All at Sea

Howdy folks, Watson McFestus here again to trick you into checking out books you’ll probably change your mind about and not read anyways.

One of last month’s recommendations, Cold Skin by Albert Sanchez Pinol — about the mad lighthouse keepers and the rampaging amphibious humanoids who relentlessly attack them night after night — seemed to intrigue some of you, to judge by my overflowing mail bag. That got me to thinking: I’ve recently read a bunch of pretty good books set at sea, so why not yap critically remark about them?

 Cold Skin by Albert Pinol. Again - two webbed claws up.

Douglas Preston is the author of two such titles: The Ice Limit (2000) and Riptide (1998), both of them straightforward adventures. The Ice Limit involves a specialty engineering firm’s multiple attempts to dig up and transport a large, newly discovered meteorite from a remote island in Tierra del Fuego to New York. As always, things fall apart. The center does not hold, and mere anarchy is loosed upon the world. The book was exciting, thrilling, and hard to put down as the engineers rig up all kinds of transport systems that seem to be stymied by the sheer size and peculiar properties of the meteorite.

Riptide is about a middle-aged man who returns to his New England hometown to discover that he has inherited a small haunted island and that competing groups of treasure hunters want to excavate it. Hundreds of years ago, it seems, a famous pirate may have buried his treasure somewhere within the islands numerous caves. Everyone has their own agenda and seems to be working against everyone else. And then the bodies start to turn up.

 The Ice Limit by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child (Pendergast free)

Of course these aren’t considered true classics of the novels-at-sea genre, a class that includes the works of Herman Melville, Jack London, Alexander Kent, Dewey Lambdin, Julian Stockwin, C.S. Forester, Charles Nordhoff and James Norman Hall, Dudley Pope, Douglas Reeman, and of course Patrick O’Brien. In particular, McFestus enjoyed the first two of Forester’s Hornblower books, Beat to Quarters (1937) and Ship of the Line (1938). Horatio Hornblower’s career is chronicled in a series of books taking him from midshipman to commodore and eventually a lordship. The books read well even now and at one time were considered to be at a teen reading level. That may no longer be true.

There was an excellent movie, Captain Horatio Hornblower (1951), directed by Raoul Walsh and starring Gregory Peck and Virginia Mayo; and an even better A&E television series starring Ioan Gruffudd. I believe the library owns both on DVD. Check them out.

   Far Tortuga by Peter Matthiessen

Peter Matthiessen’s Far Tortuga (1975) is the tale of some rough-around-the-edges turtle fishermen from the Cayman Islands, their uncouth Captain Avers, and their ragged and decrepit tug of a boat, who sail around the Gulf of Mexico looking for edible stuff to catch. As they head offshore of Nicaragua and the pickings grow ever slimmer, the crew reminisces about better days, pirate captains, great hurricanes, buried treasure, shipwrecks, lost islands, and adventures in the smuggling trade. Then, when the discord and discontent reaches a feverish, almost mutinous pitch, the captain decides to set sail for the mythical Far Tortuga, rumored to be somewhere in the vicinity of Cuba, and where the fishing is said to be fabulous. It’s quite a story, delivered in an almost offhand manner that gradually ratchets up the tension.

 Mutiny on the Bounty - as a movie do you prefer Marlon Brando and Trevor Howard (1962), Charles Laughton and Clark Gable (1935) or Mel Gibson and Anthony Hopkins (1984)

Nordhoff and Hall’s “Bounty Trilogy” — Mutiny on the Bounty (1932), Men Against the Sea (1934), and Pitcairn’s Island (1934) — along with The Hurricane (a lesser known Romeo and Julietish Polynesian potboiler and tearjerker from 1936) are of course classics and still readable today. McFestus read them long ago as a youth upon the Aegean.

No, he didn’t. McFestus has never been to the Aegean. But McFestus was required to memorize a poem containing that phrase when he was younger by a harpy of an English/History teacher (Mrs. Patranella, a tiny woman who used to make us touch our toes and then would rap our behinds with a special rolled up newspaper in front of the whole classroom when we did wrong), so it is included here to make her happy. Look, Mrs. P., your tough Royal Navy discipline paid off: I remembered something from your class!

   Another man at sea masterpiece by Patrick O'Brien

Persons whose opinion McFestus does not totally despise tell him that the Aubrey/Maturin series by Patrick O’Brien are about the best ever written. I’ll take their word for it. I haven’t read them but they do sound intriguing; Hornbloweresque, but with more character and depth. The first two installments were blended together in a Hollywood studio, shaken, had some extra salt thrown in, and out popped the fine movie Master and Commander: Far Side of the World (2003) starring Russell Crowe. McFestus enjoyed most of that movie, especially the first part with the roiling seas. But when, on the eve of the inevitable showdown with the French, Crowe forces his irascible but lovable crew to listen to his violin hoedown, McFestus almost had a cardiac. Captain Aubrey is dang lucky there were no McFesti among his crew, or else he would have had a mutiny right then and there. He would have been hung from the yardarm inches above the ocean and had man-eating tuna chasing him across the sea. No - that would have been too good for him. Anyways - then he, his violin, his trusty dog Parabola, and the ship’s monkey Stradivarius would all have been placed in an open boat and told to row home. Hopefully the monkey and the dog would have escaped. McFestus is an animal lover, after all.

Put down the violin, slowly step away and go back to your cabin. Sic Semper Tyrannis!

 Is this man a brutal taskmaster or just a misunderstood bully in need of love and adulation?

Uncle McFestus” Westerns on Film II

Howdy fellow varmints; Watson McFestus here with more blahdabeblah on Western movies. I wouldn’t have written tat-all about it but some of you took the trouble to let me know what your favorites were – so why not share them with the other good folk of Irving – most of whom don’t read this column and who don’t check out western movies. Dang good idea.

Well folks – we got a reader who insists that Shane is the only western worth watching and he doesn’t want to hear about anything else. We got another what likes the Apple Dumpling Gang (1975) - a humorous tour de force with Don Knotts and Tim Conway (also Henry Morgan, Slim Pickens, and Bill Bixby)  that predates the Home Alone series as some young orphans outwit a villainous gang of outlaws (can any one do being flustered better than Don Knotts – the man is genetically gifted?). It was popular enough to make a sequel out of – The Apple Dumpling Gang Rides Again 1979.

 McFestus and a few of his readers like these two movies. You got a problem with that?

We also have votes for Old Yeller, The Man Who Shot Liberty Valence – two great ones from the 60’s. I remember crying during both Bambi and Old Yeller. Old Yeller had a half decent sequel – Savage Sam – both were books by Fred Gipson.

We have a vote for a humorous-sad spaghetti classic starring Terrence Hill and Henry Fonda – My Name is Nobody - the first of the Trinity movies.

My Name is Nobody with Terrence Hill and Henry Fonda, writer - Sergio Leone. Slow moving and pokey interspersed with funny scenes and one slick ending.  

Two internet sites in particular have done some very interesting lists of great western movies – Internet Movie Database (imdb.com) and AllMovieGuide.com.

