My wife and
I just finished a perfect vacation in Southern California. Our daughter and son’s
families have returned to their homes and everything is now calm and still.
What a drag.
Right after Christmas, we flew to San Diego with our
daughter’s family, and on New Year’s Eve, we all met up with my son’s family in
Laguna Beach. Six grandchildren together. The cousins are between four and ten
and they greeted each other with wild enthusiasm … an enthusiasm that never abated
over the entire four days. Boy, I want that kind of energy again.
The warm and sunny weather made a perfect respite from the
storms lashing our homes in New York and Nebraska. My daughter’s husband went
on a Steve Dancy marathon, reading three of the four books in the series. He runs a demanding construction supply business and has difficulty
finding time to read with three kids jumping all over him when he gets home. I
was flattered he enjoyed the books, and glad he could relax with some of my
best friends.
 |
| Honest westerns ... filled with dishonest characters. |
I had a reading marathon of my own. I rediscovered a
favorite author. I read two Stephen Hunter novels and started a third. It had been over a decade since I had read one of his books, and I had
forgotten he was an exceptional storyteller and gifted writer. It’s rare nowadays
for authors to keep doing top notch work once they have scaled the bestseller
lists. When millions of dollars are at stake, deadlines become brutal. Stephen
Hunter is an exception. His latest book, The Third Bullet is as well written as his first Bob Lee Swagger novel.
One of my great joys in life used to be reading novels. Since
I started writing fiction, I have become so critical it interferes with the
pleasure of reading. Instead of being emerged in the story, I keep seeing plot
holes, meandering points-of-view, outright errors, sloppy research, and lazy
writing. This is not the case with Stephen Hunter books. He writes with a no-nonsense
style, moves his stories forward with a sure hand, and polishes the narrative to an impeccable
shine. As a Pulitzer Prize winning movie critic, he was required to have a firm
understanding of characterization, plot, and pacing. Oh yeah, he also had to
know how to write good prose lickety-split.
So, while you wait for the next Steve Dancy Tale, try a Bob Lee Swagger tale. (You can start anywhere since Hunter does a good job of
making each book self-contained.)