For those of you who are readers but not novel scribblers, I am anxiously waiting for you to add your thoughts to our little L’Amour experiment.

I just finished Lando and I gotta say: YOWZA. I know we’re only three books into the Sackett series, but I think L’Amour just set a benchmark in oddity with this one. Don’t get me wrong – I liked it! But I kept thinking that maybe, just maybe, L’Amour tied a few on while he was plotting out the narrative for Lando. Read on for spoilers and discussion…

A few notes on why this novel feels so peculiar to me:

• Lando’s reunion with his long-lost father who was the mysterious prisoner the dirty federales were seeking… who then marries the object of Lando’s affection?
• A mule race AND a boxing match at the end? Capped off with a requisite family-feud-ending showdown? I felt simultaneously exhilarated and assaulted by the potboiling climaxes?
• The Tinker?

…. Less flabbergasted thoughts:

• How awesome was Gin? She seemed like a nice antidote to the more archetypal images of women we’ve seen so far. Not that I’d consider her any type of 3-dimensional character, but I loved that we finally saw a woman of action in this series. I loved that Gin became the benchmark against which Lando would be sizing up future prospective mates.
• Lando ended on a fairly different note than either Daybreakers or Sackett: without the creation of some new kind of family unit. Lando didn’t find a woman and settle down; in fact, he refuses the gold that belongs to him in favor of seeking out something of his own in the West. It’s an interesting choice, especially in light of the fact that so much action happens in the last 20 pages of the book. I wonder of Lando figures heavily in future adventures in the series? If so, that makes sense. Perhaps L’Amour is opening up lots of narrative overlap possibilities here. Or maybe he just kind of fell in love with this character and didn’t want him to settle. I can’t wait to find out.

“Seems like a man finds gold only when he ain’t hunting it.  He picks up a rock to throw at something and that rock turns out to be mostly gold, or he trips over a ledge and finds himself sitting astride the Mother Lode.”

So, what did you think of this next installment in the Sackett family drama?

And, going forward, we’ll be doing a novel a month.  To HECK with all my hemmin’ and hawing.  There’s just nothing better than hitting the trail with the Sacketts and I’ll not be puttin’ if off any longer.  So get all caught up and we’ll start a-chit-chattin.

I’m blown away by the conversations started here on this blog and very anxious to see how the story of the Sacketts unfolds. My apologies for not doing as much care and feeding of this blog as I should. I hope that we all continue talking to each other – we’ve got some great discussion here about genre, gender and generations (okay, that’s a stretch but I like the alliteration) – and I’m excited to see how these threads evolve through the series.

Since we started this thing with the intention of reading the Sackett series in publication history, the next novel is Sackett. Here’s a rundown of novels in publication history:

THE DAYBREAKERS, 1960
SACKETT, 1961
LANDO, 1962
MOJAVE CROSSING, 1964
THE SACKETT BRAND, 1965
MUSTANG MAN, 1966
THE SKY-LINERS, 1967
THE LONELY MEN 1969
GALLOWAY, 1970
RIDE THE DARK TRAIL, 1972
TREASURE MOUNTAIN, 1972,
SACKETT’S LAND, 1974
THE MAN FROM THE BROKEN HILLS, 1975
TO THE FAR BLUE MOUNTAINS, 1976
THE WARRIOR’S PATH, 1980
LONELY ON THE MOUNTAIN, 1980
RIDE THE RIVER, 1983
JUBAL SACKETT, 1985

I’m curious about the interplay between time periods here: how the expansiveness of the whole Sackett story intersects (or doesn’t) with the stretch of 25 years between first novel and last. I’m curious if we’ll make it there, as well.

So let’s get started! On to Sackett! Let’s shoot for discussion on the next novel to start July 4th. Independence Day seems like a nice occasion to start talkin’ bout another Western.

And don’t forget: we got a lot of readers who are not on the Readers page! Send me your good lookin’ mugs.

Much Love,

TammyO

(I know it’s embarassingly ugly… I promise I’ll make a less disgusting one for Sackett, but I was feeling the need to send you all some love.)

Daybreakers Certificate

I love to read about male friendships – positive representations of male friendships and fraternity are woefully lacking in pop culture these days. Here are two of my favorite quotes about manhood & fraternity from the book:

“The trouble with having a reputation as a tough man is that the time always comes when you have to be a tough man. It’s a whole lot different.”

“Friendships are not so many in this life, and we had put rough country behind us and kicked up some dust in our passing, and we had smelled a little powder smoke together and there’s nothing binds men together like sweat and gunsmoke.”

I was surprised by how much I enjoyed Daybreakers. I expected it to move fast and be full of action, but I was genuinely surprised by how eloquent and insightful L’Amour’s prose was. I read one or two of his books as a kid, and that was mostly motivated by the fact that my dad loved L’Amour and I wanted to be exactly like my dad. I don’t remember much about the books and I really wasn’t old enough to be very discerning anyway.

I was struck by how Daybreakers was quite an engaging coming-of-age tale. Again, I found myself pretty surprised here: the novel opens with Tye killing someone, which becomes a marker of worldy inexperience, something unfortunate, something that a man might do out of necessity but certainly not out of maturity. It’s a pretty nifty trick to write a Western novel about a guy who’s really good at killing, but who grows to really dislike it. We get our gunfight cake and we get to eat it, too. (Yeah, I know that wasn’t really articulate, but whatever). That criticism aside, I found his discussion about education really interesting and I was really fascinated with how this really slim novel managed to provide a snapshot of the vast political, social, and cultural changes occuring in the West at that time. Neat!

And it’s a love story, too! Oh, dreamy Drusilla….

So, whatdidya think?