As of last year this is how they rated the Westerns

As you can see the lists have a lot of the same movies in common. The IMDB is more fan driven and has more of the recent movies, the AllMovie Guide list has more input by critics and has more of the traditional westerns. It also includes TV miniseries like Lonesome Dove, which IMDB will not list.

At one point both Tombstone and Wyatt Earp were on the IMDB list – now gone – so it remains to be seen if  3:10 to Yuma and the Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford have legs and will stay.

Treasure of the Sierra Madre was just recently released on DVD and some traditionalists don’t consider it a true western. Luckily they don’t have “no stinkin badge” to enforce their opinion on the rest of us.

The Great Silence (Il Grande Silenzio) is a bloody and strange spaghetti western that has sort of a cult following. There’s no question that it is cinematographically the equal of most Hollywood Westerns (with a great soundtrack by Ennio Morricone) and it is one of the few westerns filmed in winter – giving it an interesting feel. It stars Klaus Kinski as a madman out to destroy a town as he faces a heroic deaf gunman during a terrible blizzard. It tries hard to make a STATEMENT and sort of does – but hey – it’s weird. It is usually on lists of the best spaghetti westerns along with the Sergio Leone movies, Death Rides a Horse 1969, Duck You Sucker, Ace High, Ruthless Four, Django, They Call Me Trinity, Companeros, Four of the Apocalypse, and Trinity is Still My Name.

Scenes from Il Grande Silenzio

Both websites go on to list even more movies.

 Shane is rated surprisingly low on the IMDB list. Duck You Sucker was alternately titled A Fistful of Dynamite and was a low key spaghetti western directed by Sergio Leone, starred Rod Steiger & James Coburn – it’s enjoyable but seems unfinished. There is a good scene with a pre world war one artillery piece, some bad guys trying to cross a bridge,  interspersed with some out of place  flashbacks featuring a strangely lovesick Coburn back in Ireland frolicking in the hills and vales. And then Kablam! In slow motion no less. It veritably screams "foreign film".

Yes, Virginia - this Western (Duck You Sucker aka Fistful of Dynamite)features a motorcycle with a side car.

What about Lone Star, McKenna’s Gold, Will Penny, There Was a Crooked Man, Silverado, Son of Pale Face with Bob Hope, Cat Ballou, The Long Riders and the Man From Snowy River,  – all sort of off beat Westerns. Tom Selleck has made some decent remakes as well lately – Crossfire Trail, Last Stand at SaberRiver and Monte Walsh.

Since last year some new movies have made the cut into IMDB's top westerns list:  the ultraviolent No Country for Old Men (2007), and the highly mustachioed Viva Zapata (1952) with Marlon Brando and Anthony Quinn (must have just been released on DVD).

  Viva Zapata.

Well the Irving Library owns many of them and many of the others further listed above. Check them out. Or not. This is a library. We won’t tell. If you have any other suggestions send them to UncleMcFestus@Yahoo.com.

Hey before you tune out and read the riveting Style and Fashion section of Library Line or explore the fabulous blogs of Neighborsgo.com  -  what about Sergeant Rutledge, Villa Rides (1968), Open Range, and Silverado again? Well to paraphrase the John Cleese character in Silverado – Sheriff Langston – “Today my column ends here. Pick up my hat”.

Hello again, readers of NeighborsGo, perusers of Library Line, and ambulators of the Irving Library in all it’s many incarnations – it is I, Watson McFestus, here to brighten your day, fill up some space, talk up books, promote the library, and other stuff. Goooooo Library!

Remember fellow citizens, return your materials. Especially you DVD watchers, Test Guide takers, Legal form hoarders, and home decorating fiends! Oh yes Simpson’s fans we are watching out for you too! There are persons age 9-15 and older who want to look at these also. Doh!

Isn’t that a weird combination? But its some of the most popular, least returned materials we carry.

Speaking of weird, time to clear the old cobwebs and talk about some slightly off kilter books.

First up, Cold Skin (2005) by Albert Sanchez Pinol. The book flap has an apt statement. “The b****** offspring of All Quiet on the Western Front and J.G. Ballard”. If that doesn’t make you want to read it I don’t know what will. Set in the years shortly after World War I, an idealistic young man is sent to a remote island in the frigid South Atlantic with a years supply of goods to make scientific measurements. He will be alone for the entire year and then will be picked up by freighter and another sent to take his place.  Ominously the scientist he is sent to replace seems to have vanished from the island. Without a trace. Eager to enjoy this period of solitude, contemplation and scientific observation, the young man settles in to his residence, a small slate cabin. Tranquility doesn’t last. On his first night ashore, after the ship has left he is set upon by ravening amphibious creatures in terrible numbers, arising from the sea and coming ashore. Barely surviving this relentless attack, he finds refuge both in the islands lighthouse (a formidable structure) and its keeper, the fierce, taciturn Gruner. Thus begins a war of repeated last stands as Gruner and the narrator fend off attack after attack, night after night. The amphibious human like creatures onslaughts increase in rage and ferocity, despite their losing scores, even hundreds against the well fortified and well armed humans. Slowly Gruner and our hero descend into madness, extreme cruelty and animalistic creepiness. Life is nothing but rest and eat during the day, and relentless, exhausting war all night long. The authors H.G. Wellsian style fits in nicely with the whole isolation milieu. Without a doubt the very finest amphibious monster-remote island-lighthouse horror novel ever written. McFestus gives two webbed claws up!

Cold Skin by Albert Sanchez Pinol. Creepy, eerie, hypnotic, fun.

Next up – John Connolly’s Bad Men (2004). Connolly also writes a slightly supernatural detective series that is set in northern New England (Dark Hollow, Every Dead Thing, The White Road). Sanctuary is a small island deep in Casco Bay, off the coast of Maine -  with a mysterious past. Three hundred or so years ago most of the entire population was violently slaughtered by marauders bent on revenge. Now the island is about to visited by another horror – Mr. Edward Moloch – a criminal mastermind who is determined to find his ex-wife, the woman who betrayed him many years ago and who – he believes – has escaped to this remote corner of America under a new identity. The tension mounts as Moloch and his gang of extremely vicious and competent cohorts arrive just before a terrible storm hits, isolating the island from the mainland and any help that might come from the outside. Very tense, all of the major characters; Moloch, his ex wife, the islands gentle police chief, each member of Moloch’s gang are well done, all in all a moody Stephen Kingesque tale (attention please – note - Kingesque is not a real word).

 Bad Men by John Connolly.In the words of the great Robert Ferrigno - "it helps that he can you know, write".

Batting third is Dan Simmons masterful Carrion Comfort (1989). It was selected as an entry in Horror: Another 100 Best Books (2005) by Stephen Jones & Kim Newman. A reworking of Fritz Leiber’s Conjure Wife and Frank M. Robinsons’s The Power – this book opens with the pyrotechnic battle of three octogenarians who can read minds and who can control other people like puppets. The three, initially going only by the names Willie, Melanie and Nina have apparently been meeting irregularly for 60 years, regaling each other with feats and tales of what cruelties they have inflicted upon their fellow human beings since last they met. The one who commits the most horrible ones is the winner. As the battle spins out of control with unlikely assassins being sent from each of the three to kill the others, the situation becomes noticed by law enforcement and to others who have similar powers and who wish this to be kept quiet. Some of those who have been used and violated and managed to survive,  band together to seek revenge. But how can anyone stop psychic vampires with this kind of power, cruelty and awareness. The secret to victory lies 40 years in the past, in a concentration camp on the Polish border and a long ago desperate struggle between members of Hitler’s S.S., the camp guards, milder elements of the Wehrmacht and the prisoners themselves. 

