ONE BY L’AMOURIt seems to me that I have been reading so-called “western novels” written by Louis L’Amour all my life.
His prolific pen, along with that of Zane Grey, account for a sizable chunk of such literary production for the larger part of our generation.
I finished one such book this morning - one called “The Broken Gun”. It drifted into my zone with a box of twenty-seven other plus some Grey. They came to me assort of an inheritance. The original owner received copies of "westerns" at Christmas season and on most birthdays. That was the genre we read in our youthful years of discovery and we saw at the grand daughter passed them along to me - twenty seven of them, I think, and, as a I read them, they will be cycled to other family members or friends. They are each inscribed as having been received on his birthday or Christmas Day l998 and the "Wild West" movie was in again on TV and in new films.
A common theme in many of such novels is about the threat of a family falling apart or facing ruin and the need of a younger son to prove himself worthy to defend the family honor from factions. That's the plot of "The Broken Gun" and it could have happened in almost section of the country. It is told about an area in which and author knows the people he writes about first-hand and with all their natural traits active.
For too long, perhaps, we Americans have tended to shift all such books to and authors such as Louis L' Amour have improved them in many ways. They are, in truth, very much like the romance novels written for women, but they have become more virile and like. It is time for readers to scan some of the older ones and to follow through by reading the newer ones on the news stands today. There are quite a few differences.
They are better than the re-runs of re-runs facing you on TV.
Andrew McCaskey amccsr@comcast.net 4-2-07 [c402wds]
