Forgotten Books: Guns Up by Ernest Haycox
Read enough of a writer’s work and, even if s/he doesn’t have a highly stylized voice, you should eventually come away with a sense of the person behind the pen. Later on, through written accounts or personal experience, it’s always interesting to find out if your perception was right.
Some folks put themselves so fully onto the page that within a single short essay or story, for good or ill, you feel like you know them intimately. Harlan Ellison, Dan Simmons, and Stephen King are like that for me. I grew up reading Ellison and, when I was fortunate enough to spend a couple days with him, my expectations were fulfilled; my imagination reflected the real deal. So too with Louise Erdrich and one or two others.
Since he passed away more than half a century ago, I have no chance of meeting Ernest Haycox, but after really enjoying Trail Town, I’d like to learn more about its author, the man and his style. Here on the shelf are several Haycox works yet to be opened and a few already finished. In the weeks ahead, I’m hoping see how, if at all noticeably, his work grew and progressed.
Guns Up was first released in 1928, but it’s a yarn gritty and timeless enough to have been issued as a slim paperback by Belmont/Tower in 1972 under the copyright of Haycox’s wife, Jill Marie Haycox. Complete with a slick cigarette ad bound into the spine, it’s the kind of tough book my mom steered me away from when I was a kid, and the kind that didn’t appear on the book rack at the Corner Drug Store anyway. In those days, in small town Nebraska, buyers of Playboy magazine had to ask for it over the counter. I wonder if hard boiled western was the same?
Because, make no mistake, Guns Up is indeed hard-boiled.
For the perceptive reader, it must’ve been a solid sampling of the era’s best pulp conventions and an harbinger of a less formal style. Reading Haycox back to back with someone like, say, William MacLeod Raine (1871 – 1954) is to witness a generational shift first hand.
In truth, there’s nothing original in Haycox’s plot about rival families and the range war they ignite. Improbably, the Champifers and Boadleys live in Grail City on opposite sides of the White River, a waterway that divides the town equally. The two clans alternately share the responsibility of law enforcement for the whole community. That is until one of the young, hot-headed Champifer heirs decides the compromise makes for a too complacent life and sets out to destroy the fragile peace.
It’s on this traditional and fairly contrived template that Haycox lays out more than a little dark tension. There’s the marshal, Ulysses Gove, interested in his own skin rather than letter-of-the-law justice, and far from being portrayed as a coward or weakling, he’s shown to be a level-headed good guy. There’s the Champifer son, who’s not just a bad guy or bully, but a pampered and psychologically twisted man-child who betrays his own family to ignite sudden violence. These and other elements to the story might seem more familiar to us (or an audience in 1972) than the average reader of 1928, but with their inherent realism, they deliver a solidly satisfying punch.
As you might expect, there’s some Romeo and Juliet tossed in for good measure when a Champifer girl falls in love with the oldest of the upright and strong Boadley brothers. But it’s a minor addition because Haycox is mostly concerned with action. When the fighting comes to a head, when all the betrayals and secret conniving finally erupt in all out violence “Guns Up!” is the password the Boadleys use on the skirmish line and it’s a title you might want to look for.
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According to Wikipedia, in 2005 the Western Writers of America voted Haycox one of the 24 best Western authors of the Twentieth Century. Anybody got a copy of that list?
on March 5, 2010 at 7:45 am
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Lovely review, Richard. Thanks. I guess I couldn’t name more than five or six of the best.
on March 5, 2010 at 10:19 am
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Sounds interesting. I think I’ve read a book or two of his, though it’s been a good many years. This one goes on my list.
on March 5, 2010 at 10:48 am
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It’s been a few years, but if I remember correctly it was me that put that little nugget in his bio Richard, as well as the quote from Hemingway.
The list can be found at this link:
http://www.westernwriters.org/best_westerns.htm
on March 5, 2010 at 11:00 am
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I’ve read a fair amount of Haycox, although not this one. I’ve always liked the “toughness” of his stories and characters.
on March 5, 2010 at 12:01 pm
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A couple days with Ellison must have been a learning experience.
on March 5, 2010 at 12:22 pm
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I’m still struggling with westerns, they seem to elude my understand of what makes one good, anther not so good. In my ignorance, I suppose, the all seem pretty much like shoot-em-ups, and the plots like those I’ve seen a hundred times while watching all the popular westerns on television, from Lone Ranger through Have Gun and the rest. This looks pretty interesting, but it’s the writing that would convince me, I guess. The best western I’ve read was probably SHANE.
on March 5, 2010 at 5:43 pm
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I actually have this book. Now, to find time to read it.
on March 5, 2010 at 8:47 pm
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Haycox has stood the test of time far better than most of his contemporaries. Guns Up was reprinted as a Black Horse Western in June 1994 — around the same time, that is, as my own early BHWs were being published. I was very proud indeed to be appearing on the same list as one of the greats. D.K. — I hope you’ll persevere with the westerns. There are authors out there who offer more depth than TV “shoot’em ups” and Haycox is one of them.
on March 6, 2010 at 11:36 am
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The late Elmer Kelton, interviewed by COWBOYS AND INDIANS magazine a few months before his death, was asked to name the best all-time western writers. He divided westerns up into entertainment or action westerns and literary westerns. He named Ernest Haycox as one of the two or three best authors of entertainment westerns, then named a few others.
Among literary westerns, Kelton named Cormac McCarthy as best, along with A. B. Guthrie (author of THE BIG SKY and other good ones, as well as being the adapter of Jack Shafer’s SHANE).
Kelton realized that his own literary peak was in the novels THE TIME IT NEVER RAINED and THE DAY THE COWBOYS QUIT. Of course there were Walter Van Tilburg Clark and some others which would take a blog page to discuss.
The last two years, by the way, have been banner years for westerns. Last year’s Spur Award winners included Thomas Cobb’s SHAVETAIL, sure to be a movie now that he has gotten some notice, thanks to the movie adaptation of his novel, CRAZY HEART.
John Williams’ BUTCHER’S CROSSING, another excellent literary western, originally published back in 1960 and republished by the NYBR forgotten classic series, is now becoming a movie too.
My hats off to such novelists as Johnny Boggs (HARD WINTER) and Craig Johnson (THE COLD DISH) and others who have risen the contemporary western above genre to a higher standard.
on March 6, 2010 at 6:27 pm
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Thank you, Patti.
Randy and George –you won’t be sorry.
Thanks, Layton.
Me too, Charles.
David –more than I can say. I’ll share one or three with you over a beer sometime.
D.K. –like with all genres, the sword of television cut both ways, bringing exposure but dumbing things down. Like Richard writes above, there are many writers to explore. I’ll add Thomas Berger (LITTLE BIG MAN) to the literary side of things and Mark Twain to both categories.
Chap –I didn’t know BHW released GUNS UP, and now am more gratified that I enjoyed it as much as I did.
Richard –Thank you for a wonderful list of writers and titles. I think I agree with Kelton’s two sides to the genre, concluding that the line between can often blur unexpectedly.
on March 8, 2010 at 9:45 am
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That website link I provided earlier seems to be down. Here’s a link to another site that has the same information:
http://www.readwest.com/best_westerns.htm