The Future of the Western Genre

For the last couple of decades, enthusiasts have lamented the demise of Westerns. The rest of the world went about their business, ignorant that anyone cared about a genre relegated to a few obscure shelves at the local bookstore. Westerns were hugely popular for over a hundred years. Not only were Westerns popular in the United States, but the whole world devoured them. The Western was a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams. What happened?

Overexposure, for one thing. In 1959, there were twenty-six Western series on prime time television. On the silver screen, John Wayne banished his Winchester at countless bad guys. Paperback Westerns could be found in abundance in any drugstore, most of them with Louis L’Amour’s name on the cover. The big names did some wonderful, quality stuff, but the demand was so great that a lot of trash made it into print and celluloid.

The common perception is that the Western genre is moribund. Yet somehow, Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy made a good living off Westerns. (Their books, however, are seldom stacked up with the straight-to-paperback variety of Westerns.) Robert B. Parker temporarily abandoned private eye Spencer to embrace the western genre for a trilogy about two guns for hire. In film, Appaloosa grossed a respectable $28 million at the box office, while 3:10 to Yuma grossed over $70 million. Productions like Godless, Yellowstone, and Old Henry keep the genre alive. DVD sales of vintage Westerns do well, and Louie L’Amour, Zane Grey, and even Max Brand still sell a respectable number of books.

So, the Western isn’t dead, but it’s just as certainly not the rage, especially for the upcoming generation. Thrillers, fantasies, sci-fi, and romance novels garner all the shelf space. Action movies sound tracks are filled with revving motors, not thundering hoofs. And television … well, television just broadcasts another police drama. In fact, the Western excesses of the late fifties are being repeated today with cop shows. Perhaps tired audiences are ready for a resurgence of Westerns.

Perhaps. But what type of Western? Probably a new breed. There have been three distinct western eras. I called them: wholesome, the flawed hero, and the violent eras.

The wholesome era lasted until the late fifties. It was epitomized by Roy Rogers, Gene Autry, The Lone Ranger, Hopalong Cassidy, and a host of other cowboys sporting white hats. Instead of killing bad guys, they shot guns out of their hands. If someone was killed, they damn-well deserved it, and their death would be bloodless, with a pledge-like hand to the chest to cover unsightly bullet holes. As in all eras, there was overlap, and during the later stages of the wholesome phase, Wayne and others made more realistic Westerns—but these, of course, were quarantined to movie houses, and only at night.

The flawed hero of the sixties wasn’t the antihero of today. He merely had faults; like Josh Randall, the bounty hunter portrayed by Steve McQueen in Wanted Dead or Alive or the gambling Maverick brothers who proudly proclaimed themselves cowards. Richard Boone wore black and looked mean as a gun-for-hire in Paladin. The Magnificent Seven were reluctant, saviors of a small Mexican village—and flawed to a man. Again, overlapping eras. The spaghetti Westerns of the late sixties took the genre into new territory.

From the seventies on, the antihero ruled a frontier filled with slow-motion violence. The violent era was ushered in by Sergio Leone with his Man With No Name trilogy (1967) and Sam Peckinpaw with The Wild Bunch (1969). From then on, red dominated the color spectrum and the hero was only a step removed from the bad guy. The raw realism was inappropriate for television until cable brought Deadwood (2004) into our living rooms.

What’s next? Luckily, these eras overlap, so seeing the direction of the Western genre is not guesswork. Larry McMurtry, Cormac McCarthy, and Robert B. Parker pointed the way. The future of the Western genre is historically accurate storytelling. A story can take place in the past, the present, or the future. If the story occurs in the past, we call them historical novels—except for Westerns. They get consigned to a niche genre that still carries the taint of pulp fiction. But a story that takes place in the nineteenth century American frontier has as much legitimacy to be called a historical novel as Ken Follett’s World Without End.

