REHupa

The May 4, 2009 issue of National Review magazine had an article on Louis Lamour by John J. Miller. Miller is a Robert E. Howard fan, you can link to his “Between the Covers” at Nationalreview.com from Thecimmerian.com site. I have been a reader of National Review for seventeen years. Here and there have been discussions on H. Rider Haggard and reviews of George McDonald Fraser. The magazine is a friend to adventure fiction.

     Miller’s piece was informative to me. I knew of course about President Reagan being a big fan of Lamour but didn’t know that Dwight Eisenhower, Gerald Ford, and Jimmy Carter were also readers. Miller gives a mini-biography even mentioning Lamour’s first sale to True Gang Life. Miller touches on Lamour’s moral certitude in his fiction. He also discusses Lamour’s uneveness. Louis Lamour was the first western writer I ever read after Robert E. Howard. I started out with his 12th Century historical, The Walking Drum, a book that had its moments but hampered by Lamour’s kitchen sink approach to the story. If I were to recommend a Lamour book, it would be The Daybreakers which is the classic Sackett novel. I saw the CBS miniseries on T.V. about 29 years ago which starred Tom Selleck and Sam Elliott. It is a classic western novel and one that hits all the right notes. Other novels are hit and miss. Lamour cranked out three novels per year in the 1960s. He became the western writer for Bantam Books because “Luke Short” could not produce the numbers that Bantam wanted.

     James Reasoner, no slouch at western writing, mentioned liking Lamour’s pulp novelettes and novellas better than the paperback expansion of the stories. I have to admit to not reading Lamour’s westerns anymore. I am slowly reading the westerns of Robert E. Howard’s high school classmate, Clarence S. Boyles, Jr. who wrote as “Will C. Brown” and in the process becoming quite a fan of his.  I know people who read nothing but Lamour. I have tried to interest Lamourphiles in giving a try to Gordon D. Shirreffs or T. V. Olsen, generally with no luck. I can remember in 1982 I had just read the Bantam edition of Robert E. Howard’s Wolfshead. I lent it to a fraternity brother of mine (Delta Sigma Phi, Omega Chapter) who was a big Lamour fan. He returned the book a few days later saying, “This was interesting but this Howard guy really needed to take a cue from Louis Lamour. He is too fast.” Had I known at the time that Lamour also started out in the pulp magazines I could have riposted in kind.

     Lamour is interesting in that he wrote not only in the western field, but for Thrilling Adventures, boxing and football yarns, and various detective pulps including one story in the legendary Black Mask. I have not read The Haunted Mesa but the late, great Chuck Eschweiler told me that he detected elements of Lovecraft in it.

     This is my alltime favorite Lamour quote from an introduction to a story in The Hills of Homicide: “The idea that poverty is a cause of crime is a lot of nonsense. It is one of those cliches that is accepted because it seems logical. Crimes are committed by people who have some money and want more. More often they are committed by somebody who wants to have money to flash around, to buy fancy clothes, or spend on women, drugs, or whiskey.”  

     Miller’s article has a funny in retrospect condemnation by George Will on Ron Reagan’s fondness for Lamour: “By all means, read westerns, Mr. President, but why Louis Lamour? He is a pale writer.”

     This article should show up in National Review’s archives in time. I checked a few days ago and it wasn’t up yet but check it out when it does.