Tag Archives: Old West

Wandering Minstrel: Billy Gashade

31 Monday May 2021

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Review: Billy Gashade, by Loren D. Estleman
Forge, 1997. 351 pp. $12

One broiling day in July 1863, a sixteen-year-old Manhattan youth wanders into riots sparked by Irish workingmen angry at Lincoln’s new conscription law. Pushed by corrupt politicians, they nevertheless have a serious gripe. Men with three hundred dollars to spare may pay for a replacement if their name is drawn; everyone else must serve in the Union Army. This injustice should have no immediate bearing on our teenage interloper, not yet of military age and born to a sheltered existence as the son of a prosperous judge. But for the first time in his life, he steps forward into the breach and uses his soft, musician’s hands to stand up for someone else.

For his trouble, he earns a wicked concussion. A brothel madam takes the boy in, and when the grateful convalescent manages to restore and play the house’s damaged piano, he makes friends. He’ll need them, because there’s now a price on his head—during the riot, he wounded an ally of the infamous, powerful Boss Tweed, and getting out of town is the only answer. Taking the name Billy Gashade, he goes west.

Jesse James as a young man, undated, photographer unknown (courtesy Wikimedia Commons; public domain)

Billy gets a job playing piano in another brothel, this one in Lawrence, Kansas, where he again winds up in a melee, this one between Federal forces and rebel militia. But though violence shapes much of Billy’s story, and its misuses and lust for it furnish key themes, the narrative really describes the character of the Old West, and the difference between the romantic legends and the truth, as Billy sees it. And he witnesses much firsthand, for he makes the acquaintance of many well-known figures, most particularly Jesse and Frank James, but also Jim Bridger, Buffalo Bill Cody, George Armstrong Custer, and a raft of others. However, Estleman properly resists the temptation to let Billy witness the best-known scenes (the Last Stand, for instance), which would have twisted the story into a pretzel; the author knows how to make first-rate drama out of less iconic material. This narrative, though with plot aplenty, gets its drive from character.

Billy Gashade is a yarn par excellence, yet it’s more than that, continually pointing out the differences between haves and have-nots in the eyes of their fellow creatures and the “law,” like as not a corrupt, blunt instrument. Billy’s music seems the only voice of peace and understanding, and the locales in which he plies his art are beautifully conveyed. Depicting those circumstances is one way the narrative takes a bristle brush to the sheen of romance, scuffing it mightily. The Kansas sections in particular revise notions about which side has the moral high ground, abolitionist or proslavery, for the warriors fighting for each are murdering scum. Estleman forces us to take a harder look at the received wisdom we’ve been handed about the Civil War, always a useful exercise.

The author tells his tale in retrospect from 1935, a technique I’ve never liked, but it doesn’t intrude here, because only the very beginning and end take place then. The beginning sets Billy up as the man who’s seen it all and establishes his authority, as reliable narrator and a voice you want to listen to. The story also contains as many coincidences as any three Dickens novels combined, but I don’t mind; often, I’m just as happy to meet old friends as Billy is.

But it’s not just the ride through Billy’s life that leads you on. It’s that irresistible voice:

I have ever been curious, an incurable affliction and nearly always personally disastrous. When I was five I climbed by means of a construction of ottomans, pillows, and the works of Sir Walter Scott to the top of an eighteenth-century chifforobe in my parents’ bedroom, only to burn my hand badly in the pretty blue flame of the gas jet that had inspired the ascent. Alas, it was not a learning experience. As many times since then as my Need to Know a Thing has landed me in foul soup, I would in my present extremity sooner chase a siren than dine on pheasant. In 1863 I nearly died of this condition.

At times, however, I feel that Estleman has replaced one romantic view with another. I don’t find Confederate guerrillas-turned-bank robbers appealing in either guise, so Jesse James repels me. I’ll grant that Billy’s quip about James’s gift for singing is one of the best lines in the book: “I’ve always believed that the world lost a good tenor when Jesse James took to robbing stages instead of appearing on them.” To an extent, Estleman’s trying to tell us our romantic heroes don’t deserve our admiration. Yet Billy’s fond of James and worries that the law will get him, though he knows better than most people what the man has done.

