Western Vista

Here's what the town of Como, Colorado (the setting for my new novel "Overstreet") looked like in the early 1900s.

Imagine it twenty years before when the tents occupied by miners swelled the population to almost ten thousand. If you were to see it today, you'd notice that it's not much more populated than in this picture. In fact, the amazing thing may be that it's still there at all, with it's lack of commerce and industry.

There was a time, though, when it was teeming with people and was even one of the three finalists for the capitol of Colorado. "Overstreet" is about John Overstreet, but you'll learn a bit about Como as you read. It's an exciting story of boom and, sadly, bust.

Would I move there? In a heartbeat.

Louis L'Amour

Ornithologists tell us that the reason flamingos are pink is because they eat so much shrimp. Likewise, if any of my writing seems similar to Louis L'Amour's, it's not so much out of a conscious effort but just because I have ingested so much of his work (having read every one of his works many times over). I don't feel guilty about this because even so great a luminary as CS Lewis said he had probably never written anything where he didn't quote--directly or indirectly--from George MacDonald.

My forthcoming novel "Overstreet" may seem to be my most obvious paean to L'Amour just because it's a western, but--honestly--I didn't sit there and write chapter after chapter asking myself "What would Louis write?" The connection I see between my novel and L'Amour is that, at the end of so many of his books, I'm thinking, "What next? I want to know what happened next!!"

One of the main threads of this story is that John Overstreet has killed the son of a prominent west Texas rancher in self-defense. But what happens next when that is (mostly) resolved? I take the opportunity to follow a life into the adventures that follow the one where the book usually stops. I believe I finish with a story that becomes more compelling (and fulfilling) as it reaches its denouement.

Como

I was stringing some fence near Como, Colorado, a couple decades ago when, way back in the forest, I tripped. I started looking for what I had tripped over and, when I had cleared away the brush, found the outline of a small cabin.

Emphasis on small.

Back in it's day, it must have only been about eight foot by eight foot in size. When I found it, all that was left was an outline, two logs high. It was located about equidistant from the (still existing) town of Como and the (long gone and mostly forgotten) town of Hamilton. Both were mining towns, and both sported some pretty impressive populations and accomplishments during their day.

So it made me wonder: who had built that cabin? Was it someone who worked in one town or the other, but liked a little bit of privacy? Could it have just been a tool shed and, if so, had there been another, larger building nearby that I never found?

Usually, when I see an old house--big or small--I wonder about who might have once lived there. I picture the owners moving in proudly, excited about the life they were building and the dreams they had. That little cabin, though, I always had it in my mind that it was just built by some miner. Someone who was just trying to make his living before heading to another strike. Maybe he only occupied it one winter, or maybe not even that long. Maybe he just threw it up long enough to last out another month or two before heading to better climes for the winter.

I've thought a lot about that cabin, and who might have been there, and it played no small part in inspiring my novel "Overstreet".

A Western Cover

This cover was created by Mike Ray, a graphic designer from South Carolina who acquaintance I made back when we were both drawing comic strips for the same newspaper in central Texas. The final version for the novel will be slightly different, but this ought to give you a feel for it.

I've spent a lot of days (and nights) walking the streets of Como, Colorado, where the story is set and sleeping on the ground where the protagonist--John Overstreet--finds his fortune, and his life. As I read back through the story now, I'm back on those pine-needle-covered grounds. I hope the reader will be, too.

Western Fiction

After many years of work, my epic western novel "Overstreet", is coming to Kindle and Nook in July of '11!

It's the story of a young man who flees a vengeful family in west Texas and comes to work for a horse ranch in Como, Colorado. Over the years, he sees the west change and tries to change himself. To read more about it and my other novels, go to www.garisonfitch.com

Check!

I got a check in the mail on Tuesday because between August 1, 2009 and January 31, 2010 I sold 12 paperback copies of my novels. I know that doesn't sound like much, but considering I still don't know who is buying them, and the total of my marketing "effort" has been word-of-mouth and this blog and the web site (garisonfitch.com), I'm pretty excited!

It's gratifying to know someone is reading my books and--presumably--liking them (as they're buying the sequels). Would sure make me excited if I knew who these people were or if they were to drop me a letter (hint hint).

And I'm still averaging 15-20 copies of my books sold for Amazon's Kindle platform each month, including my newest offering: All the Time in Our World (parts 1-3 are now available, the conclusion will be available at the end of February). Anyone with tips on how to "expand my scope" (as Barney Fife was known to say) will find in me a willing ear.

Why is it considered good, let alone a classic?

As the author of several phenomenally unsuccessful novels which sell almost 20 copies a month on Amazon, I feel qualified to write on the following subject if for no other reason than that I have a computer with an operating keyboard (unless you count the F5 key, but what’s that for, anyway?):

J.D. Salinger has passed away in the last week at the age of 92. For those of you who don’t remember, Salinger was the author of a book that has sold more copies than most of my books have words in them: “The Catcher in the Rye”. Because of this novel, and a few short stories only English majors from the 1960s remember, Salinger is regarded by many as the greatest American novelist of the 20th century.

I am not one of those people.

I didn’t have to read “Catcher” for school. [My suspicion: at least 80% of the sales of this book were because students were required to purchase it for some lit class in high school or college.] I read it because I had read the novel “Shoeless Joe” by W.P. Kinsella (the novel the excellent movie “Field of Dreams” was based on) and one of the main characters in the novel is Salinger and several reverences are made to “Catcher”. So I was actually one of those rare people who went out and read the book entirely of my own volition; purchasing it at a used bookstore in Abilene, TX, along with a copy of Walt Whitman’s “Leaves of Grass” which I enjoyed more than I thought I would.

Now, for all its praise as a “classic”, it’s really hard to find someone who has actually read “The Catcher in the Rye” all the way through (and most of them are now high school English teachers). Most people picked it up (because they had to) and read just enough to write a (bad) book report, before abandoning it. If you are one of those people, let me clue you in on what you didn’t read: it didn’t get any better.

“Catcher” is the rambling account of an amoral, self-obsessed teen-ager who thinks the world should be a whole lot nicer to him but isn’t willing to be any nicer to it. The main character, Holden Caulfield, throws around swear words like a junior high boy who has just discovered them … which is pretty much who he is. While chronologically old enough to be out of junior high, Holden has the mind of—at best—a sixth grader. The novel is a paean to stunted growth, which I guess is what makes it so popular. Holden is held up as a hero by many people because he doesn’t conform to society. But really, if you’ve read the book, he’s not a rebel like George Washington Carver (who rebelled against a prejudiced system and changed the scientific world) or Ghandi (whose passive resistance re-wrote a continent) or even Bill Walsh (whose “west coast offense” changed the way modern football is played). Holden’s just a petulant little man-child whose brain is in his pants—making him not so much a rebel as a poster-boy for our modern entertainment scene.

Salinger lived out the years of his life after “Catcher” as a recluse. This mystery has long added to his reputation for cool. Is it just barely possible that, maybe, deep down in his heart of hearts, he was really sitting back and laughing at all the people who had based their life on his piece of printed dreck? I like to think so.