The Western novel is still very much alive
By BILL DUNCAN
Heather Sharfeddin’s second mystery novel, "Mineral Spirits," again captures the contemporary Western genre of her first work when her protagonist, a modern day Western sheriff in a small rural county in Montana finds the skeletal remains of a woman. The book has all the flavor with which Western readers are familiar except that its setting is in the 21st century rather than the 19th century.
"That long-ago era of pioneers and mountain men certainly built a rich tradition of storytelling, but what made those stores wonderful did not die with the turn of the century," Sharfeddin recently commented in a commentary on NewWest.net, a web site dedicated to current issues facing the West. Her first novel, "Blackbelly," a mystery, set the tone of her contemporary Western genre.
Sharfeddin claims the death of the Western novel is a figment of the Eastern establishment book publishers. In her mind, books like "A River Runs Through It," "Horse Whisperer," and "Brokeback Mountain," are all contemporary Westerns.
"How can the Western be dead when the West is still so alive?" she asks. "The stories we tell reflect the world around us, the everyday challenges of preserving and protecting the great West, our struggle to make a living here and our vision for the future."
Stories of that category sound like a contemporary Western to me.
The story told by Sharfeddin, a sheep rancher in Sherwood, Ore. and a girl who grew up in rural Montana and Idaho, is definitely a contemporary Western. The novel begins when Sheriff Kip Edelson investigates a skeleton found by ten-year-old Gray Dausman, a waif whose mother has abandoned him to the care of his neglectful father, a man who literally expects the boy to live by his own wits.
This precocious ten-year-old indeed lives by his wits in Sharfeddin’s novel and becomes a strong character in a book she fills with strong characters. "Gray is not based on a particular kid, but on children I went to school with in the early grades," she said. "Very rural communities, at least a few decades ago, often had extremely poor families who lived hand-to-mouth. Gray is a character whose roots came from those memories, but he is his own person and as I began to write him (into the story) his personality grew out of the pages."
At first, Sheriff Edelson, a hardnose cop, is annoyed by Gray, but before the book ends wants to adopt him after his near-do-well father abandons him. Sharfeddin is a master at writing conflict in almost every chapter.
The coroner establishes that the bones found in the shallow grave alongside of the rushing waters of the Clark Fork River are from a female. Edelson is on a mission to identify the skeleton when he gets an anonymous tip that the name of the person whose skeleton was found is "Chris," and thus the story takes on a life of its own as Edelson investigates everyone with the name Chris, or any name sounding like Chris. It is then he discovers that Gray’s missing mother is named Chris.
Sharfeddin was born in Montana and grew up in Idaho as the daughter of a forester and a cattle rancher. Her memories of the beauty of rural Montana and Idaho is reflected in the authentic settings and in her ability to draw such realistic characters, all very believable. "The modern West is vibrant and alive with characters struggling to make their mark," she said. "I love small towns and rural settings. I try to tell a story of rugged individualists along with a redeeming story of hope and opportunity."
Sharfedding lives that kind of life with her husband and son on a sheep ranch in Sherwood, Ore., southwest of Portland.
(Bill Duncan is editor of The Senior Times. He also writes a weekly column every Thursday on the Opinion Page of the News-Review.)