What the Genres Taught Me: Or Tried To Anyway

Everything we experience shapes us. That includes the stuff we read. I got to thinking recently of what the books I read in my youth taught me, or tried to teach me. I thought I’d analyze it by genres, which is often the way I think about my reading. Let’s see if your experiences differed.

Westerns: (Example: Louis L’Amour: To Tame A Land). Taught me about being honorable, about standing up for what you believe in and what is right. Taught me to yearn for natural vistas and to enjoy a night out under the stars.

Y/A fiction: Animals stories: (Example: Walter Farley: The Black Stallion). Taught me about the bonds that are possible between humans and animals. Taught me to respect the strength and courage of our animal companions, and indeed of all animals. Taught me to see animals, not as humans, but as unique beings in their own right.

Science fiction: (Example: Ray Bradbury: The Martian Chronicles). Taught me about wonder, about the glories of strange landscapes, and about the nature of humanity’s fears of the unknown, and our abilities to adapt to that unknown. Taught me about the beauty of language to express what no one has ever actually seen or experienced.

Fantasy: (Example: Robert E. Howard: The Conan stories). Taught me about being independent minded, about not following the herd just because that’s “the way it’s always been done.” Taught me to think about the things I was told rather than accept them blindly. Also taught me about honor and about establishing one’s own sense of ethics.

Sports stories: (Example: Joe Arichbald: Hard Nosed Half Back). Taught me about getting up one more time than I’m knocked down. Taught me about perseverance, about preparing yourself for your chance rather than just waiting for luck to find you.

There are other genres I read. Maybe I’ll talk about them later. But this is enough for one blog post. I’m sorry I’ve been absent so long. Last week was, to put it mildly, “full.” Lana had her tonsils taken out, which from what the doctor said appears to be the source of her cancer. There is still the issue in the lymph node but we are supposed to see him next week about that. I’ll keep you informed.

In the meantime, what did your reading teach you?
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Roger James

Strange how the world works. My brother-in-law, Roger James, died Tuesday morning, July 6th. I went up to Arkansas for the funeral, which was on Thursday. It was cancer, which also took his wife, my sister Dolores, five years ago.

Dying isn’t strange, of course. Dying is a waste of love and potential, but not strange. But there is a connection behind the scenes in this story, and that’s the subject of this post. On Monday morning, Killing Trail was published and I felt pretty good. Tuesday morning, we lost Roger and the good was gone. Yet, the connection I mentioned is between Roger and that book. Killing Trail is dedicated to two men. One is Louis L’Amour, the famous western author whose work influenced the stories in the collection. The other man is Roger, who was a big reader and who introduced me to L’Amour. Roger was famous only to his family and friends, many of whom just called him “Papa.” That was OK with him; it was all he would have wanted.

Fortunately, I sent the dedication, which included a short essay about Roger and L’Amour, to him about a month ago through his daughter, my niece, Anna. The essay included the story about how, as a kid, I used to borrow all of Roger’s books, and about how we often talked about the books once I’d read them. Roger liked a good story, and occasionally told a bit of a tall tale himself. Anna told me that Roger really liked the essay, and I’m glad he got to hear about how much I appreciated him before he passed. That doesn’t mitigate the tragedy of his loss. But somehow it lifts my spirits just a little. The good is not totally gone.

Roger was alive when I wrote that dedication. He’ll always be alive in its pages. And in our memories.
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Writers and Storytellers

“By and large, I think writers are the best company in the world, but if they talk together too much they begin either writing the same stories, or writing for each other. A writer should write for people, not critics or other writers.” -- Louis L’Amour

I’m reading a book called The Louis L’Amour Companion, which is edited by Robert Weinberg. The opening quote is attributed to L’Amour in that book. This is something I’ve been thinking about quite a lot lately, and it was a thought underlying my “Showing versus Telling” post. Most writers are also readers, but I think we forget sometimes that most readers aren’t writers.

I know in my own work that I want the respect of other writers. I suppose that’s true in just about any career path. I imagine plumbers want to be respected by other plumbers because it lets them know that they know their stuff. But there’s a difference. Good “writing” is not necessarily the same as good “storytelling.” Good plumbing is probably pretty much the same everywhere.

