RALPH
COTTON is not only one of the most prolific western writers, he’s also one of
the most successful.
Ralph has written over seventy novels, including THE RANGER
SERIES featuring Ranger SAM BURRACK and its spin off THE GUNMAN’S REPUTATION
series, also the WEBB’S POSSE series and spin-offs. He’s also continued the
DANNY DUGGIN series (about a woman gunfighter disguised as a man), writing as
RALPH COMPTON. As well as westerns he’s written contemporary thrillers. And he
still finds time to paint, sail, write songs and play guitar!
Like many
authors, Ralph tells me he’s particularly fond of his debut WHILE ANGELS DANCE. The book follows
the career of probably the most famous American outlaw band – the JAMES/ YOUNGER gang. The books fictional hero, Jeston Nash, is Jesse James’ cousin and
practically his twin, and sides Jesse during the Civil War. But when Jesse
turns outlaw post-war, so does Jeston. The novel follows the James Gang through
their long and violent career, including their disastrous Northfield,
Minnesota raid.
JESSE
WOODSON JAMES (1847-1882) is so well-known and his life so full of incident (he
once dined with BILLY THE KID!) I’ll only briefly summarise his career. A farm boy
born in Clay County, Missouri, he was the son of a former Baptist Preacher. In
1863, whilst the Civil War raged, Union troops tortured Jesse’s step-father almost
to death and may have lashed 16 year old Jesse. Next spring Jesse was part of
‘Bloody Bill’ Anderson’s Confederate guerrilla band, alongside his brother
FRANK (1843-1915.) He was an adolescent plunged into the savage cauldron of war
and forever changed by it.
A young JESSE JAMES
After the
war, he couldn’t settle down to law-abiding pursuits, but probably took part in
the first daylight armed bank robbery in the United States
during peacetime, in Liberty, Missouri in 1866. Over the next 16 years Jesse
and Frank robbed trains and banks, killing and stealing, and fought a running
war with the Pinkerton’s Detective agency. They often allied with some other
Missouri farm boys turned outlaw - the YOUNGER BROTHERS, COLE, JOHN, JIM and
BOB.
By 1882 most of the gang had been killed or captured. In that
year Jesse himself was slain – shot in the back of the head whilst hanging a
picture in his St. Joseph, Missouri home. The murderer was ROBERT FORD, (1862-1892)
almost the last of his gang, who betrayed Jesse for the $5,000 bounty on his
head.
Robert Ford
One of the notable things about Jesse is that, for a ‘western’
outlaw, he rarely ventured west of Missouri, and sometimes operated as east as
Alabama and West Virginia. He was really more a disaffected Confederate raiding
in settled country than the product of a lawless frontier.
Jesse has
been depicted innumerable times in movies and TV. His son Jesse James Jr.
portrayed him in two silent movies in 1921. Since then he’s been portrayed by
everyone from pop singer Rick Nelson (in
a 1967 episode of the TV Series ‘Hondo’)
to Brad Pitt in ‘The Assassination of
Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford.’ Other Jesse’s include Roy Rogers,
Clayton Moore, Audie Murphy, Robert Wagner, Lee Van Cleef and James Coburn.
CHRISTOPHER JONES depicted him in a 1965 TV series.
Christopher Jones as Jesse
Two of
the best movies about him are, IMHO, ‘Jesse
James’ (1939) where Jesse was portrayed by TYRONE POWER and Frank was
played by HENRY FONDA,
Tyrone
Power and Henry Fonda
and ‘The Great Northfield Minnesota Raid’
(1972.) The latter broke the mould in having an actor – ROBERT DUVALL – playing
Jesse who actually looked like him!
Robert Duvall (on right) as Jesse
Ralph Cotton
hit the ground running with WHILE ANGELS
DANCE, which was nominated for a Pulitzer Prize. The last time I looked 84%
of the reviews were 5 star: I also gave it a 5 star review myself on
Amazon.co.uk and Goodreads, something I very rarely do. My review:
Authentic, blackly-humorous, wire-taut
Jeston
Nash is a teenager from Kentucky who finds himself plunged into the American
Civil War at its most hellish – the savage clashes of rival guerrilla bands on
the Missouri borderlands. Jeston is almost a twin for his cousin Jesse James –
and becomes a member of Jesse’s gang in the turbulent years after the war,
including the infamous raid on Northfield, Minnesota and the gang’s decline
afterwards. Along the way he meets legendary figures like Cole Younger, Wild
Bill Hickok and Wyatt Earp. Cotton is confident enough to sideline some of the
more familiar incidents and make this oft-told story his own. He describes farm
boys turned into hardened, traumatised killers with absolute unsentimental
authority. For these reckless, desperate young men are as much victims of the
war as those they slay. Men who march to the beat of the ‘funeral drum’ in
their heads and live one jump ahead of a posse, a bullet, or a ‘hemp-waltz.’
The prose is wire-taut, Hemingway-like. When humour intrudes – usually very
black and stemming from Jeston’s wildly unpredictable associate ‘Quiet’ Jack -
one laughs with relief. So authentic it’s like opening a journal from these
momentous times. And fully deserving its nomination for the Pulitzer Prize in
fiction.
Other
reviewers:
‘ANGELS DANCE may well be the most
spiritual in-depth western novel ever written.’
‘It is
easy to laugh, cry, and at times almost bleed right along with his fictional
outlaws.’
‘Best
account of The James Gang ever written.’
No comments:
Post a Comment