I enjoy Brash publishers. They make interesting selections, combing through the past to bring old forgotten stories back to life and to readers. They also are very kind to their subscribers, providing them with free copies. So that’s how I ended up reading John Sanford. An author I’ve never heard of. An author I wouldn’t have normally been all that interested in, probably. Or, more specifically, the type of fiction I wouldn’t normally be all that interested in. The aggressively violent desperate man doing aggressively violent desperate things to each other, courtesy of the post WWI Great Depression zeitgeist in the US. I’ve not read much from that time, outside of James M. Cain. And so naturally that would be a comparison sample. And no, I don’t think Sanford is in Cain’s league. Close, but, you know, no cigar.
Then again Sanford’s writing is darker, almost frighteningly so. The man descends into a proper abyss to dream up the town of Warrensburg, it’s denizens and all that takes place there. This is the opposite of quiet desperation, this is the loud, violent kind. And so here is a tale of three WWI veterans out of work and out of place with the world, who go to stay with one of the trio’s fathers at the eponymous old man’s place, drinking and spiraling out of control until a naïve mail order bride’s arrival provides a catalyst for the already dangerous situation. To the author’s credit, for a man from a fairly privileged Manhattan upbringing, trained as a lawyer, Sanford is alarmingly adept at tapping into the toxic masculinity of its day his characters exhibit and are driven by. And he is a first rate character writer. It’s a pretty good story all around, but you have to have a pretty strong stomach to enjoy this sort of thing. The visceral violence alone…It was actually a recurring theme for Sanford, who has often drew parallels between America’s violent origin story and its subsequent national character. There’s also a parallel between Warrensburg and US at large, with the former essentially standing in as a microcosm of the latter. All of that is even more prevalent in the second Warrensgburg trilogy and, if you’re interested, I’m also reviewing that one. So I don’t know if I enjoyed this book, I appreciate it, but enjoyment is a different thing altogether. There’s something appealingly edifying about the way it conveys the spirit of the time. Not an easy read by any means, but an interesting one. And welcomingly succinct, it would have been difficult to read a book like that for much longer. Also, what’s the use of living remotely if you can’t get rid of the dead body? Seriously? Just bury it and says the person left, instead of confessing and throwing one’s life away. Just seems like a waste. Sanford wasn’t a very popular writer in his time and I’m not sure Brash is going to change that, unless there’s a new noir market boom out there. But it’s ambitious of them to try. There are barely any readers reviews for his books, which, considering how long they’ve been around, is fairly telling. So here’s mine, for whatever its worth. Many thanks to Brash publishers.
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