Still, Billy Gashade has much to offer. The wandering minstrel’s travels provide wit, humor, and an education, a tale you can wade into with gusto, and a vision of the Old West you might not find anywhere else.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Cowboy Ethics: As Good As Gone

19 Monday Dec 2016

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Review: As Good As Gone, by Larry Watson
Algonquin, 2016. 341 pp. $27

To an outsider, it might seem as if little of the 1960s have touched Gladstone, Montana. But to Calvin Sidey, an aging, tough-minded cowboy who withdrew from the town years ago to live alone on its outskirts, the world of 1963 has taken over. Even on a brief drive through, he recognizes few landmarks, and mentioning the names of people he once knew raises puzzled looks or brings the news that this one has died, while the other lives in a nursing home.

Bozeman, Montana, city hall, fire station, and opera house, built 1890, demolished, 1966 (Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service, via Wikimedia Commons)

Bozeman, Montana, city hall, fire station, and opera house, built 1890, demolished, 1966 (Courtesy Historic American Buildings Survey, National Park Service, via Wikimedia Commons)

Calvin wouldn’t have ventured into Gladstone at all, if his estranged son, Bill, hadn’t asked him to watch over the grandkids while Bill and his wife, Marjorie, go to Missoula so that she can have an operation. Nobody likes this arrangement. Bill resents Calvin for abandoning him and his sister after their mother died; Marjorie doesn’t trust Calvin to fulfill his responsibilities; and Calvin would rather bite the head off a rattlesnake than stay in Gladstone or, worse, have to talk to his son. Then again, Calvin hates talking to anybody.

Naturally, plenty will happen during Bill and Marjorie’s absence, putting Calvin and everyone around him under pressure. As Good As Gone would have been better had much less happened, but I like Watson’s premise, which gives his protagonist plenty of scope. I also believe the look and feel of Gladstone, from the dive bars to the stores, the weather, the cooking, the small-town atmosphere, and the social attitudes, the latter rendered with a light touch. The characters sense that they should be more tolerant, but they can’t bring themselves to act that way, and whatever’s happening in the world–civil rights marches, protests–is all Out There someplace, lurking on the edge of consciousness.

While Bill and Marjorie are away, Calvin charges at conflicts rather than step aside, because that’s who he is. When a neighbor’s dog gets into the garbage cans and strews litter all over–a chronic problem, he hears–Calvin tells the neighbor that if it happens again, he’ll shoot the dog. Such is his reputation that the neighbors pick up the trash and keep the dog leashed. Calvin also rushes into action when an irate tenant (Bill’s a real estate agent who owns rental property) barges into the Sidey home to scream about an eviction notice. I don’t have to tell you that the young man stalking Calvin’s beautiful, seventeen-year-old granddaughter, had better watch his step; that confrontation is set up almost from the get-go.

There’s more–the widow next door who takes a fancy to Calvin; his sensitive grandson, Will, bullied by his so-called friends; Marjorie’s operation (a hysterectomy), which goes wrong, or appears to; and Bill’s ache for the father who’s remained out of reach. Six narrators tell this story, of uneven range and strength; except for the widow, the women’s voices seem insubstantial. Moreover, the presence of six narrators implies many subplots to keep spinning, two of which have little or nothing to do with the main narrative.

The myriad threads obscure the fabric of what matters most: Calvin’s grief over his dead wife, which led him to abandon his kids, and how Bill feels about that. Part of the problem is that Watson can’t seem to decide which to focus on, Calvin’s character or Bill’s loss of him. But either way, though the narrative mentions what these men feel and describes them having the feelings, they abruptly leave off grappling with them, and each other. Rather, events represent emotions, and only in that way do the characters take them in.

For instance, Bill fears for Marjorie’s life, and that his mother’s death will be repeated. His fear is irrational, and he knows it, but that’s how deeply he’s been scarred. Life feels fragile to him, and everything he has can be swept away. Unfortunately, Watson fiddles with this very human paradox, as if he can’t bear to let a rational man have an irrational fear; my God, what will the reader think of him? So melodrama takes over: Marjorie slips into a brief coma, and it appears, for awhile, that she might actually die.

In fact, melodrama undoes much fine work in As Good As Gone, for many chapters end just before impending violence, a cliff-hanger technique that resembles the Westerns whose myths Watson wishes to debunk. Calvin’s courage and willingness to act are admirable, but his stubborn refusal to listen to anyone else, his code of vigilante justice, and the way he equates softer, human feelings with weakness leads to trouble. These are compelling themes, and as I read, I couldn’t help thinking of Lonely Are the Brave, a terrific 1962 film starring Kirk Douglas. I only wish that Watson had used his gift for economy to better effect, much as the movie did.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.

