My Favorite Author

People often ask me to name my favorite author, and I’m sorry to report I receive few nods of recognition when I say, “Annie Proulx.” I get an aha when I mention she wrote “Brokeback Mountain,” but none of my friends and acquaintances seem to have heard of her, read her gritty yet humorous short stories or  her Pulitzer Prize-winning novel, The Shipping News.

I dove into Annie Proulx’s work when I found out she wrote "Brokeback Mountain" which was after I had seen the movie. Since most of her work is set in the West, I read everything I could get my hands on while doing research for my novel, Never Done, a story inspired by my great-grandmother who moved to Colorado in the 1890’s.

Like Proulx, most of my writing is historical fiction set in the American West, and also like her, I try not to romanticize the past. I also avoid Western stereotypes. If you happen to be a fan of Westerns, my writing contains no Indians attacking wagon trains or land barons usurping the homesteads of poor settlers, no gunfights and no bank robberies. Instead I write about real people, some of them related to me, and how they dealt with life in remote areas without the labor-saving devices and other services we take for granted.

Unlike Proulx, I am fairly conservative when developing my characters. She would most likely say the folks in my stories are milk toast compared to the tough-as-nails people she describes. Here is one of them, a telegraph key operator, who plays a small part in her short story, “Them Old Cowboy Songs.”

His face and neck formed a visor of scars, moles, wens, boils, and acne. One leg was shorter than the other, and his voice twanged with catarrh.

Thus far, "Them Old Cowboy Songs" is my favorite Annie Proulx short story. I have read every word (over 8,000) five times or more, and the story still staggers me. You will find it in Just the Way It Is.

                                                                                   

My Favorite Westerns

According to Noelle Buffam, writing for The Script Lab, "Western Film is a genre that revolves around stories primarily set in the late 19th century in the American Old West. Most Westerns take place between the American Civil War (1865) and the early 1900s. Common themes within Western film include: the conquest of the wild West, the cultural separation of The East and the West, the West's resistance to modern change, the conflict between cowboys and Indians, outlaws, and treasure/gold hunting. American Western film usually revolves around a stoic hero and emphasizes the importance of honor and sacrifice."

I still enjoy a good Western, especially those with an unusual twist, compelling story, and top-notch actors. Once a dependable money-maker for movie studios, Westerns are now more often box office disappointments. The films that do succeed are not the rootin'-tootin', singing cowboy, unscrupulous landowner VS small rancher, cattle rustling variety that filled movie screens for decades.

 Below, in alphabetical order, are my all-time favorites.

Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (1969): screenplay by William Goldman. Goldman won the Oscar that year for best original screenplay. Light-hearted, yet authentic.

Dances With Wolves (1990): adapted from a book by Michael Blake. This film won the Best Picture Oscar. What an amazing, beautifully adapted story!

Hostiles (2017): screenplay by Donald Stewart based on a story by Donald E. Stewart. Violent, yet true to what life was like for settlers and Native Americans when the West was still wild.

Legends of the Fall (1994): book by Jim Harrison. In my opinion, this film never received the recognition it should have.

Lonesome Dove (1985): Not a movie, but a TV miniseries adapted from a book written by the phenomenal Western writer, Larry McMurtry. I never get tired of watching both Lonesome Dove and its sequel, Return to Lonesome Dove.

The Magnificent Seven (1960): screenplay by William Roberts (a remake of Akira Kurosawa's 1954 Japanese film Seven Sumurai. I cry every time I watch it. I've never watched the remake, nor do I intend to. Yul Brynner and Charles Bronson are irreplaceable. 

The Unforgiven (1992): screenplay by David Webb Peoples. Another Western film that won the Oscar for Best Picture. Tough to watch, but excellent.

If you haven't watched one or more of these films, and you aren't a Western genre naysayer, I don't believe you will be disappointed.