McMurtry, McCarthy, and Parker have found the key. Good writing, sound plots that move with assurance, and great characterization. They concentrated on characters that are forced to deal with hardships and human frailty at a particular point in history. These are the basic elements of good storytelling. A Western historical novel can indeed be action-adventure, but it can also borrow elements from the detective, suspense, romance, mystery, and other genres. Lonesome Dove took from all of them.

The world has tired of cookie-cutter cop shows, superheroes, and endless permutations of suspense tales about secret societies that are about to take over the world. Westerns may very well again rule the page and screen

Westerns in Literature

Western fiction has been hugely popular for almost two hundred years. Not only were Westerns popular in the United States, but the whole world devoured them. For decades, the Western was a staple of fiction, Hollywood, television, and daydreams. Today, many think Western fiction is moribund. They’re wrong. Authors like Johnny Boggs continue to carry on the tradition, and my own novels sell well. The popularity of Westerns is often measured against the impossible yardstick of the 1950s.

Some say we’ve become too sophisticated to swallow the traditional Western mythology. Those are people who have not taken a thoughtful look at Harry Potter, The Hunger Games, or even the glut of superheroes that plague theaters, bookshelves, and toy boxes. The stories are the same, only the venue has changed. The Western in its traditional garb will come roaring back when audiences tire of yet another iteration of CSI or men in tights.

Western fiction is frequently dismissed as not being serious literature. This misconception is perpetuated by classifying literary stories that occur in the Old West as something other than a Western. Many of the smart set believe Westerns can only be dime novels, pulp fiction, or straight-to-paperback formula bunkum. But the Western has a long and valid history in literature.

James Fenimore Cooper may have been the first Western author of note. The Last of the Mohicans and the rest of the Leatherstocking Tales were told in the Western tradition. Written in 1826 about events that supposedly occurred nearly seventy-five years prior, The Last of the Mohicans incorporates all the characteristics of a modern Western.

Mark Twain is universally acknowledged as one of the great American literary figures, but is seldom referred to as a Western writer. Yet, Roughing It is a first-hand description of the Wild West of Virginia City during the heyday of the Comstock Lode. Granted, Roughing It is Twain-enriched non-fiction, but The Adventures of Tom Sawyer and The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn are coming-of-age novels set in the American frontier. (By the way, Mark Twain hated James Fenimore Cooper's writing. You can read all about it here. Pretty funny.)

When Owen Wister published The Virginian in 1902, the novel received critical acclaim and was a huge bestseller, eventually spawning five films, a successful play, and a television series. An instant success, it sold over 20 thousand copies in the first month, an astonishing number for the time. It went on to sell over 200,000 thousand copies in the first year, and over a million and a half copies prior to Wister's death. This classic has never been out of print.

Max Brand, Zane Grey, Louis L’Amour, Jack Schaefer, Elmer Kelton, Larry McMurtry, and Cormac McCarthy continued the Western tradition and all of them have been highly successful. Recently Nancy E. Turner (These is my Words) and Patrick deWitt (The Sisters Brothers) have penned praiseworthy Westerns that are popular with readers.

Western literature has a grand heritage and will continue to appeal to readers all over the world.   Good writing, plots that move with assurance, and great characterization will elevate the genre back the top of the bestseller charts.

Honest westerns filled with dishonest characters.

Book Review -- How Literature Works by John Sutherland

John Sutherland is a literary critic and columnist for the Guardian. The sub-title of his book is "50 Key Concepts" and it's organized into 50 4-page chapters. Fancy that. I read a couple books a year on writing and occasionally read books on literary criticism. Literary criticism tomes tend to be esoteric and assume the reader already has broad knowledge about the subject. Sutherland's book is concise and written in clear English any layman can understand. I read these books to improve my writing and most of the time I need to wade through lengthy jargon-laced verbiage to find nuggets that are helpful. Sutherland's clarity, short chapters, and headings make this task relatively easy. I find what I'm looking for or move on to the next chapter.

If you're a writer, reader, or like to study literary criticism, How Literature Works is a fun find. Besides, most academic books on the subject require a new mortgage while Sutherland's perfect-bound paperback is only $11 on Amazon. The Kindle version is $9.50.