Carrion Comfort by Dan Simmons. Is out of print. Why?

The Irving Public Library used to own this most excellent book that is part epic horror, part thriller, part apocalyptic SF, and part Rod Steiger in the Pawnbroker. Alas no more. Why you ask? It is currently out of print and it was checked out and never returned by someone, someone we shall call Citizen X. You know who you are.

At clean up is George C. Chesbro’s Shadow of a Broken Man (1983). An unusual private eye – Robert Frederickson is hired to find an apparently dead architect whose unique style is being copied by other architects and who in fact may not be dead. The CIA, KGB, MOSSAD, British Intelligence and the secret services of a dozen other countries are interested as well. Frederickson is an interesting, humorous, self effacing detective who also happens to be a former acrobat & circus dwarf – stage name Mongo the Magnificent. Chesbro, an inventive author  - likes to keep things moving along. This was the first in a series of about a dozen pulp novels and one of the better ones, along with the aptly named An Affair of Sorcerers and the strangely named The Beasts of Valhalla (1985).

Shadow of a Broken Man - Novel; the late George C. Chesbro -  author; Rockland State Psychiatric Center - scene & inspiration of many Chesbro and Mongo novels. He will be missed. For more -  www.dangerousdwarf.com

The last weird tale we shall discuss is The Relic (1995) by Douglas Preston & Lincoln Child. A mysterious killer is roaming the sprawling edifice known as the New York City Museum of Natural History, slaying employees with abandon and causing havoc with the museums high ranking muckety mucks. Influential city politicians are more concerned about the big, costly groundbreaking exhibit about to open than public safety.  We saw it in Jaws, we saw it in Piranha II – when the big shots refused to close the beaches (lake, island, amusement park whatever) and let evil engage in a feeding frenzy. One thing we didn’t see in those was the Relics protagonist, Special Agent Aloysius Pendergast of the FBI. A quiet, tidy and peculiar  man with a steel trap mind and unorthodox methods, Pendergast is a great character, combining elements of Hercule Poirot  and modern scientific detection, all covered by a polite southern Louisianan gentility. Pass the gumbo please. It’s cold outside and I’ve got some scarifying reading to get done.

Howdy, readers of NeighborsGo and persons who pick up Library Line, Watson McFestus here with more disjointed ramblings.

The other day I twas channel surfing through the moving telepicture set when out of the box squawked the stern yet strangely reassuring gravelly voice of Jason Robards talking to Claudia Cardinale. “You don’t understand,  Jill. People like that  got something inside of them, something to do with death” Welp this being Texas we all know what that means. The final 20 minute showdown of Once Upon a Time in the West, with it’s fabulous music and accelerating crescendos of extreme facial close-ups of mysterious gunman Harmonica (ably played by Charles Bronson) and evil gunslinger Frank (played frighteningly well by Henry Fonda). It got me to thinking – what are my favorite westerns?

Well big brother Crockett is sort of a traditionalist preferring Shane, The Big Country, Giant, The Searchers, and Bad Day at Black Rock. Although technically Bad Day and Giant may not be traditional since large portions of them are set post World War II..

In polls of fans – the films of John Wayne and Jimmy Stewart and John Ford do very well. In fact early last year in the Dallas Morning News there was a whole long section devoted to the traditional western only they guised it as Westerns period – ignoring huge swaths of territory and styles, stars and themes. On the online web sites – the Sergio Leone and Sam Peckinpaugh films do quite well. Generally attracting a younger audience.

Sergio Leone & John Ford

I don’t know why – maybe it is the age thing – but Watson here liked the former but preferred the latter, causing great dismay in the McFestus household, with Pa generally siding with Crockett and the traditionalists. Ma and Sister Sabina preferred Peyton Place so they were of no help. Tha twins were to young to vote.

Nope – for me it was Once Upon a Time in the West, The Good, the Bad, and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More and A Fistful of Dollars.  Also – Ernest Borgnine and Ben Johnson in the Wild Bunch made that one a classic. Yikes – Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid and Little Big Man. One thing that the Sergio Leone films (Once Upon a Time, Good the Bad and the Ugly, For a Few Dollars More and A Fistful) had was a sense of humor.

  Some scenes from Evil Roy Slade

Speaking of humor – does anyone remember an old made for TV Western movie where the villain led a gang that rode Shetland ponies, robbed banks while disguised as petticoated schoolteachers,  were as incompetent as all get out and underwent Freudian analysis? In case you remember this movie as fondly as some of us do – it’s Evil Roy Slade with John Astin. The same comic team also tried their hand at a similar movie in The Brothers O’Toole.

Wasn’t there also a series of two movies starring James Garner as some sort of weird cowboy who refused to use a gun, was always on his way to Australia? They had every western stereotype and sidekick costarring… Walter Brennan, Jack Elam, Harry Morgan, and Dub Taylor jest a runnin around chewing up scenery and spittin out one liners. The one with Suzanne Pleshette as the strangely besmitten mayors daughter was particularly good.   Support Your Local Sheriff, and Support Your Local Gunfighter?. All of these last 4 movies are quite funny and certainly appropriate for most ages.

At one time – Irving Library owned every single one of these titles. Perhaps they still do. Why not check a few out and spend a Sunday afternoon watching some?  Adios pohdners.

Oh and why not write me with some of your favorite western movie recommendations?

Hello readers of Neighbors Go. McFestus here again with a pseudo-literary discussion about books that you likely won’t read. Glad to see you again. What’s new?

I’ve been impressed upon to talk about Pirates (a little War of 1812 humor there folks) and in that irritating spirit I shall salt my essay with numerous nautical and pirate witticisms as I see fit. Won’t that be fun?

Ahoy, there, let’s get started.

First up on the Cap’n McFestus can’t miss list is Edward E. Leslie’s Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls: True Stories of Castaways and Other Survivors (1988). I am proud to state unequivocally that the Irving Public Library owns this title and that it is a great book. Great, yes, great. Great great great. This great book is a treasure hoard full of fascinating and harrowing survival stories, most at sea or on deserted islands, from throughout history but a large part occurring in the Western Hemisphere circa 1500-1800. Plus an interesting section on downed flights in WW-II. Pirates here abound. Or not. Who cares? This book is great!. Particularly outstanding were the tales of William Dampier the navigator-privateer and Marguerite de la Roque a woman abandoned to die in the 1600’s on an island in the St. Lawrence Seaway merely because her cousin was embarrassed by her.

But why Cap’n McFestus should I read this book? What thoughts will it make me think? How will it make me feel? Grateful, you unworthy swab. Grateful you have not been marooned and are alive in modern times. Amazed at what they went through back in them olden times.

Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls by Edward Leslie – A McFestus Gold Seal selection.

At the same level of greatishness is James C. Simmon’s Castaway in Paradise: the Incredible Adventures of True Life Robinson Crusoes. The HMS Irving Public Library owns this one as well. It’s a more straightforward read than Desperate Journeys but just as affecting. The chapter on Herman Melville’s days in the South Pacific was fascinating. So was the tale of nice guy Captain Barnard – marooned twice on the same voyage in the frigid winter of the Falkland Islands. So too was the tale of the mid 1800’s couple who decided to build a life on an island off of the coast of Australia, an island that was frequented by cannibals. In fact every story here was fascinating. Cap’n McFestus recommends that one read them both at the same time, when Desperate Journeys drags, pick up the pace with the breezier Castaway in Paradise. What ho sailor, you can’t finish because it’s too hard. What a whining landlubber. Finish it swab. Read! Put your back into it.

Castaway in Paradise – by James C. Simmons – another McFestus Gold Seal selection.

There have been several titles on pirates published recently that were entertaining. One such is the short book with the long title of Empire of Blue Water: Captain Morgan’s Great Pirate Army, the Epic Battle for the Americas and the Catastrophe that Ended the Outlaws Bloody Reign (2007)  by Stephan Talty. There, you’ve read the title and know everything that happens. Don’t you just hate it when they give away the ending? It’s a brisk read, check it out and sail into the days of Port Royal and the pirates wars against the cities of the Spanish Main.

There was one published a year ago titled Captain Kidd and the War Against the Pirates (2007) by Robert C. Ritchie. McFestus was particularly taken with the cover picturing the creepily wigged looking felon.

One can always turn starboard to the classic titles, Under the Black Flag: the Romance and Reality of Life Among the Pirates (1997) by David Cordingly which features brief fascinating vignettes into all aspects of a life of piracy. It’s an exceptional social history and has an armada of pictures. Or to The History of Pirates (1999)  by Angus Konstam – a big coffee table sized flagship of a book that even explores piracy during the Greek and Roman days. Or why not anchor at the cove of the other Under the Black Flag; Exploits of the Most Notorious Pirates (1925)  by Don Carlos Seitz.  There be nuggets of gold here. Well bauxite anyways.

Then there are always the movies. We’ve got a bunch of them for better or worse. Peter Pan (1953)  (for better), the musical operetta Pirates of Penzance (for worse), Pirates of the Carribbean, the Sea Hawk (1948)  with Errol Flynn, Muppet Treasure Island (1996) , the classic Treasure Island (1953) with Robert Newton from the 50’s, it’s very strange sequel Return to Treasure Island (1954) ; a movie that has more arghs and mateys than any 10 turns on the Pirates of the Caribbean ride at Disney, and of course Captain Blood (1935)with Errol Flynn, Olivia de Havilland, and Basil Rathbone. Both Captain Blood and the Sea Hawk were originally novels by Rafael Sabatini.

When it comes to Fiction, McFestus is familiar with a few piratish titles. F.G. Bengtsson’s The Long Ships (which was made into a 1964 b-movie with Richard Widmark as a Viking and Sidney Poitier as the ruler of a land with a golden bell or something that the Viking pirates are trying to steal but which is so huge that no one can move it, but the Vikings are stupid enough to try with predictable results.). Daphne’ DuMaurier’s Frenchman’s Creek (1942)  about an aristocratic Frenchman who hides his ship in a secret cove off of Cornwall to rob ships until he falls in love with a noble British woman and blah blah blah. Inglis Fletcher had a minor classic in the 50’s with Lusty Wind for Carolina (1944), sort of a settlers get together to rid the land of pirates thing.  George McDonald Fraser tackled the subject twice with Flashman’s Lady (1977)  and Pyrates (1983). Of the two Pyrates is superior.

There was an unusual one titled Innocent Voyage by Richard Hughes. It was remade into a pretty good movie entitled High Wind in Jamaica (1965) starring Anthony Quinn and James Coburn among others. Friendly and likeable pirates kidnap a large group of children by mistake only to find out that one of the children is an extremely able murdereress and is intent upon bringing about the pirates ruin.

High Wind in Jamaica – a tense and surprising  little movie, based on an excellent novel (Innocent Voyage) by Richard Hughes.

Louis L’Amour wrote one entitled Fair Blows the Wind (1978)  – one of his interrelated historical family sagas – this one featuring Tatton Chantry, a larger than life man of action who fights relentlessly to rid Cape Hattaras of pirates and make it safe for future million dollar real estate developers.

Wilbur Smith wrote a dual set of novels about a young man whose father’s ship is captured by pirates and who sets about trying to recapture the ship, and ends up becoming a pirate in his own right along the way. The books were Birds of Prey (1977)  and Monsoon (1999) . Both were pretty good.

There’s always Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson of course. A recent trilogy for the teen and younger set that came out that was the High Seas Trilogy by Iain Lawrence. The titles are Wreckers (1998) , Smugglers (1999) , and Buccaneers (2001) . The Wreckers was particularly good, in which title a group of dastardly criminals off the coast of Cornwall in the 1700’s lure unsuspecting ships upon the rocks with false signals and beacons in the hopes of salvaging the remains. 14 year old John Spencer, one survivor of such a wreck, teams up with a local girl Mary to solve the mystery.

Some magnificent N.C. Wyeth Illustrations for Treasure Island by Robert Louis Stevenson.

This nautical essay has reached it’s destination and has lifted anchor. Adieu dear peruser of Library Line and Neighborsgo.com. Read Edward Leslie’s Desperate Journeys, Abandoned Souls and James Simmon’s Castaways in Paradise. Don’t set sail without ‘em. You won’t be disappointed. The rest? Ah whatever.

MEAN STREETS

Yeaux (that’s French for “yo”), Watson McFestus here with matters literary.

Ah, October, when the first hint of fall is in the hot, dry, endless summer air. School time, school time, good old golden-rule time. Time for some enthralling assigned reading. Back in the old days, kiddies, your moms and pops had to read real books, written on paper, parchment, or even sail-shroud canvas. Books that were heavy and boring and taught harsh moral lessons, like Pilgrim’s Progress or Dr. Kirwan’s Irish Catechisms (in Latin, no less). Nowadays, you have paperbacks and the Internet and everyone blargs and such. Your books are even interesting. You weak-willed sissies; get up off your duffs and read a real book, one that puts you to sleep in a matter of minutes. It’ll build some character. You know you need it.

As you may have heard, the library website and other propaganda organs are full of references to the NEA’s Big Read book, The Maltese Falcon (1930) by Dashiell Hammett. Festivities to commence now and continue throughout the month of October with speeches, workshops, and talks by such literary notables as Brad Meltzer, David Morrell, Richard Layman, and Harry Hunsicker, among others. Come on down to the library, pick up the calendar of events and see these literary literati get it on, mano a mano. First person passive versus third person subjective, to the death with quill ink pens at 30 paces. No less a critic than Bill Pronzini proclaims The Maltese Falcon “the prototype hard-boiled private eye novel, the finest ever written”, in 1001 Midnights. Pronzini further acknowledges that the book’s fame was greatly enhanced by John Huston’s magnificent 1941 film version and the brilliant performances by Humphrey Bogart, Mary Astor, Sydney Greenstreet, Peter Lorre, and Elisha Cook Jr.

