYNE could have been a much better movie if they had ratcheted up the weirdness a little more and not taken the easy way out at every turn, it’s an enjoyable enough way to spend a couple of hours, especially on a Friday evening when there are also a couple of pizzas involved. That’s the way I recommend you watch it.
Donald E. Westlake isn’t that well-known for his science fiction, but he wrote one SF novel, ANARCHAOS, published by Ace Books in 1967 under the pseudonym Curt Clark. I’ve heard this book described as “Parker in space”, and I can kind of see why people would think that. The narrator/protagonist of ANARCHAOS, Rolf Malone, shares some traits with Parker, most notably his willingness to kill quickly and efficiently when he needs to in order to accomplish his goal. Unlike Parker, though, Malone’s goal is personal: he arrives on the planet Anarchaos, where there’s no system of government and everybody is on his own (the planet’s name comes from the combination of “anarchy” and “chaos”), to find out who murdered his brother, a mining engineer who worked for one of the corporations that provide what little semblance of civilization exists there. Naturally, it becomes obvious in short order that somebody doesn’t want him to find out the truth.
From that set-up, Malone sets out on a years-long quest that finds him in danger again and again before he finally sorts out what really happened to his brother and tries to exact vengeance on the people responsible. It’s a tough, bleak book – lots of terrible things happen to Malone – and Westlake spins the yarn in his usual smooth, fast-paced prose. Pseudonym aside, I think most people who have read much of Westlake’s work would recognize who was really behind the name “Curt Clark”. (Of course, there’s also a funny little moment where Malone comments on a body of water known as West Lake.)
I enjoyed ANARCHAOS very much. Westlake’s world-building is excellent, with the physical details of the planet well thought out, leading me to think that he could have had a successful career as a science fiction writer if he’d wanted to. Even in a book like this, though, the real emphasis is on crime and suspense despite the SF setting, and it’s clear that’s where Westlake’s real tendencies were. ANARCHAOS was reprinted in 1989 by Myster
ious Press in a volume entitled TOMORROW’S CRIMES, which is where I read it. That collection also includes nine of Westlake’s fantasy and science fiction short stories, which originally appeared in some of the SF digests, EQMM, and assorted other places. Not surprisingly, most of those short stories have some crime or suspense element, too. Copies of ANARCHAOS and TOMORROW’S CRIMES can both be found pretty easily and inexpensively on-line, and I highly recommend either version. (Although I’d go with TOMORROW’S CRIMES because you get the short stories, too, that way.)
A few weeks ago, I posted a comment on Duane Swierczynski’s blog about one of his “Legends of the Underwood” series, this one concerning Orrie Hitt. If you haven’t read that post and my comment, go over there and do so, then come back here.
Okay. So I’m sitting here checking my email, and this message comes in, prompted by my comment on Duane’s blog:
"i recently read a statement on orrie hitt and feeling sorry for him. so why?
you need not feel sorry for such a man in his time or in your time. this man was well loved by everyone that met him. he lived his life as he saw fit. his family centered their lives around him. and they loved him with all their hearts. he lived a happy and joyful life. i know i am his daughter i was there i saw his smile and twinkle in his eye everyday. so do not feel sorry for him feel sorry for yourself for not knowing him like i did!!"
I’m getting email from Orrie Hitt’s daughter. I love the Internet.
And you know what? She’s absolutely right. There’s no reason in the world to feel sorry for a man who lived his life as he saw fit and was happy and joyful doing it. We should all be so lucky as Orrie Hitt.
Since this message came in, I’ve traded a couple more emails with the lady, and she graciously gave me permission to post her words here. She’s also told me a little more about her father, such as how he would always talk to her dates when they came to pick her up when she was a girl, and how the guys enjoyed the conversations with Orrie so much they’d wind up being late getting to wherever they were going on the date. As she points out, I am sorry I never got to know him. I would love to be able to sit down and talk writing – and life – with Orrie Hitt.
I’m also sorry that I’ve never actually read any of Orrie Hitt’s novels. I used to have some of them, but I never got around to reading them. That, however, is something I can remedy. I just ordered a handful of them, and I’ll get around to reading and posting about them as soon as I can.
There's a very nice interview with me over at the Western Fiction Review. Steve did a great job of illustrating the interview with covers of my books. Check it out.
This is another of those movies for which I am definitely not the target audience. But you know me. I find something to like in most movies. This one follows a group of teenagers running around New York City one night searching for a rumored after-hours concert by their favorite rock band. Along the way, various of them fall in love, break up, and have adventures. It’s occasionally cute and sweet, occasionally funny, and occasionally gross.
All the way through it, though, I kept thinking, “I’ve seen this movie before.” Finally I figured out why I felt that way. With its set-up – all the action taking place in one night, the stories of the different characters weaving in and out of each other, the constant music and the way the music motivates much of the action – well, this is just an updated version of AMERICAN GRAFFITI, with about a tenth of the depth and meaning of that earlier film.
Not to be too harsh about NICK AND NORAH’S INFINITE PLAYLIST, though. It’s an entertaining film, the cast is appealing, the music is great (hey, I like a lot of new music), and no doubt it resonates much more strongly with today’s kids, just the way AMERICAN GRAFFITI did with me.
I’ve discussed Walt Coburn’s work here before. He’s one of my favorite Western authors, while at the same time being one of the most maddeningly inconsistent. Today, though, I’m talking about his non-fiction, not his hundreds of pulp stories and dozens of novels. Coburn is the author of two memoirs, STIRRUP HIGH and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER, and they’re both well worth reading.
nting in dealing with some of the mental problems that plagued him throughout his adult years, along with the physical problems that made him give up cowboying and turn to writing. Much of the material in this volume is drawn from “The Talley Book”, the long-running column that Coburn wrote for the magazine TRUE WEST. That makes for a pretty episodic narrative, and WESTERN WORD WRANGLER is not nearly as polished as STIRRUP HIGH. It also doesn’t go into the amount of detail about his writing career that I wish it would have. But it’s still entertaining and filled with information.