If you're interested in writing, be sure to check out my Writers and Writing pages on this blog.

Panelist at Tucson Festival of Books

The Tucson Festival of Books (March 15-16) is the largest book festival in the southwest. Featured authors include: Richard Russo, Alice Hoffman, Scott Turow, Sandra Day O'Connor, Craig Johnson, and Jacqueline Woodson. The agenda has been finalized and I’ll be a panelist in three sessions.

Amazon for Authors                                       Saturday, March 15         1:00-2:00           

  

What to Expect with Self-Publishing               Sunday, March 16            10:00-11:00        

Genre Writing                                                Sunday, March 16            2:30 to 3:30        

If you’re in the neighborhood, come on over. It’s a load of fun and I’ll be pleased to meet you, as will many other authors at the event. Book signing, author panels, industry seminars, and good food. What could be better?

Books that drove me mad

Kimberly Turner published a piece on Lit Reactor titled, “7 Horrifying Ailments Named After Literary Characters.” I believe she missed a few, but then Turner wrote about real ailments. Here are a few phobias I developed from reading books.

Marathon Man made me afraid of the dentist.

Ever since Psycho, I lock the bathroom door when I shower.

The Ghost and the Darkness made me fear tall grass.

2001: A Space Odyssey convinced me computers were out to get me.

Apollo 13 made me afraid of the number 13.

The Da Vinci Code kept me away from art museums.

The Shining made me avoid long, empty hallways.

Academic Nonsense about the American West

Looking for literary critiques of Western literature, I accidentally came across the article “Westerns” by Nicolas S. Witschi in Oxford Bibliographies. Witschi is Professor of English at Western Michigan University, where he teaches literature, cultural studies, and film. Sounds like some fun subjects. His website boosts, “My book Traces of Gold argues for reading the history of literary realism in the American West as a figurative engagement with the material, economic, and cultural value of natural resource industries.”

Wow! I was stopped by figurative engagement. In fact, I was stopped dead in my tracks as I stuggled to figure out what this showy sentence meant. Witschi was trying to convey a message, but instead of comprehending, I was Googling academic jargon. It reminded me of the line in Planes, Trains & Automobiles when the character Neal Page tells Del Griffith, "And by the way, you know, when you're telling these little stories? Here's a good idea - have a POINT. It makes it SO much more interesting for the listener!"

The article reads no better. Witschi seems to recommend studying Western literature as a sort of anthropological investigation of American culture. Although, it's hard to tell with sentences like, “As for questions about ‘literary’ quality and complexity, recent critical methodologies have not only expanded the criteria for assessing such things to include artifacts of mass market or popular appeal; they have also brought to light, with the purpose of working against it, the very means by which discursive power functions to identify and separate.” That’s as clear as the night sky over Montana.

The breadth of Western literature is astounding. From James Fenimore Cooper to Larry McMurtry, authors have been writing compelling historical novels about the American frontier. I’ll accept negative academic criticism of the Western genre as soon as I read a piece that dismisses The Once and Future King by T. H. White as mythology that promotes conquest, vigilantism, and sexism. Instead of searching for tidbits that can be extrapolated into a doctoral thesis, perhaps Witschi’s literature and film students would benefit from reading Westerns to learn the art and craft of storytelling.

After all, storytelling is the real oldest profession.

Related Posts

Is The Mythology of the Old West Dead?
The Future of the Western Genre
What happened to the Western?
The Western Heritage in Literature 

Steve Dancy in Love?

Steve Dancy has had a rocky romantic life in the first three novels. His mother pushed him to marry a young lady who would enhance the family’s wealth and connections, but New York City socialites and socializing bored Steve. In defiance, he sold everything and followed Horace Greeley advice to “Go west, young man.” 




Steve assumed he would observe the frontier and write a great literary classic about the Wild West. He found enough adventure to fill several books and made a few male friends along the way. In his wanderings, he also encountered many different types of women, but Steve argued with every one of them. Needless to say, this was not the best way to strike up a relationship.

