Book Review

By Derryll White

Gorman, Ed (2004). Branded.

When I was much younger I read most of Louis L’Amour’s books. He was a Western writer but he paid a huge amount of attention to place, making the mesas, arroyos and trails an integral part of his character matrix. I haven’t read any dusters since that time. But Ed Gorman is an interesting writer. He writes Westerns, but in a different way from most of the genre practitioners. He pays a lot of attention to character development and setting, and not much to galloping horse chases and shoot-outs. In fact ‘Branded’ reads more like a mystery novel.

Gorman pays attention to class and social status, and how that all works in a small rural town. He is not overly kind in his analysis, linking religion with hypocrisy, power with personal corruption. His treatment of the young, straying wife is sweet, not jumping to the usual description of whore and harlot but choosing instead to look at the underlying fears of ageing and loneliness.

Time and again Ed Gorman comes down on gossip – how nasty and soul-destroying its residue really is. One of the telling things is that Gorman does not limit the nasty world of gossip to women, as is so often the case. He embraces men in his condemnation and shows them to be equal practitioners of this evil art.

‘Branded’ was fun and interesting to read. It is the most atypical Western novel I have ever read, except perhaps for ‘The Virginian.’ Gorman takes large moral truths – justice, respect, divinity. love – and brings them to an earthly reality. There is no gratuitous sex and little enough extraneous violence. He keeps to the story and tells it truly. I won’t be reading another of his soon, but I am glad someone gave me ‘Branded.’

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Excerpts from the novel:

BELIEF – She had learned long ago that the Lord spoke in one of two ways. He either made something happen that indicated He felt you were thinking in the right way. Or nothing happened and when nothing happened you realized that He did not want you to proceed in the way you were thinking.

Ida went ahead with making the cake. If a sign was given, then she would do the Lord’s work and proceed with her plan. Sometimes she wished she could speak directly to the Lord. You know, the way you speak to neighbors or to the grocer or to the parson.

IF WISHES WERE HORSES – Watched the stars as he pissed. Wished he could be up there on one of them. He once read a story about a man who could simply will himself up to a star where he lived a good share of his life. If only…. He could take Dad with him. They could start a new life.

BIBLE STUDY – She integrated these rarely kind opinions with her Bible studies. She felt that since the Bible was the word of God, or so she insisted it was, it took precedence over reading, writing, math. She also felt that the Bible became all the more vivid when you substituted the names and reputations of living people for those in the Bible. For instance, the chief Philistine Jesus chased from the temple became the banker Arch Gurlack…. Mary Magdalene became different local women at different times, whichever “harlot” (as she described them) had most recently caught her eye.

GOSSIP – Mrs. Lundy was one of the people grown men hid under desks to avoid. Gossip was fun, but not with Mrs. Lundy. The savage glee she took in destroying the good names of other people was unholy to behold. You found yourself feeling sorry for the person she was savaging and you knew that someday her tongue would light on you and she would decimate you, too,

SUCCESS – While he was always ready with advice for indigent or helpless people, he no longer had time to follow through in court. And he started becoming friends with the rich. Hunting trips. Fishing trips. Balls at their mansions. Coming out dances for their daughters. Contributing money to politicians he’d once scorned. The old friends – the unionists and other so-called radicals – fell away.

RELIGION – The only religious people he’d ever found appealing were those who spoke softly and had a charitable attitude toward other people, even those they considered sinners. Men like Burkett – they stifled any sort of thought. They had all the answers and none of the questions. Their faith was absolute.

– Derryll White once wrote books but now chooses to read and write about them.  When not reading he writes history for the web at www.basininstitute.org.

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