So read the book. See the movie. Or both. Either way, makes McFestus no-never-mind. For today we are here to discuss the crooked-and-corrupt-city subgenre. Stories where some valiant or innocent goes up against “the man” or “the machine” and brings down the whole corrupt rotting superstructure of municipal governance.

It’s not surprising to learn that Hammett himself wrote two decent riffs on this theme, Red Harvest (1929), and The Glass Key (1931). Red Harvest is set in the poorly named Personville (Poisonville to the residents), and portrays a town divided into turfs by various criminal gangs who have entered into an effective but uneasy peace and are now proceeding to rob the town blind; enter an outside tough guy, “the Continental Op,” who comes in, attempts to split the alliance, and cleans up the residue.

Red Harvest - a feel good classic.

The Glass Key is a bit more sophisticated. Its protagonist, Ned Beaumont, is chief advisor to Paul Madvig, a lower-class thug who is the strongest of the criminals running the city. Against Beaumont’s advice, Madvig enters into an alliance with the snooty Senator Henry, an alliance that greatly increases Madvig’s power, but threatens the other vice-lords in the city, disrupting the uneasy peace that had brought untold profit to all the criminal elements. Much of the period feel of The Glass Key was successfully translated to the screen in the Coen Brothers 1990 film Miller’s Crossing, an utterly mesmerizing and hypnotic movie starring Gabriel Byrne, John Turturro, Albert Finney, and Marcia Gay Harden. It is a McFestus favorite.

If the theme of the crooked town interests you, but the whole 1920s/’30s ambience — and the somewhat ambiguous, dispassionate style of the Hammett novels is a bit off-putting — try two books by William Diehl: Hooligans (1984) and Eureka (2002). Hooligans is essentially a rewrite of Red Harvest, but instead of a single agent provocateur sent in to clean up the town, this time we have a more realistic approach. Federal agent Jake Kilmer assembles a team of rowdy renegade ex-cops to administer some two-fisted justice to the criminals who are threatening to take control of a small southern coastal city (Savannah, Ga. — probably) from the strong-man sheriff who has been running the city for the past 25 years. Throw in a criminal outfit known as the Cincinnati Triad, some corrupt state politicians, and a vicious local gang and you have the makings of a most excellent novel.

Eureka is more like The Glass Key, in that the inside point of view of the corrupters is taken into account. In 1945, two California big-city police officers, Ski Agassi and Zeke Bannon, are investigating the murder of Verna Wilensky. Apparently poor, Verna in fact had $100,000 in the bank, courtesy of regular deposits from a bank in San Pietro, a town once known as Eureka, and now the home of Thomas Culhane, potentially the next governor of California. Flashback to 1900: young Irish orphan Brodie Culhane and Ben Gorman, gentle son of Eureka’s richest man, are best friends. Ben’s dad sees potential in young Brodie and begins grooming him for a place in his business empire. Back in 1945, questions arise: Who was Verna Wilensky? Why was she being paid off? Why are there no records of her existence prior to 1924? Why does every lead in the case seem to be stymied by political or business elements out of San Pietro/Eureka? As Bannon pursues the investigation, he threatens to shake the foundations of northern California’s power structure to its core. The book is a fascinating sprawling multi-generational family saga that kept McFestus up at night until he finished it.

Hooligans and Eureka - 2 very good towns gone to Hell books by William Diehl.

Next up: the aptly titled, Edgar-winning Ross Thomas classic, Briarpatch (1984). Benjamin Dill returns to his unnamed southwestern hometown after the chief of police calls him late one night. His younger sister, homicide detective Felicity Dill, has died in a car bomb explosion, and Benjamin intends to find out why. Ben himself grew up as a good friend of the police chief’s family and since then has pursued a mysterious career in government service with an only obliquely referred to agency. He needs all of his skills and innate paranoia as he finds that the sleepy hometown he remembered has become a quagmire of double-dealing and corruption. Former friends are now backstabbing enemies and former enemies are eager to assist him. I had always presumed Briarpatch to take place in Phoenix but a recent re-read leaves me in doubt. It could be El Paso, or even Dallas, but there is no question Thomas had a specific city in mind. Read it and decide for yourself. Thomas is also the author of many fine novels and thrillers, including The Mordida Man, The Eighth Dwarf (a humorous espionage tale of a wealthy double-dealing Romanian dwarf who leads five different intelligence agencies all over Europe in their hunt for a crazed assassin), Missionary Stew, and The Fourth Durango, an interesting novel about a town whose chief industry is providing a quiet peaceable dwelling for crooks on the lam, no questions asked.

Briarpatch by Ross Thomas. What is the mystery setting of this crooked town classic? Phoenix? Albuquerque? Dallas? El Paso? Austin?

We end with James Grady’s Steeltown (1989), a tour de force that paints a haunting vision of the disintegration of Pennsylvania’s smokestack cities. The wealthiest man in town, enfeebled and dying, hires a specialist to help him regain control of the town he once ruled relatively benignly, but has now lost as other powers begin to sense his weakness. The decaying downtown streets are empty, the industrial wasteland a battleground between the forces of corruption, led by the crooked police chief, and the forces of evil, a vast criminal empire itself in disarray, with unfit capos at war with each other and the police. Throw in an undercover state trooper operation out of Harrisburg, a crusading newspaper, and the everyday agony endured by average citizens and you have the makings of a very good novel. Read it and let the unstoppable writhing miasmic energies of decay and destruction be unleashed! Grady is also the author of some very good political thrillers (Six Days of the Condor, Thunder, and River of Darkness) and one book to avoid (Mad Dogs).

Steeltown by James Grady

Suggestions? Comments? Scathing criticism? Send them all to UncleMcFestus@yahoo.com.

Howdy Readers of Neighbors Go. Watson McFestus here for big brother Crockett – lazing around with a glass of red wine somewhere in some formidable prison in the south of France. I – McFestus am tired of the western United States motif in yapping about books in this column of late. Let’s go to New York, specifically upstate New York – far away from Hilary Clinton and Rudy Giuliani and their ilk.

Stephen Dobyns is the author. The Church of Dead Girls (1997) is the book. Aurelius, New York. What a nice quiet town. Situated near Utica, it has a small downtown and a well respected liberal arts college nearby. What a pleasant Norman Rockwell kind of place. But then why have three girls there disappeared in the last year? Who is doing this? Who’s the monster? It’s got to be an outsider? Perhaps newly arrived socialist Economics Professor Chihani? He's certainly an odd one. Or perhaps Aaron McNeal – the human ear chewing town weirdo who had left 5 years earlier, only to return a year ago to attend his mother's funeral and decided to stay afterwards. She was found dead, murdered in her own home and he aims to get revenge. Maybe its Hank Powers, the one-eared unrepentant town bully, now a high ranking deputy in the local gendarme. The Friends of Sharon Malloy (named after the first missing girl) aim to find out. They aren’t going to wait around for the incompetent local police to solve the crime. In scenes of mob-like mentality worthy of Dickens’s Madame Defarge and the French Revolution, they go after every stranger, everyone new, or the least bit odd or different until the whole town is just one good stick poke from total implosion, raw violence and complete civic disintegration. McFestus loved it. Dobyns has written a series of slightly comic horse racing novels with the word Saratoga in them and an intriguing mystery set in a private school – Boy in the Water (1999).

