By Denise Ross

If you don’t have to reread this a few times, your ability to grasp the world on the other side of the looking glass is more agile than my own.

This from the London Times’ literary supplement:

In (the book’s) foreground – and here the wary reader starts doing some research to see how dodgy these particular pieces of non-fiction are – are the cases of Bill Janklow, the former Governor of South Dakota who was convicted of manslaughter, Jacinta Eagle Deer, allegedly raped, possibly murdered, and Leonard Peltier of AIM (the American Indian Movement) who was jailed for shooting two FBI agents. Custer gets re-enacted but not Wounded Knee, though that lives on in Kevin Costner, while AIM confronts the still-extant BIA (Bureau of Indian Affairs), of unsavoury reputation.

The book in question is the soon-to-be-released True Tales of the Wild West by British author Clive Sinclair. The Times’ review indicates that the use of real historic figures as characters is in the tradition of the Wild West dime novels that draped icons such as Buffalo Bill Cody and Kit Carson in fantastic, heroic - and entirely ficitional - tales. I don’t know if dredging up the Janklow-Eagle Deer drama could ever fit that mold.

The Times’ writer calls the work “creative non-fiction;” Sinclair goes for “dodgy realism.” Uuummm, OK. I don’t know if that will be enough to keep Janklow from filing a libel suit, something he’s not ever been shy about. (Just ask the folks at the Argus-Leader if he goes for the whole parody argument.)

Amazon’s brief description of the book focuses on, one could conclude, fictional South Dakota characters and makes no mention of our real-life players.

A photo-journalist called Peppercorn, sets off to South Dakota, to find his inner cowboy (and, more prosaically, to write an article on the Buffalo Roundup at Custer State Park for travel magazine Terra Incognita). With a cast of larger-than-life characters including Peppercorns cousin, Saltzman, lecturer in (and soon-to-be saviour of) the University of St. Albans School of American Studies; Mercy Sweetbriar, Rapid Citys representative from the Department of Tourism, and runner-up in the Appearance, Personality, and Photogenics category in South Dakota’s Miss Rodeo contest; and tarted-up trailer trash Miami Bitch, sporting denim hotpants and deep-pan cleavageand combining fact, fantasy, and fiction, Clive Sinclair’s True Tales of the Wild West is a glorious romp through the legends and landscapes of the American West. 

Sounds more like Carl Hiaasen than any dime novel to me. It all fits under the category of Wild, Wacky & True. (Which I’ve added at right. High time, don’t you think?)

Spread the word

Hide Sites