The Killing Hills by Chris Offutt

 

Tucker was the same generation as Mick’s grandfather with all the complicated contradictions of the old culture deep in the hills. Forthright but not forthcoming. Honest but reticent. Watchful but friendly.

A fine literary author’s first foray into a series crime/action character. Offutt gives us Mick Hardin, an AWOL Army investigator who returns to his Kentucky back hills home to aid his sister-sheriff in a murder investigation.

If that description sounds a bit close to parody of many a current formulaic “action” character, well…

Offutt is clearly a talented writer, but it seems this “entertainment” vehicle he has chosen is so familiar that, for this reader at least, it rings hollow and too on-the-nose.

Rather than the first novel in a series, it feels as if we have joined a long-running series already in progress at the stage where a bit of steam has left the engine due to the repetitive tracks that must be followed.

I admired Offutt’s dollops of authentic scout craft but there are better back hills crime novels to be had.

Again, it is wise to assume my opinion is egregious as Offutt has chops and I failed as an intelligent reader.

A Voice Crying in the Wilderness by Edward Abbey

 

The fear of death follows from fear of life. The man who lives fully is prepared to die at anytime.

This is Abbey’s last work.

Albeit not fiction, this author of a few mighty fine Westerns, The Brave Cowboy and The Monkey-Wrench Gang among them, he was also a fearlessly insightful chronicler of nature and man-in-nature as we find in Desert Solitaire.

The subtitle of this work is “Notes From a Secret Journal.”

It is said Abbey offered this manuscript two weeks before his demise.

Broken into sections we find Abbey at his “worst” in places—the curmudgeonly quasi-misanthrope. Debatable if this is true.

And we find him at his absolute best.

The section titled, “Life, Death and All That” is golden.

We have thoughts from a man looking down the barrel of the mortality gun and giving his rawest, honest, life-affirming thoughts.

I absolutely adored this section.

In closing I will offer a few crumbs from this fine table.

We live in the kind of world where courage is the most essential of virtues; Without courage, the other virtues are useless.

Sentiment without action is the ruin of the soul. One brave deed is worth 1000 books.

In the modern technoindustrial culture, it is possible to proceed from infancy into senility without ever knowing manhood.

“USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook & a Hole in the Sky” by Norman MacLean

 

Nowadays you can scarcely be a lookout without a uniform and a college degree, but in 1919 not a man on our outfit, least of all the Ranger himself, had been to college. They still picked Rangers for the Forest Service by picking the toughest guy in town. Hours, Bill Bell, was the toughest in the Bitterroot Valley, and we thought he was the best Ranger in the Forest Service. We were strengthened in this belief by the rumor that Bill had killed a sheep herder. We were a little disappointed that he had been acquitted of the charges, but nobody held it against him, for we all knew that being acquitted of killing a sheepherder in Montana isn't the same as being innocent.

The author of the highly touted “A River Runs Through It” [reviewed on this blog] brings us this tale of early Rangering with the US Forest Service.

It is not an action tale, but rather a tale of grit, gumption, hard work and the type of men it attracts and repels.

It smacks of experience and its currency is legitimacy.

I enjoyed the hell out of it and if that opening quote moves you, well, you’re in for a fine ride.

Shock Wave by John Sandford

 

Virgil had a degree in ecological science, he was a committed green. But he met quite a few people over the years who'd come into the green movement from other, more ideologically violent movements-- people who’d start as anti-globalization protesters, or tree spikers as opposed to tree sitters, who thought that trashing a McDonald's was a good day's work, people who talked about Marx and Greenpeace in the same sentence.

The greenest people Virgil knew were hunters and fishermen, with Ducks Unlimited and Trout Unlimited and Pheasants Forever and the Ruffled Grouse Society, and the Conservancy and the National Wildlife Federation and all the rest, people who put their money and their time where their mouths were; but these others…

Another volume in Sandford’s seemingly effortlessly written Virgil Flowers series.

Flowers is a good ol’ boy investigator who always finds time to fish or hit the woods. It is in the vein of many recent outdoorsy thrillers, C.J. Box and Craig Johnson come to mind.