One very good mystery and one great mystery by Stephen Dobyns

Next up – Pronzini & Malzburg’s The Running of Beasts (1976). That would be the first of tight plot master Bill Pronzini and stream of consciousness psychological terror specialist Barry N. Malzburg’s 4 collaborations. It is set in upstate New York, in the small resort town of Bloodstone high up in the Adirondacks. Several persons have been slashed to death ala Jack the Ripper and the hunt is on. By evidence left at some of the crime scenes, the police believe the killer to be a schizophrenic of sorts. Someone who’s everyday personality is totally unaware of his or her violent alter ego. The novel is divided into over 100 brief segments told from the alternating viewpoints of 6 persons; the tortured state cop in charge of the case, the equally guilt ridden police constable, a New York City reporter sent back to her hated home town to report on the case, an alcoholic ex actor with whom the journalist has a torrid affair, a local cub reporter with strange mommy issues and the Ripper him or herself. One of the first 5 is the Ripper’s daylight personality and at the end of each segment we are sure that is the one. Pronzini’s PR machine said it best – “The frenzy of oscillation, suspicion and mounting suspense is sustained for over 300 pages of a gigantic shell game, challenging us to guess who the Ripper is”. McFestus has recommended this book 5 times and each time the reader has made a point of thanking him. Pronzini and Malzburg teamed up for 2 other novels, the mediocre Acts of Mercy (1977) and Night Screams (1979) an interesting thriller about a nut case who is systematically killing off members of a group of psychics, each of whom believes the killer is someone else in the group.  A collection of their short stories was published as Problems Solved.

Running of Beasts by Bill Pronzini & Barry Malzberg, a Black Lizard imprint (cover by noted artist Jim Kirwan, one of many at http://www.kirwanesque.com/cover_art/blb/blbcovers.htm). Black Lizard. What a great series that was, reprinting pulp classics of the 40's, 50's, 60's and 70's. Readers of the recent Hard Case Crime series - take note. 

Corruption by Andrew Klavan (1993). Somewhere along the Hudson River lies the sleepy hamlet of Tyler, New York. Old time local boss, the crude Sheriff Cyrus Doolittle is calling in all his chits and making a play for power – county wide. His candidates stand to win all seats. Opposing him is his long time nemesis 41 year old reporter and editor of the local paper – Sally Dawes, When Sally and her band of intrepid reporters – the handsome Meriwether and the troll like Rumplemeyer start turning over stones and uncovering secrets, the seemingly peaceful town threatens to boil over. Sheriff Doolittle has got to put a lid on it, keep the mob out of Tyler and hold on tight until the election is over. Very tense. The author really gets inside his characters – particularly Dawes, Doolittle and Rumplemeyer. Klavan is the author of numerous taut thrillers, Don’t Say a Word (2001), True Crime (1995), Shotgun Alley (2004), Hunting Down Amanda (1999), and Damnation Game (2006).

Frederick Busch – Girls (1997). Jack is a 44 year old former veteran now a campus police officer in a small New York liberal arts college town. His wife Franny is a nurse. The two hardly speak to each other, both being devastated by the death of their child. The marriage seems remorselessly headed for complete fragmentation as Jack and Fran nurse their own private grievances, both seeking salvation in their jobs. Fran – healing the sick, Jack playing wise older brother to a bunch of wet behind the ears college kids. Into this mix a 14 year old local girls disappears on the edge of campus and Jack is asked to help in the investigation. Busch has primarily written short stories collections – Don’t Tell Anyone (2000), Sometimes I Live in the Country (2000) being two of the better ones. He also wrote North (2005) – a sequel to Girls in which Jack is hired to track down a college student who’s last known whereabouts is the sophisticated town of Vienna New York, and The Night Inspector (1999) – an excellent post civil war novel about a disfigured veteran who aiming to disappear, gradually joins the human race again. He’s sort of a writer’s writer – with influences of Melville and Hemmingway abounding.

Some fine mysteries by Frederick Busch.

Vanishing Act (1995) by Thomas Perry. Jane Whitfield is half Seneca, a member of the Iroquois. She lives a nondescript life in a nondescript town somewhere near Syracuse. So why write a book about her? Because it is all a front. Jane learned some useful skills in her youth and her Indian background allows her certain privileges in crossing back and forth to Canada with ease. She uses this to help people disappear, complete with new identities. Sort of a one person witness protection program out on the fringes for those now unwilling to go through the law.  Now embezzler from the mob John Felker shows up at her front door. Jane takes him to California and helps him start his new life, but something goes wrong and her network of carefully chosen associates is rolled up and disposed of. Jane is left alone and hunted by assassins for her knowledge of the whereabouts of certain missing persons. The adventures continue for Jane in some enjoyable sequels – Dance for the Dead (1996), Shadow Woman (1997), and Face Changers (1998). Some readers have compared her favorably to Tony Hillerman for the description of her background. Perry is a master of set piece action, with clever little nuances that make all the difference. He is also the author of the excellent Butcher’s Boy (1982), Sleeping Dogs (1992), Big Fish (1985), Pursuit (2001), Metzger’s Dog (1983) and Death Benefits (2001). Read any of them. All are enjoyable.

Vanishing Act - the first Jane Whitfield novel by Thomas Perry. A new one is due to be out in 2009.

Other enjoyable thrillers set in this upstate New York subgenre are Blind Eye (2003)  by G.M. Ford with it’s description of creepy Dutch hill folk in Rockland County, down near the New Jersey border, The Headsman (1991) by James Neal Harvey with it’s over the top mix of local legend, horror and crooked municipal  politics, and Good Day to Die (1993) by Stephen Solomita, an action packed thriller featuring Indian redneck NYC detective Roland “Mr Mean” Means a native born Iroquois who’s hunt for a big city serial killer takes him into the impoverished rural upstate areas of his youth. Solomita is also the author of an excellent police procedural series, sort of an East coast version of Joseph Wambaugh, starring dinosaurish detective Stanley Moodrow. Force of Nature and A Twist of the Knife being two particularly good ones. No – he is not an ancient reptile solving crimes, rather he is old school police detective, out of touch, completely unable to fathom bureaucracy and the idiosyncrasies of modern society – who still manages to get the job done.

A Blind Eye by G.M. Ford. Nobody does creepy Dutch hill folk better. 

Ah – murder, towns gone mad, accusations flying back and forth, revenge and justice. McFestus is happy just thinking about it. So happy that next month he may write about the kinder, gentler side of upstate. But then again maybe not. It will just make him sad again.

