The Old West fascinates, I think, because it was a real time and place. Some of the dramatic events folks read about in western novels actually happened. Some of the characters are based on real people. To survive the gunplay, train robberies, stampedes, and whiskey drinking, the characters in traditional westerns must solve real-world problems using real-world solutions. Regardless of genre, good fiction takes readers out of their world and plunks them down in the middle of another. Maybe westerns are as enduring as they are because readers are able to imagine themselves living the stories in a very literal sense.
Uncommon viewpoints are becoming more common, like those belonging to the polio-stricken hired gun in Dancing with Dead Men and the milquetoast in Leaving Kansas. It’s not as easy to separate the good guys from the bad guys anymore (Red Lands Outlaw). Some western authors blend in additional genres: mystery, horror, science fiction, fantasy, steampunk. Quite a few authors are attempting to strip some of the romantic notions from Old West mythology and portray life on the frontier a little closer to what may have been reality. Western romance authors, on the other hand, are steaming up the Old West like you wouldn’t believe.
Regardless where authors lie on the continually evolving continuum called “western fiction,” most of us share a deep-seated fascination with that period in history. Most of the western authors I’m privileged to know are walking encyclopedias. Reading their fiction, whether romanticized or “raw,” is an educational experience. I think readers appreciate that. Fiction can teach in a way no history textbook can.
Thank you to Kathleen for a brilliant interview and now to extracts from her blog....
Kathleen Rice Adams
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