Rumors of His Death Have Been Greatly Exaggerated: Sundance

18 Thursday Jun 2015

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Review: Sundance: A Novel, by David Fuller
Riverhead, 2014. 338 pp. $28

In this suspenseful, thoroughly enjoyable tale, Harry Longbaugh, aka the Sundance Kid, didn’t really die in Bolivia in 1908. How could he have? He was serving twelve years in a Wyoming prison for armed robbery, dreaming of a reunion with his beloved wife, Etta, from whom he hasn’t heard in two years. So when he’s finally released in 1913, he sets out to find her, unsure whether she even loves him still.

The Sundance Kid and his wife, Etta Place, in 1901 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

The Sundance Kid and his wife, Etta Place, in 1901 (Courtesy Wikimedia Commons).

Trouble is, he’s a free man barely an hour when a seventeen-year-old kid provokes him into a duel. Naturally, Longbaugh’s quicker on the draw. Naturally, the boy’s death brings the local law after Harry. And just as naturally, when Harry traces Etta to New York City, a detective much smarter than the local Wyoming law follows him.

Shortly after Harry reaches New York, he gathers that Etta’s also on the run, but not from the law. Actually, it’s worse: Her political activities have made powerful enemies, including the Black Hand, a mafioso ring operating in Little Italy. Harry doesn’t know what to make of his wife’s social conscience and the new life she’s led during the past two years.

But that’s not all that’s changed:

 

He had heard of motorcars while inside, but seeing one in person made him keenly aware of the things he had missed. He was entering the world anew. He thought he heard the jingle of harness and clop of horseshoes as the motorcar passed, clearly his imagination, then was surprised when a horse and wagon came around behind him. Surprised, but also relieved. The old world was not quite banished, but it had certainly eroded.

 

Harry has seen electric lights before, but not the profusion that illumines New York. Trolleys, elevated trains, subway tunnels, and skyscrapers earn his admiration; I loved the scene in which he travels to the top of a skyscraper under construction. There are billboards and stores devoted entirely to men’s clothes, if you can believe that–the notion takes him aback–but certain things never change. Ever the honorable outlaw, he foils a pickpocket ring in the act and returns the bag of missing wallets and jewelry to their astonished, grateful owners. (Right afterward, Harry reappears at the scene, dressed in his new city duds, but nobody recognizes him, because he’s no longer a cowboy–a clever touch.)

I like that scene, which is more than just a bravura performance by our hero. Fuller means to show how Harry represents the decline of the Old West (and our romantic notions of it), while being self-consciously aware that he and his kind have ridden off into the sunset. But that’s where Sundance confuses me, because everything about it is romantic, so much so that the subtitle, A Novel, is misleading. It’s more like a typical Hollywood movie in which the characters are all one way or all another, so the conflict isn’t between complex people. Rather, it’s an opposition of single traits or ideas–evil versus good, justice versus exploitation, treachery versus integrity. And yet, Fuller has much to say about the Progressive Era that feels like politicking–labor conditions, women’s rights, disarmament, radical movements–which seems out of place in this context.

Harry’s an extraordinary guy. He can charm just about anyone, slip into and out of a building like a ghost, give expert marital advice, and is a remarkably quick study for things he doesn’t have a clue about. He’s even a dab hand at modern art. You’d never know he’d spent twelve years in prison–his psyche seems remarkably sound, without a drop of bitterness–and he’s a thoroughly honorable man. He’s a character to root for, and you keep reading just to see what amazing feat he’ll perform next. But he’s not a real person.

Don’t get me wrong. I enjoyed reading Sundance (and couldn’t get the movie theme song out of my head). Fuller tells a tense story. He writes well, beautifully at times. He does shoehorn historical references into the narrative, especially toward the (not quite believable) end. I also wish he didn’t alternate stretches of dialogue in which you can’t tell who’s speaking with others in which he explains the characters’ motives, as if they weren’t already clear. But despite its charms, Sundance would have been much better had Fuller decided either to tell a tall tale or a realistic novel, and go at that whole hog.

Disclaimer: I obtained my reading copy of this book from the public library.