Glendon Swarthout (1918–1992)

You know how it is when you hear a name and think to yourself, “yeah I must read that”. But you never do. And you go on hearing that name off and on for the following years and you keep thinking that sooner or later you will read that book. But you never do.

And then one day you think, "that’s it, I am going to read that book”. But instead you read a different book by the same person. That’s how I came to be in front of The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout. It should have been The show more Shootist. But it wasn’t.

And so I started to read The Homesman and within mere minutes I was away, taken by the words of the late Glendon Swarthout.

Very soon I understood why, all those years ago, someone said to me, “Glendon Swarthout”. I’d rather forget the person who said that to me but unfortunately they are stuck inside me forever saying those two words. And I hate to admit to myself that they were right all along.

These people came to life and walked and talked right in front of me, so vivid I could smell them and shiver in the cold of their landscape. Their story became an unfolding, or rather a concentrating, drama for my pleasure. And it was. I loved every minute of it. show less

Big thanks to Sara Steger for alerting me to this book. It was her wonderful review that made me order a copy of The Melodeon. I didn't think it would arrive before January, and with it being a Christmas story I had it in mind to read later on next year. And yet it arrived on the 23rd of December.
Picture this...
I'd done all my chores for the day, the weather was ghastly (Manchester winter- dank, cold, wet) and my wife was out doing stuff. I sensed an opportunity.
So I sat by the Christmas show more tree with a pot of green tea/beer and started reading. Sounds idyllic, but this only works if the book is good, if it's a bag of shite then there would be no story.
But it's a stunning read.
James, the narrator and in his mid 50's, reflects back on the time he became an economic orphan during the Great depression and goes to live with his maternal grandparents on a farm in Michigan. He was 13yrs old.
Key to the story are a melodeon and a Rumely OilPull Model 20-40. A weird old style tractor
''a monstrosity which has not been seen on American acreage for forty years or more, a whatchamachallit which may be marvelled at today only in museums such as the Smithsonian''
And would you believe it? I've got a miniature toy version of the same tractor that my father bought me about 50yrs ago (it's beautiful). So I fell in love with the tractor and the book.
The language in this coming of age story is beautiful. His grandmother's only expletive is 'Fiddlesticks' which I didn't even know was an expletive.
And it's a funny book, there is a gentle humour running all the way through it.
''I knew then that Adam had not tried the forbidden fruit to indulge his appetite. It was to save his sanity''
I can't tell you too much about the story because it's short and simple and beautiful. It took 2 hours to read and made me think about my dad, and tractors. I cried at the end because it finishes with the lyrics from Abide With Me, which was played at my dad's funeral. His birthday was on Christmas Day.
Without a doubt the best, most magical reading experience of my life. show less

Charged with transporting four women, minds broken by the hardships of the frontier, Mary Bee Cuddy enlists the reluctant help of a dispossessed claim jumper to help her.

Well, not enlists exactly. More like blackmails, since George Briggs escaped a slow hanging only due to Mary Bee's efforts. The unlikely partners then commence a tedious journey east toward Iowa, fighting each other, their occasionally raging passengers, the weather, and the land itself.

Swarthout keeps it honest. This is an show more 'African Queen' set in 1850s Nebraska, but George Briggs is no Charlie Allnutt -- he may drag their conveyance across the miles by main force and stubbornness, but will not reveal a heart of gold at the end, nor will he set up for happy-ever-after with Mary Bee.

This is a fine and honest book, honored by the Western Writers of America in 1988 as Best Western Historical Novel. Thirty years later, it still wears the laurel well. show less

I used half a box of Kleenex reading this Christmas story, written by the amazing Glendon Swarthout, an obviously versatile writer, who can put an unexpected twist on a story and wrench your heart.

A coming-of-age story, we meet James Chubb, a boy of fourteen, who is living on his grandparents’ farm during the depression because his father is unable to find work and feeding a family has become all but impossible. The story is told by a much older James, looking back on his boyhood and the show more events of one Christmas that changed his life.

I was convinced until Christmas that grandparents were gray and kind and frail and full of legend and soon to die, and that was all.

Do we, as children, not usually view our parents and grandparents in this way, unable to see the young men and women they used to be and taking for granted the wisdom that seems natural but that is hard earned?

To grow up is sometimes just to realize the depths of someone else’s losses and know they can rival your own.

I had not realized that loss could be so long lived. I had not known that tears, like flowers pressed between the pages of a book, could be indefinitely preserved.

Swarthout brings this world to life with description and detail that make it real. There is a description of a soapstone and its use in warming a bed that made me feel the cold of the sheets and the warmth of the stone. There are details regarding a 1928 Rumely Oil Pull Model W Tractor that are as good as a video playing in your mind. I’m lucky enough to have seen the real thing at the Farmer’s museum in Burgess, VA, but if I had never seen one, I’d still have an accurate picture of the machine in my mind from reading this.

As well as the physical detail, Swarthout captures the time and the people of a rural small town beautifully. I was put in mind of Wendell Berry, and as anyone who knows me well could attest, I consider that high praise.

Charity then, unlike that of the present, was for the most part individual and spontaneous rather than impersonal and systematic. It had nothing to do with taxes. It was an act of addition rather than deduction.

I cannot tell you anything really about the story without chancing spoiling it, and that I would never do. To anyone who reads it with a heart that leans toward Christmas sentiment, be prepared to laugh, to cry and to marvel.

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Postscript: Thanks to a GR friend, Wyndy, I thought I would share that [b:The Melodeon|3011433|The Melodeon|Glendon Swarthout|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1402004019l/3011433._SX50_.jpg|3041965] was reissued under the title [b:A Christmas Gift|2129551|A Christmas Gift|Glendon Swarthout|https://i.gr-assets.com/images/S/compressed.photo.goodreads.com/books/1266567689l/2129551._SY75_.jpg|2042115] and is available on Kindle for $3.99.

It needs a Librarian to link the two differently named editions. I am not able to do that, but wanted others to know in case they were looking for the book. show less