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Leonard identifies our deep images of self
Book Review
By Derryll White
Leonard, Elmore (1970). Valdez Is Coming.
This is the kind of western novel that readers warm to. Roberto Valdez and Diego Luz are hard men, not polished or particularly civilized but moral and driven by an internal sense of destiny and what is right. The bad men such as Frank Tanner and R.L. Davis lack a moral compass. They are well-developed and complete characters, so the reader knows exactly why they are figures one chooses not to identify with.
Roberto Valdez has honour. Manipulated into killing a man, he asks himself what are the consequences for others who are a part of that man’s life. Power and responsibility – Valdez simply insists on it, and sees the failure in others who wield irresponsible power. He puts what is right, what is moral, first. It blinds him to the racism and sexism all around him.
Elmore Leonard identifies what most of us want deep in our images of self – responsible action, honour and a desire to connect with others. Readers will enjoy the positive elements they touch on while reading ‘Valdez Is Coming.’
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Excerpts from the novel:
CHARACTER: A man can be in two different places and he will be two different men. Maybe if you think of more places he will be more men, but two is enough for now…. This is one Bob Valdez. The forty-year-old town constable and stage-line shotgun rider. A good, hardworking man. And hard looking, with a dark hard face that was creased and leathery; but don’t go by looks, they said, Bob Valdez was kindly and respectful. One of the good ones.
THE OTHER Valdez smiled. “Pray for me.”
A little while later they watched him leave to begin his war: the Valdez from another time, the Valdez in leather chIvarra pants and the long-barreled Walker Colt on his right thigh, carrying his shotgun and a Sharps carbine and field glasses and a big canteen and a warbag for the ham and biscuits, the Valdez no one had seen in ten years.
– 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.
