THE OX-BOW INCIDENT

Walter Van Tilburg Clark wrote this classic western in 1940 that challenges previous westerns by tearing down the usual cliches. This novel is the forerunner of my favorite westerns: Shane ( 1949 ) and High Noon ( 1952 ). While Shane studies greed and High Noon cowardice, The Ox- Bow Incident analyzes many emotions, including regret, sorrow and remorse. It rivals To Kill a Mockingbird for themes covered in one book. According to CliffsNotes, the reviewers loved this bellwether novel: “The Initial response of the critics to The Ox-Bow Incident was that here, at last, was the classic western cowboy novel: His motive for writing The Ox-bow Incident was largely personal. He wanted to recreate, for his own psychological satisfaction, a nineteenth-century American West in its true dimensions, and to see what kind of story would grow out of that”. This is the story of an incident that happened in 1885 Nevada.

The novel begins with our narrator, Art Croft, and his cowpoke friend, Gil Carter, riding into the town of Bridger’s Wells. They go into Canby’s saloon to drink and play cards. Would they have gone anywhere else? During the card game, Gil gets into a fight with a cowboy named Farnley, who accuses Gil of cheating. At the same time, a young cowboy rides into town and tells everybody that a cowhand named Kinkaid has been shot in the head and cattle rustled at Drew’s Ranch. This incites the crowd since rustling has become an epidemic for the town’s ranches. Farnley, a rancher named Bartlett, and Major Tetley (an ex-Confederate officer) incite the crowd into forming a lynch mob. A preacher named Osgood and a store owner named Davies try to talk the crowd out of pursuing the perpetrators. Judge Tyler warns the mob of legal action against them, but his words go unheeded. Off they go looking for rustlers with no real idea of what actually happened at Drew’s Ranch. This is a disaster in the making. I’m not going to tell you what happens, but I will tell you that it is sad drama! If you are into reading classics, then put this excellent novel on your list.

Without using descriptive writing, Mr. Clark has somehow bewitched the reader with plenty of empathy for the characters. How did he do that? There were at least 30 characters in this novel, and I felt like I knew all of them. Even minor characters are clear in the mind of the reader: Sparks ,the ex-slave; Butch Mapes, the bully deputy; Ma, the boarding house owner and Monty Smith, the town drunk. The University Writing Center states:”Characters are the most important component of any narrative. Without them, there would be no story. Character development is an important skill to master because characters are important parts of any creative writing from books and short stories, from biographies and autobiographies, to poetry”. Well done, Mr. Clark! This is a novel that leaves the reader with a taste of incongruity for the mob and feeling of agitation for the sitting ducks.

RATING: 5 out of 5 stars

Comment: Clark was born in East Orland, Maine, but was raised in Nevada where his father was president of the University of Nevada. The Ox-Bow Incident is considered the first modern western. When writing, Clark went into a self imposed isolation and was known to have thrown completed manuscripts into the fireplace and start all over again. Nevada Magazine states that later in his career: “Clark continued to write, but published very little post-1950. There are 600 handwritten pages of a manuscript entitled Dam, which may be a rewrite of Water. He attempted a final project, a Western trilogy: Admission Day, Way Stations, and Man in The Hole. Three simultaneous projects was a new way of working for Clark. Each had a wire-bound notebook hopefully titled and some chapter outlines and character studies inside”. Clark’s thoughts on his epic western was as follows: “True law, the code of justice, the essence of our sensations of right and wrong, is the conscience of society. It has taken thousands of years to develop, and it is the greatest, the most distinguishing quality which has developed with mankind...If we can touch God at all, where do we touch him save in the conscience? And what is the conscience of any man save his little fragment of the conscience of all men in all time?” Clark was known to be a very eccentric man; as a professor at the University of Montana in the 1950's, he would wear the same clothes for every day of the term! Why he didn't publish much after his four books is still a mystery. His last published book (1950) was The Watchful Gods And Other Stories, and yet he didn't die till 21 years later. Very strange!