Good day glorious smelling readers of the Neighborsgo Newspaper or what ever it this called. It is I – Watson McFestus – Crockett’s younger brother. Big brother Crockett has been detained indefinitely by French Authorities for the improper use of the future pluperfect while assaulting a mime or some such nonsense and has instructed me to carry on in his best tradition with incoherent book ramblings about his favorite Louis L’Amour – Last of the Breed (1986).

Set in 1980’s Siberia – tough guy, American Indian and shot down fighter pilot – Joe Makatozie escapes from the Gulag and heads east across the trackless Russian steppes to Alaska. The Russian prison guards, outfoxed at every turn by the resourceful Makatozie enlist the aid of their own version of the American Indian – Native Yakut trackers and the chase is on. It’s a very very good book. Read it. Blah blah blah. There. I have done my job.

Now let’s talk ‘bout some westernish style mysteries. First up – The Far Cry by Fredric Brown. Written in 1951, and set in northern New Mexico it’s a noir classic – full of bleak desolation and madness. Weaver – an alcoholic KC real estate man – undergoes a nervous breakdown and on the advice of his doctor – rents a small house north of Taos to recover in and get away from it all. The house was the setting of a violent murder of passion 8 years previous and Weaver finds himself obsessed with the crime and the lives of these previous tenants. The more he researches the past – the less tenuous his grasp on the present and as he gets closer to solving the crime he develops an ominous sense that he is being watched until all is revealed in one of the most stunning denouements ever. Most stunning. Ever.

Brown was also the writer of an excellent duo detective series starring Ed and Am Hunter in the Nick and Nora Charles mode only not a husband and wife team but nephew and uncle. Am Hunter is the uncle, a fat and jovial ex-carny with a zest for scams. Ed Hunter is the innocent & idealistic young-un who is always falling for one "skirt" or another, letting them lead him into some of the zaniest plots in American detectivedom. The series is led off by the Fabulous Clipjoint (1947), then the Dead Ringer (1948), and ending 4 or 5 capers later in Mrs. Murphy's Underpants (1963). Brown is also the author of four other great suspense novels – Knock Three One Two (1959), Night of the Jabberwock (1957), His Name was Death (1954) and the Screaming Mimi (1949) all involving amateurish types looking into something better left alone. They are all out of print and must be interlibrary loaned, except for the Screaming Mimi which the library was able to get a copy of. Check it out.

Before Cormac McCarthy there was James Crumley. Or are the two in any way comparable? McFestus doesn’t know. Anyway on the basis of his first three novels in the late 70’s Crumley was pronounced by many to be the foremost living writer of private eye fiction as Bill Pronzini stated in 1001 Midnights.  Sadly he did not stop there and continues to write, only just not as well. His earlier gooder novels had two protagonists. Milo Milodragovitch is a Montana PI, living in the shadow of his wealthy Hemmingwayesque father, just biding his time until he turns 52 and inherits the family wealth. Milo is hired in The Wrong Case (1975) by a young woman from Iowa to find her missing brother and in Dancing Bear (1983) he takes on a wealthy multinational corporation dumping toxic waste into the groundwater. Milo is sad, guilt ridden but tenacious as hell. Also don’t miss Crumley’s other protagonist – the hard drinking, boozing just as tenacious C.W. Sughrue. He pops up in the Last Good Kiss (1978) – sort of a flawed western hillbilly tour-de-force. Hired to track down Abraham Trahearne, a missing writer, he finds him quite quickly and then allows Trahearne to talk him into finding a girl who disappeared 10 years before. The trail leads deeper and deeper into the heart of evil and human corruption. This is the title that has the memorable and oft quoted first line, “When I finally caught up with Abraham Trahearne, he was drinking beer with an alcoholic bulldog named Fireball Roberts in a ramshackle joint just outside of Sonoma, California, drinking the heart right out of a fine spring afternoon”. Crumley has written a number of other novels with Sughrue (actually these are pretty good) and a fine Vietnam War novel entitled One to Count Cadence (1987). James Crumley books (particularly the ones mentioned) – a fascinating mix of psychological turmoil and fast paced action.

 3 great books to be read in no particular order.

Hello Saddle butts,

McFestus here again with more barely coherent ramblings about Western Fiction. What in tarnation is the matter with you people? Last month McFestus spend a page and a half yapping about Prehistoric Fiction books. Granted – Reindeer Moon, Animal Wife and Elizabeth Marshall Thomas are awesome to behold but come on – they aren’t true westerns. Is no one insulted or fired up? True – McFestus did get disinvited to the Western Writers of America Conference in Ft.Collins at ColoradoState. But that is in June, the month McFestus usually schedules for his detox at the Betty Ford Clinic. Urp. Dang rot-gut.

Since no one reads this apparently, I-McFestus shall talk about rural French movies. How Uncle McFestus does this connect to cowboys and westerns – you may ask? Well intelligent reader of Neighborsgo – France does have cowboys – only they call them Gardiens. They live in Provence in the south of France and congregate in a particular cattle ranching region – Le Carmague. Many of these movies are set in that area or very near to it. Presumably the custom of herding cattle and ranching came north from Spain with its tradition of large land grants given to wealthy families with the express purpose to raise cattle – and along with it – the need for vaqueros or cowboys. Blah blah blah.

As the old joke goes - "pretentious? Moi?"

Our first movie from this vital subgenre that McFestus recommends is Jean de Florette (1986) – a nasty little tale of scheming and agricultural malfeasance. Cesar Soubeyran (played fabulously by Yves Montand) and his nephew Ungolin (appropriately named) try to drive their neighbor Jean de Florette into ruin so that they can take over his well and divert its water to their own get rich scheme. The scenery, acting and musical score are all top notch. This is actually the first of two parts. The second part – Manon of the Spring (1986) continues the tragic epic as Jean’s daughter Manon discovers the scheme that ruined her father and exacts a terrible revenge. Near the end an old village crone communicates a startling revelation that brings the irony to a delicious close. How very French. Passez moi a baguette or something. These two are definitely worth seeing.

My Mother’s Castle (1990) , also based on a Maurice Pagnol book ( as are Jean de Florette and Manon of the Spring) is about a young boy who’s father is able to purchase a summer cottage in a rural area of Provence. The movie is full of idyllic romps and adventures in the 1900’s French countryside and is a testament to the natural beauty of this region. One disturbing aspect. Apparently in France – school teachers can afford summer cottages quite easily. Thank goodness that is not allowed here. My Mother’s Castle is actually preceded by another movie – My Father’s Glory (1990) which was ostensibly about the efforts of young Marcel to assist his dad in hunting fowl but is really just an excuse to explore the Provencal landscape and is even better if possible than My Mother’s Castle or at least just as ding dang d*** good. J’approve!

Ponette (1996) – is another rural French masterpiece. Ponette is a 4 year old girl whose mother has died and she is sent to the countryside to live on a farm with her aunt and uncle and her 3 boisterous cousins. Ponette – acted superbly by a 5 year old Victoire Thivisol, tries very hard to come to terms with her loss. To paraphrase a Canadian film critic – “it is difficult to understand how the director managed to create situations where Ponette and her 3 cousins could perform so magnificently. The storyline is certainly simplistic, but the film’s greatness comes from the marvelous interactions between the young children which go well beyond acting as we normally understand it”. Hear hear! Repeatez et ecoutez or whatever. The library system owns all of these. Or did at one time. Check one out.