Things change in The Return.  Steve remains clumsy with the opposite sex, but even a dunderhead can be successful on occasion. I’d tell you what happens, but why ruin the suspense. You’ll just have to buy a copy and read for yourself.

As for me, I'm leaving the scorching heat of Arizona for Pacific Beach. I'll get in a little surfing between playing with my grandkids, who are flying in from Nebraska. You know, I think my granddaughter is the right age to start bogie boarding. This is gonna be fun.

Jane Austen's Unpublished Work

I’m a Jane Austen fan. That probably seems odd since I’m male and write Westerns. The Wild West and English countryside have little in common. But I’m talking about writing, not venue. I admire great dialogue and consider Jane Austen the champion. (My books tend to be dialogue driven, but I don’t consider myself in the same league with Ms. Austen.) 

Although good description is essential, I seldom find myself stopping to admire a piece of prose describing the landscape. But perfect dialogue stops me every time. My fascination with dialogue probably comes from my own inept retorts. I always think of the right thing to say hours later. Writing novels, I can return to a scene and insert a whiz-bang snippet of dialogue any time I want. Fiction is great.

The mantra of writing is show, don’t tell. Dialogue is an effective way to show character. Here is an example from Pride and Prejudice. This is the reader’s first introduction to Mr. Bennet.

Mrs. Bennet says,

"Mr. Bennet, how can you abuse your own children in such a way? You take delight in vexing me. You have no compassion for my nerves' "

"You mistake me, my dear. I have a high respect for your nerves. They are my old friends. I have heard you mention them with consideration these twenty years at least."

In fifty-eight words, Austen has gone a long way in showing us the character of two major figures in her story. 

I bring Austen up because I found a website with her unpublished work in both manuscript and transcribed formats--side by side. Most of this is not her best work, but writers and Austen enthusiasts may find it interesting. You can find it here.

Related Posts:

Jane's Fame, How Jane Austen Conquered the World

Would You Care for a Slice?

Touchy, Touchy, Touchy

Snobs come in every variety

At Booktrust, Matt Haig started a cross-pond rhubarb with a post belittling literary snobs. Haig's article was less interesting than the responses. Dozens of people who wouldn't think twice about disparaging writers of popular fiction took umbrage that someone might criticize them. To prove elitism is not restricted to the U.K., Andrew E.M. Baumann in Georgia responded to Haig’s post with a 7,446 word diatribe of his own.

Personally, I define a book snob as someone who dismisses a work merely because it's popular. My definition would put Andrew E.M. Baumann in the snob camp because he wrote, “The demonstrated truth is that “popular” equals mediocre, or worse.” Mark Twain, Jane Austen, Shakespeare, Tolstoy, Ben Franklin, Owen Wister, and many others would disagree that popular equals mediocre. Raymond Chandler wrote, “It might reasonably be said that all art at some time and in some manner becomes mass entertainment, and that if it does not it dies and is forgotten.” Every book that is popular is not literature, but it’s snobbery to assume that anything popular is unworthy of admiration.

So what qualifies as literature? Again, Chandler’s definition. “When a book, any sort of book, reaches a certain intensity of artistic performance it becomes literature. That intensity may be a matter of style, situation, character, emotional tone, or idea, or half a dozen other things. It may also be a perfection of control over the movement of a story similar to the control a great pitcher has over a ball.” That pretty much does it for me.

If this debate interests you, here are the links to the two referenced postings.

30 things to tell a book snob

"30 things to tell a book snob" -- A Literary Elitist's Response

Shark Killing Cowboy Meets Shakespeare

To me, soliloquies seem like cheating. They’re frequently a dull way of conveying a character’s thoughts to the audience. Besides, how can any author compete with Shakespeare at his own game?

Probably the most famous soliloquy occurs in Shakespeare’s Hamlet.  Take a gander at this. Musing has never been so much fun.