In another place in the Weinberg book he points out that L’Amour never wanted to be called a novelist or an author. He wanted to be known as a storyteller. Now, I actually respect L’Amour as a “writer.” I think he could turn a neat phrase and his descriptions of the land, especially, often have some poetry in them. But it’s not for the poetry that I’ve read 99 percent of everything L’Amour ever wrote. It was the story. Often simply plotted, with stark contrasts made between good and bad, L’Amour’s western novels suck you in from word one and compel you through page after page to find out what happens next.

Consider: 1) “It was Indian country, and when our wheel busted, none of them would stop. They just rolled on by and left us setting there, my pap and me.” 2) “It is given to few people in this world to disappear twice but, as he had succeeded once, the man known as James T. Kettleman was about to make his second attempt.” 3) “He was asleep and then he was awake. His eyes flared wide and he held himself still, staring into the darkness, his ears reaching for sound.” These opening lines are from three of L’Amour’s best books, To Tame a Land (the Kindle edition is shown below, courtesy of Amazon), Flint, and Utah Blaine. But they aren’t just three of L’Amour’s best. They’re three of the best pure stories I’ve ever read, in any genre. Yet, only the last of the three is also what I consider to be good "writing" per se.



Good “writers” receive the praise of other writers and of critics. They are often loved by a devoted following. Good storytellers are often poorly received by critics but they are loved by millions of pure readers. Perhaps needlessly to say, good storytellers make far more money.

I don’t believe that good storytelling and good writing are mutually exclusive. My favorite books, like those of L’Amour, combine both elements. They are well written, with good language and poetry, and they tell an amazing story. I do think, though, that writers sometimes confuse these two skills and that we’d do well to remember that they are different, and that neither skill is inherently better. Each has its role to play in a fully realized work of fiction.
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Hopalong Cassidy

I'm reading The Rustlers of West Fork by Louis L'Amour. L'Amour was a favored writer of my youth. I loved his westerns and he certainly was an influence on my own style and on the characters I've created. But this isn't your usual L'Amour western. This is a novel about Hopalong Cassidy. For those who don't know, Cassidy was a rough-talking cowboy created in 1904 by Clarence Mulford. Mulford wrote a lot of stories about Cassidy, but the character became hugely popular in the 1930s and 1940s in a series of films where he was recast as a clean-cut, well-mannered hero. The character eventually made it onto TV in the very first network western series.

At one point, L'Amour, a respected pulp writer of the time who had not yet made much of a foray into novels, was asked to write some new Cassidy novels. In fact, he was recommended by Mulford, who turned the offer down himself. L'Amour wrote four, under the name Tex Burns, but then he spent the rest of his life denying that he'd ever written a Cassidy novel, even to his death.

Such things have a way of coming out, of course, and there were those who had long suspected the Tex Burns--Louis L'Amour connection. The four books have since been published under L'Amour's name, with forewords or afterwords by his son, Beau L'Amour. I have a feeling that Beau was instrumental in having these published, but I'm not completely sure.

The question to me is why L'Amour denied so vehemently that he'd ever written of Hopalong Cassidy. His son reveals that Louis never thought the books were very good, although in reading them they seem clearly to have the L'Amour touch. They are not great, and almost seem like drafts of what would later come to be the L'Amour style, but they are in no way embarrassing. Beau also thinks that his father may have lied initially and then felt like he had to keep on lying to keep the secret. Perhaps he lied because it was in his contract. These were strictly works for hire. Or perhaps he lied because, as I understand it, he had to revise the first couple of books after they were written to make the character more like that of the movies and TV show rather than like the original Mulford books, and it seems that this may have made him quite angry. I wonder if he felt somehow that he had betrayed his own ideals by doing so, although if so it's an amazingly mild betrayal. It's not like he wrote porno to survive, like a number of well known authors of today did in their pasts.

Anyway, if you want to read Louis L'Amour at his best, then don't pick the Cassidy novels. They are, in addition to "Rustlers," Trouble Shooter, The Trail to Seven Pines and The Riders of High Rock. Instead, pick books like To Tame a Land or The First Fast Draw or A Man Called Noon. But if you're a L'Amour completist, the Cassidy novels won't disapoint.

A final thought, L'Amour was told early in his career that he'd have to write under a different name, that American audiences just wouldn't read a western by someone with a Frenchy sounding name like L'Amour. I'm glad he proved 'em wrong.