Cameron Judd is the author of many acclaimed novels which can be described as, variously, American historical fiction, frontier fiction and westerns. He was a finalist for the Spur award. He’s also a Facebook friend of mine. He’s also a feature writer and columnist for ‘The Greeneville Sun’ based in Greeneville, Greene County, Tennessee – the home county of Davy Crockett no less. In his journalistic capacity Cameron has been kind enough to interview me for ‘The Greeneville Sun’ where we discuss westerns, including my latest novel ‘COYOTE’S PEOPLE’ and a range of topics from the aforesaid Davy Crockett to Robin Hood to Hollywood to vests and/or undershirts!
This is an edit of the interview. You can find the FULL INTERVIEW here: http://gstearsheets.greenevillesun.com/editions/gvs_20210130_1_de/pdf/A-06.pdf
Here you can read my blogs
about some of Cameron’s novels:
THE OVERMOUNTAIN MEN
Reviewers called this novel ‘A wonderful, entertaining and enlightening
work’ and an 'amazing
historical adventure.’
https://andrewmcbrideauthor.blogspot.com/2017/09/author-favourites-overmountain-men-by.html
THE SHADOW WARRIORS
'Another
great read by Cameron Judd.’ ‘A terrific novel by an excellent author.’
THE PHANTOM LEGION
‘Historically
accurate, fast paced, easy reading.’
SEASON OF
RECKONING
‘Awesome.’ 'Great book. Superb
author.'
Here’s my edit of the interview.
I’ve highlighted my own comments in bold:
A BRIT WESTERN WRITER? WHAT’S UP WITH THAT, MCBRIDE?
So what would make a guy born
in the northern part of England and now living in the southern part of that
same country develop an impulse to write one of the most thoroughly American
varieties of fiction: western novels? The kind with cowboys and Indians,
saddles and six-shooters, cattle drives and saloons, 10-gallon hats and other not-particularly-British
things?
That question always came to
my mind with every new social media posting or email from my across-the-pond
friend, Andrew McBride, who lives in Brighton, England. So I decided I’d just
ask.
Why reach all the way “across
the pond” from England’s southern coast for subject matter? Why not write about
Cromwell and Guy Fawkes and Robin Hood and all those other British characters
and leave Billy the Kid, Sitting Bull, et al., out of it?
Turns out that you can credit
Greene County, Tennessee, for the western writing career of British author
Andrew McBride.
Well, that’s an exaggeration.
It wasn’t exactly Greene County that helped stir Andrew’s interest in the
frontier era of us here in the Colonies. It was instead a famous fellow who was
born here.
You guessed it. Ol’ Davy.
Andrew, now 66, was in boyhood a fan of Davy Crockett, as Walt Disney and Fess
Parker led boys around the globe to be. With the influence of television
westerns thrown in, British schoolboy Andrew became aware of the American
frontier and its stories.
Let me let him say it in his
own words:
“First let me say how honoured I am to be featured in
a newspaper from the great state of Tennessee, and from the home county of Davy
Crockett, who was my hero when I was a schoolboy.”
David (Davy) Crockett
(1786-1836) in 1834
He goes on: “When I was a kid growing up in the 60s,
the western was very prominent. U.S. imports made up about half the TV us Brits
watched – shows like ‘Man from Uncle’ but also TV westerns, and movies like the
John Wayne/ John Ford classics.
“The TV western series ‘The High Chaparral’ really struck
a chord with me. They filmed a lot on location and I fell in love with the
Arizona landscape. I knew other Brits who didn’t particularly like westerns who
watched that show because they loved the scenery. It also got me interested in
the historical background – the Apache Wars – which led to an interest in the
history of the Old West generally, and also Native American culture.
“When I was in my early 20s a friend turned me on to
reading western fiction. I particularly liked the McAllister series written by
Matt Chisolm – and when I found out that Chisolm was, in reality, English, I
thought: if he can do it, why can’t I? I started writing westerns fairly
tentatively, but after about 10 years of picking at it, I got my first one
published.”
Andrew’s writing interests
have not been entirely western-focused. He says: “I’ve written about 16 novels, not just westerns but some thrillers and
two historical novels where I attempted to write realistically about what might
be the ‘real’ stories of King Arthur and Robin Hood. Oddly enough, only the
books in the most ‘uncommercial’ genre – the western – have been published.”
He added, “I’ve also written a few screenplays which Hollywood has shown
absolutely no interest in whatsoever – at least so far!”
Mentally putting myself into
Andrew’s shoes, I wondered about a specific potential challenge facing him and
other non-American authors writing about American characters: making the things
those characters say sound like words from American speakers. Has that been a
struggle?
He answered, “Americans and Brits do talk differently,
of course. Americans tend to be more direct and economical in speech than
Brits. For example, a Brit will say ‘let me go and find out’ while an American
might say ‘let me go check.’”
There’s an additional layer of
challenge, Andrew is aware, when the American speech he’s writing comes from an
earlier historical period.
Regarding that, he told me: “I also have to bear in mind that people in
the 19th century, regardless of nationality, spoke differently than folks
today. I’ve always tried to get my dialogue right. In fact, I have to say,
immodestly, that some of my reviewers – including the award-winning western
novelist Lucia Robson – have praised my dialogue.”
He confessed one language
blunder from in his first published western: “I did mess up over a British/American language issue on the second
page of my very first novel ‘CANYON OF THE DEAD.’ I have my character wearing a
‘vest’ – I meant what Americans would call an ‘undershirt.’ What Americans call
a ‘vest’ we Brits call a ‘waistcoat.’ You could say I blew my credibility on
only my second page! Since then, I’ve tried to use American English with regard
to detail as well as dialogue.”
Vest (UK)/ undershirt (US)
Waistcoat (UK) Vest (US)
Has Andrew been able to visit
the American West he writes about?
Here’s what Andrew had to say
about researching the American terrain: “I
don’t think you need to physically visit all locations, especially in this
internet age when you can watch videos of any far-away place on earth. For
example, when Elmore Leonard was writing westerns, he’d never been west of the
Mississippi. In my case, I have been to the American West, but not to all the
places I’ve written about.”
Andrew describes his westerns
as “largely outdoor/ wilderness affairs”
in which his characters “tend to end up
stuck in some remote desert or up an inaccessible mountain – and I’ve not been
to all of them.”
What is Andrew’s most recent
novel?
“My latest, published by Five Star Publishing, is ‘COYOTE’S
PEOPLE.’ it’s based loosely on real events that occurred during the Apache Wars
in Arizona in the 1870s,” Andrew
says. “It’s a rights-of-passage story
about a 17-year-old white boy being thrust into manhood by what happens to him.
It’s also a bit of a ‘Romeo and Juliet’ tale in that he falls in love with an
Apache girl. They find themselves in the middle of the conflict raging around them,
threatened by both sides.”
At the moment, Andrew says, “‘COYOTE’S PEOPLE’ is only available in
hardback, with a large print hard back version due to be published in February
or March. So you can buy it from the usual bookstores and on sites like Amazon
and Barnes and Noble. It’s also available in libraries, so if it’s not in
yours, order it in!”
A Brit writing westerns isn’t
as unusual a phenomenon as it might first appear. Andrew mentioned Matt
Chisolm. There were quite a few others, too.
Meanwhile, Andrew McBride,
thanks, and keep your eyes (and your word processor) aimed westward!
