International prize-winning author Charles T. Whipple, writing as
CHUCK TYRELL, (a Sundown Press author like me) is another writer who can’t
pick a clear favourite of his novels!
One contender is his prison-set
western THE SNAKE DEN, a coming of
age story. Chuck tells me this is: ‘Gritty in ways, but ultimately redemptive.’
Shawn Brodie is falsely accused of theft and sent to Yuma Territorial Prison at
the age of only 14. Shawn struggles to survive, partly with the aid of
another inmate, an Oriental proficient in martial arts. (My excuse to include a
picture from ‘Kung Fu.’)
'Kung Fu'
Part of the means of surviving is to
stay out of the notorious ‘Snake Den,’ a hole in the ground that snakes
sometimes fall into.
Yuma was a serving prison from
1876-1909.
Notorious Arizona law-breakers like ‘Buckskin’
Frank Leslie, Burt Alvord and Pete Spence served time in Yuma.
Amongst the 20
women incarcerated there was stage-robber Pearl Hart, who carried out the last
stagecoach hold up in U.S. history when she robbed a stage near Globe, Arizona
in 1899.
Pearl Hart
Westerns with a prison setting
include ‘There was a Crooked Man’ (1970)
and ‘Devil’s Canyon’ (1953.)
Kirk Douglas in ‘There was a Crooked Man’ (1970.)
Rattlesnakes are native to the Americas, living in diverse habitats from
southwestern Canada to Florida to central Argentina. The large majority of
species lives in the American Southwest and Mexico. Most
common in the American West are Western diamondbacks.
Other western ‘rattlers’ include the highly venomous Mojave
rattlesnake, the Sidewinder (or horned rattlesnake) and the Prairie rattlesnake.
A Sidewinder in motion.
The rattlesnakes ‘warning system,’ the rattle, is
composed of a series of hollow, interlocked segments made of keratin (as is the
human fingernail.)
Rattlesnakes rarely bite unless they feel
threatened or provoked. Despite that, an estimated 7,000 to 8,000 people are
bitten by venomous snakes in the United States each year, resulting in about
five deaths.
REVIEWS of THE SNAKE DEN:
‘Remarkable.’
‘Chuck Tyrell has brought
authenticity and poignancy to a western with a difference.’
‘Tyrell
is a master of character development …This is a heck of a good novel. It does
much more than shake a bunch of prison fiction tropes at you. It's a
character-based coming of age, student/master, and odd couple/buddy Western
that gets tenser and tenser with each scene.’
‘One
crisis after another makes the tale fly by and kept my interest throughout. A
five-star for sure.’
‘A Different
Breed of Western… as tough and gritty as they get.’
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