Know any other excellent rural French movies? Let moi know. Send your kind words and opinions to unclemcfestus@yahoo.com. McFestus est fini pour le mois. Au revoir.

Howdy Pilgrims (whoa-ho as tha Duke would say) and other readers of Library Line. Crockett Tuco McFestus here with some droll reminisces about the Westerns reading landscape – circa 1999. Bad times folks. McFestus had hit a dry patch. Nothing good on the horizon. Much like Fred C. Dobbs (the Bogart character in Treasure of the Sierra Madre) struggling in from the desert, dry as a bone, rambling, and barely coherent McFestus was in trouble. Parched, with no literary succor in sight.  At the lowest point good things happened (as they so often do) at the bookstore outside the USAIR terminal at DFW. There, in the back were a stack of overstocked Clan of the Cave Bear by Jean Auel. What’s this? A new Westerns author? Probably not – but still it had tribes, nomads, wanderers, dangers from savage beasts, a clash of cultures, and a vast unknown unlimited landscape. It would have to do.

How dare a so-called Westerns column talk about prehistoric fiction. It’s a sacrilege. I, McFestus realize I may have awakened violence in some of Irving’s readers. Is death around the corner. But know this, would be assassins and literary snobs. If you miss, you had better miss very well. Whoever double crosses me and leaves me alive, he understands nothing , nothing about Tuco.  –

Clan of the Cave Bear. What a great book! An orphaned human child Ayla is picked up by a lost tribe of Neanderthals and is raised by the tribe’s medicine woman and her husband, the resident shaman. Her “different ness” as she grows up brings her into direct conflict with the tribes ruling power structure. In a tale straight out of mythology, the orphan Ayla is isolated, attacked and then cast out to survive on her own – her years of abuse having toughened her – the book ends with the reader being pretty sure she will survive.

McFestus searched out for the sequels. Valley of Horses, Mammoth Hunters, Plains of Passage. Nope. Western lovers do not read. Ayla discovers sex, and invents just about everything from agriculture to slingshots in these overblown novels that get progressively worse. This does not diminish from the accomplishment and quality of Clan of the Cave Bear – particularly the first half.

Still, despite the minor disappointment a whole new world was opened up for McFestus. What would be next? Saber toothed tigers, a war against Homo Habilis? Attack of the Giant Armadillo. The Eden of MolluskValley, Wooly Rhinoceri? McFestus was ready.

That’s when, I, McFestus hit the jackpot, the bonanza, the big strike. Reindeer Moon by Elizabeth Marshall Thomas – is what Clan of the Cave Bear almost achieved – the pent ultimate prehistoric fiction novel. Set in Siberia about 20,000 years ago (that’s about 18,000 BC for those who can’t subtract – just showing off here) – the story concerns the adventures of two young sisters – Yanan (the elder) and Meri. A series of events and willful decisions leads them to become abandoned, and they have to spend a winter alone, barely surviving the cold and starvation. When they return to their extended clan things have changed – since they were presumed to have died, they have some tense moments in the tribe until some visiting mammoth hunters defend them. Completely mesmerizing in its evocation of how brutal life must have been back then on the tundra. Its description of the natural world, spiritual beliefs of the humans and the importance of tribal interrelationships is without equal.  McFestus has read this one 3 times. This is followed by a sequel of sorts – Animal Wife – in which a headstrong young man, Kori, against the advice of the elders captures a woman from a very different tribe and culture and decides to make her his wife. She in turn is being searched for by members of her own tribe. The bulk of the novel is Kori’s tribe walking back south to the winter hunting grounds, being beset by dangers, and discussing the future of the younger members of the tribe. Thomas is also the author of 3 animal behavior guides of some note – Social Life of Dogs, Hidden Life of Dogs, and the Tribe of Tiger (about housecats).

Bjorn Kurten – a Finnish anthropologist of some note wrote 2 enjoyable prehistoric novels of the chase and revenge type. Dance of the tiger and Singletusk – detailing the Jeremiah Johnson like quest of a lone man who goes after the tribe that killed his father. These are exciting books, well researched and engrossing.

Vision of the Hunter by John Tempest (a pseudo name for a well known British TV producer) was next. Not quite as good as the Kurten stories, nonetheless it had some powerful scenes set in the great herds of various ungulates roaming the central plains as the hero tries to provide some sense to a tribe hell bent on exterminating the vast herds that form the basis for their livelihood. There’s even a nice little romance thrown in that wouldn’t make anyone gag.

Then came Sue Harrison and her two trilogies. The first concerns the story of Chakaq, an Aleutian island girl around 7000 BC and her immediate family, Survivor of a vicious attack by a distant tribe practicing slavery and cannibalism in (1) Mother Earth Father Sky, Chagak grows strong and fierce, imparting wisdom to her two sons Amigh and Samiq in (2) My Sister the Moon and (3) Brother Wind. Amigh and Samiiq are in love with the same woman Kiin but manage to tensely get along until Kiin is kidnapped by the Walrus People. The action is brutal and relentless, the sexes are forced into rigid roles and the story is compelling. This series was very good but Harrison comes into her own in the second trilogy known as the Storyteller Saga. Read the astute words of a younger McFestus below in a 1999 Library Line review approved of by the redoubtable Horatio and his cohort Conan Doyle of the web team

1.      Song of the River – K’os is a young woman terribly raped by men from a neighboring village. Before her life is over she will have extracted a horrible revenge against that village and anyone, anyone who stands in her way. Utterly riveting and filled with fascinating details of how people in ancient Alaska must have lived.

2.      Cry of the Wind – K’os’s machinations for revenge against the Near river people continue, even if it means harming her adopted son Chakilux. An ancient day tragedy of classic Greek proportions. Well sort of.

3.      Call Down the Stars – It has been 30 years. Ko’s final pieces fall into place and Chakilux finally recognizes the true danger of his mother as the Near River people are being systematically destroyed. Kos and Chakilux are great characters.

Other enjoyable authors in this area often called paleofiction are W. Michael Gear, William Golding (of Lord of the Flies fame) – whose Inheritors tells the tale of a beleaguered band of food gathering Neanderthals in battle with a group of modern humans who have entered their territory (allegedly this was one of his favorite books of the ones he wrote), J.V. Jensen’s Fire & Ice part of a mammoth (pun intended) work entitled the Long Journey, Isaac Bashevis Singer – King of the Fields, and Judith Tarr – Lady of Horses.

Devotees of this subgenre would do well to visit the almost inexaustible list provided by the good folks at www.trussel.com. Specifically at http://www.trussel.com/prehist/prehist1.htm

If the reader is interested in non fiction about how these people actually lived,   who they actually were, and the world they likely lived in – they can do worse than to read After the Ice by Steven Mithen,  Before the Dawn by Nicholas Wade - science writer for the New York Times, or After the Ice Age by E.C. Pielou.  As always the Irving library may or may not own these titles.