Ed Gorman would have turned 75 today. I think the best way I can honor him was by re-posting something I wrote about his work
last year:
With Relentless, Gorman transcends the Western genre akin to what writer Jack Schaefer did with Monte Walsh and film director Robert Altman accomplished with McCabe and Mrs. Miller. No mythological posturing between these pages but real individuals on the edge with seemingly no way out. Ernest Hemingway said, “When writing a novel, a writer should create living people; people not characters. A character is a caricature.”
Ed Gorman writes living people. Their hopes and dreams and the high costs of turning a blind eye to social justice. Relentless doesn’t have a lot of action per se but that makes sense in this noir Western that eschews fabled clichés and instead builds strong, riveting passages in the formation of these desperate lives.
Happy birthday, Ed. Thank you for an incredible body of work and your kindness.
Enjoyed your review, David. The only Western stories of Ed's I've read are the ones in the collection titled Dead Man's Gun. The title story left me agape, but "The Face" continues to haunt. Amazingly powerful writing.
ReplyDeleteEd has become the standard for Western writing... or rather Western writing that matters.
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