But…for my money, Sandford’s Flowers has them beat hands-down. There is a perpetual forward momentum in these novels coupled with Virgil’s lazy female-appreciating charm.

Strikes me as a Walton Goggins’ Netflix series waiting to happen.

Not classics of literature, but a masterclass nevertheless in how to entertain and make 400 some odd pages fly.

No mean feat, that.

Essential Native Wisdom Edited by Carol Kelly-Gangi

 

No offered quote.

I have dozens upon dozens of anthologies, omnibuses, and collections of Indigenous quotations, speeches, and observations.

The best of them are historically accurate and take the time to confirm and verify the utterances.

The worst of them repeat unsourced commonplaces.

The best of them also share a quality of providing a bit of insight into an alternate mindset. Be that an alternate way to view war, peace, forgiveness, possessions or even our own assumptions of history.

What the best of them all have in common is a running theme that portrays a surviving nobility despite abuses and hardships.

Well, that is not what we have here. I suppose it was bound to happen—the quote book goes woke.

Don’t presume my use of the word “woke” to mean that I am “anti-woke” or I am myself “woke.”

Read my use of the word to mean I am fatigued with a dogmatic view that chooses to cull, sift, parse all utterances and wisdom for a preferred point of view.

I prefer my historical information undiluted—give me the good, the bad, the warts, the smiles.

What we have here is a vast collection of utterances that, for the most part, lean heavily on grievance, mistreatment, loss.

Yes, of course, this is a large part of many an indigenous people’s story, but it is not the whole story.

This volume behaves as if grievance were the mainstay of the native experience.

I am in no way asking for a whitewash of history, or to ignore the injustice. On the contrary, I want it all. The atrocities and malfeasance on both sides are shocking.

But…what we have here, primarily with 20^th century quotes is so “What we used to be…” uttered with trembling lip it robs these astonishing cultures of nobility. Denies a sense of agency.

I have no doubt the editor intended a good thing, to rectify and open eyes, but in this form of rectification we are left with little to admire.

Instead, we are asked to pity.

First Peoples deserve better treatment than they have received historically, but they also deserve better than this unmeaning patronizing look at their story.

A Christmas Offering: Trail of Robin Hood

 

In Jeremy Arnold’s book Christmas in the Movies: 30 Classics to Celebrate the Season (Turner Classic Movies) the classic cinema historian selected this Republic Western in the must-see roster.

It is a tale of white hats and black hats and Christmas tree wranglers.

We have Roy Rogers and Trigger starring as well as additional cowboy stars [all playing themselves] Rex Allen, Allan Lane, Monte Hale, William Farnum, Tom Tyler, Ray Corrigan, Kermit Maynard, Tom Keene and Jack Holt.

The story is slight, the plot and staging are aimed towards the youth market, but I wager if one grew up with this fare that this is a pleasant blast of nostalgia.

Not having grown up with Rogers and his ilk, it all comes across a little square to me but I did enjoy the pacing.

Director William Whitney, one of Tarantino’s favorites, keeps all moving briskly.

So, as a Western fan who had to pause often to ask, “Now who is that guy?” I still enjoyed myself.

One familiar with all the names mentioned, well, you likely are in for a treat.

Merry Christmas All!

The Cowboy Havamal by Jackson Crawford

 

 Use yer eyes,

and never walk blind.

There ain't no tellin’

where there's someone waitin’

to put one over on you.

The original Havamal, also called Gestathattr, or The Counsel of Odin the One-Eyed was an Old Norse prose poem found in the Poetic Edda, a collection of Viking tales and legends.

The Havamal is conspicuous for its brevity and down-to-earth warrior wisdom.

Noted Norse scholar, Jackson Crawford of Boulder, Colorado was always struck by its pragmatic bent. He felt that it dovetailed nicely with the cowboy wisdom of his rancher grandfather.

In The Cowboy Havamal he offers a rendering in the voice of a wise, pragmatic but sometimes cynical rancher.

It captures the Viking spirit beautifully, just as it captures the can-do of the Old West.

Both versions can be read in half an hour.

Both are chockful of stick-to-your-ribs wisdom.