I’d read and enjoyed a few of Eugene Manlove Rhodes’ books before, but this collection really increased my appreciation for him as a writer and a chronicler of the West. The stories and essays in The Rhodes Reader showcase all the best hallmarks of Rhodes’ writing: his command of the English language pure and simple, his gift for delightful and often hilarious dialogue and wordplay (akin to my old favorite O. Henry), and his thorough personal knowledge of the New Mexico landscape and of cowboy and ranch life. I almost feel like I could head for New Mexico with this book under my arm and be able to find my way around.
Of the short stories, “Loved I Not Honor More,” “The Numismatist,” “A Number of Things,” and “The Bird in the Bush,” are classic Rhodes, built around everyday but distinctly Western incidents and sparkling with wry comedy. “The Long Shift” and “The Fool’s Heart,” on the other hand, are straight drama, the latter a suspenseful will-they-get-away-with-it tale of murder and frame-up that would have worked well as an episode of The Alfred Hitchcock Hour. “The Trouble Man,” which falls somewhere between these in mood with a blend of suspense and wit, features Jeff Bransford, John Wesley Pringle (who also stars in “A Number of Things”), and other familiar Rainbow Range characters that appear in many of Rhodes’ novels and stories. So many of his stories, in fact, feature recurring characters and take place in the same locations that it’s basically like a story universe in which he set a lot of short fiction as well as full-length novels (both fictional characters and historical figures, whether lightly disguised or appearing under their own names—Pat Garrett, for example, appears in this volume, as he did in Rhodes’ famous Paso Por Aqi; and the enigmatic gambler character Monte from that story makes a cameo here in “Cheerful Land”).
“The Enchanted Valley” and “Cheerful Land” are more vignettes than stories, with the focus strongly on New Mexican life and landscape. “No Mean City” is a bit unusual, a longer story based on a rumored incident of planned sabotage that never materialized during World War I; but even here, it’s the extensive backstory involving New Mexican history that makes it interesting. (And here again a key character from another story reappears, as the protagonist this time.)
What surprised me was how much I enjoyed the three nonfiction essays, dealing with New Mexico’s quest for statehood, the writing of Western fiction, and defense of Pat Garrett against critics partial to Billy the Kid, respectively. Rhodes’ literate, witty writing style and no-nonsense way of expressing his opinions make even politics interesting; plus I found myself agreeing with a lot of what he has to say about Western fiction and American’s neglect of their own history in “The West That Was.”
In short, this volume leaves Eugene Rhodes high on my list of favorite Western writers, both for writing skill and the wonderfully authentic feel of the settings and incidents. If you’re an enthusiast for Western fiction, and particularly if you enjoy a Southwestern setting, you won’t want to miss his work.
The Rhodes Reader, first published in 1957, is now out of print; you can find used copies on Abebooks, Amazon, et cetera. This is an entry for Friday’s Forgotten Books, a weekly blog event hosted by Patti Abbott.
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