Dorothy M. Johnson: Gravel in Her Gut and Spit in Her Eye (2005)

A BITS reader recently sent me a copy of this 30-minute video made for Montana PBS about the life of western writer Dorothy M. Johnson (1905-1984). It is an informative, entertaining, and expertly told account of a determined and inventive writer who made a difference in the way western stories are conceived and told.

Her influence remains a strong presence in the unfolding genre of frontier fiction today. Hers was an intelligence that inquired of both myth and history and returned from that inquiry with discoveries that many other western writers, steeped in convention, could not see, or did not care to—a condition, alas, that sometimes continues in places today.

There are a number of talking heads in the video, and the memories of those who were friends, students, and acquaintances reveal much of her temperament, her humor, and her grit. With Margot Kidder as the voice of Johnson and Stan Lynde as narrator, the warmth and affection for the western story that Johnson brought to its writing come persuasively through.

The efforts of others to put into words the genuine contribution she made to western storytelling fall a bit short of really measuring her stature. Academics interviewed fall into what feel like tentative generalities about how she anticipated the “revisionism” of the 1960s and 70s. Even the late Elmer Kelton seems to regard her only as an accomplished woman writer. And while he may rank her with Mari Sandoz and Willa Cather, why does she not bear comparison with others who happen to be male?

Altogether, director Bill Bilverstone and writer Sue Hart have paid honest tribute to their subject. They include many photos of Johnson over her lifetime, and their narrative reminds us of the lean times she lived through and survived as a struggling writer, working for many years in New York, far from her home ground in Whitefish, Montana—before The Saturday Evening Post and then Hollywood found her.

Dorothy M. Johnson

Wrapping up. At the time of the film’s release, writer-producer Sue Hart noted that people know the films based on Johnson’s stories but do not know of Johnson herself;  “I wanted to make sure that people never forget her.” This video bio makes a notable effort to rectify that.

Gravel in Her Gut and Spit in Her Eye is currently available on DVD from Montana PBS. For more Overlooked movies and TV, click on over to Todd Mason’s blog, Sweet Freedom.

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Further reading:

Dorothy Johnson, Montana’s First Lady of Letters

Coming up: Dane Coolidge, The Soldier’s Way (1917)

Glossary of frontier fiction: J(jerkwater - junto)

Below is a list of mostly forgotten terms, people, and the occasional song, drawn from a reading of frontier fiction, 1880–1915. Each week a new list, progressing through the alphabet, “from A to Izzard.”

jerkwater = a train not running on the main line; so called from the jerking (drawing) of water to fill buckets for supplying a steam locomotive. “‘We are in the thick of things over on the jerkwater just now,’ he explained, ‘and I don’t like to stay away any longer than I have to.’” Francis Lynde, The Taming of Red Butte Western.

Jerusalem crickets = a mild expletive. “‘Jerusalem crickets!’ was his comment as he measured the aim.” Paul Leicester Ford, The Great K&A Train Robbery.

jib = to refuse to move forward; said of an animal in harness. “That boy’s done a mighty heap of work around here since I took him on; he’d come nigh shamin’ a jibbin’ mule.” Ridgwell Cullum, The Sheriff of Dyke Hole.

jick = one of the Jacks in a game of cards. “‘Couldn't find ’em nohow,’ says he; ‘hunted high and low, jick, Jack, and the game.’” Henry Wallace Phillips, Red Saunders.

jig juice = alcohol, spirits, whisky. “He pikes over to call on the mayor, and sets up the jig-juice to him, pours flattering words in his ears.” Frederick Niven, Hands Up!

jigger = a gadget, small mechanical contrivance. “Is this ’ere jigger in the pipe a damper?” Frederick Thickstun Clark, In the Valley of Havilah.

jim crow = small-time, low-class. “You can gamble thar wouldn’t be no jim-crow marshal go pirootin’ ’round, losin’ no eye of mine an’ getting’ away with it.” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

jimber jaw = a projecting lower jaw. “Soon the buck came in with his gun, a tall young Siwash in a worn fur cap, with thin, handsome upper features, but a brutal jimber-jaw.” Robert Dunn, The Youngest World.

Almost back in the saddle

Tulips taking a bow, 2/9/14

As many of you reading this know by now, I was diagnosed in late January with a brain tumor, assumed malignant. On January 30, a neurosurgical team at Desert Regional Medical Center in Palm Springs went in after it. Removal was successful, and we now await full recovery.

I am at home with my wife, a tireless caregiver and patient advocate beyond measure or comparison. My daughter is also here for a time before returning to her home back East, reasonable travel weather permitting.

Blog. I expect before long to be blogging regularly again. The one hitch is that I have lost full use of my left arm and hand—a condition I hope is temporary. Single-handed keyboarding is a bit of a chore.

To be honest, after the kind of trauma that comes with literally having your cranium cracked, I worried that I would lose the capacity to continue what I’ve been doing here—thinking and writing about frontier fiction and westerns. As mental and physical energies have rallied, my concern about that has abated. If anything, I may come out on the other side of this more garrulous than ever. (You have been warned.)

Hiatus

Angus, Nebraska Sandhills (Photo, Ron Scheer)

BITS is going on hiatus indefinitely while I take care of some health-related matters. Hope to be posting here again soon with more movie and book reviews. Happy trails, everybody.

Hombre (1967)

Based on Elmore Leonard’s 1961 novel of the same name (reviewed here recently), this film offers an interesting example of adaptation. The basic plot is unchanged, but the screenwriters have introduced and substituted different characters. The result is a rather different story.

Plot. Leonard’s novel revisits the central situation in John Ford’s Stagecoach (1939). An assortment of stagecoach passengers gets into trouble while crossing a stretch of perilous desert terrain. Instead of a wanted man (John Wayne) who joins them, the pivotal character is a white man raised by Indians (Paul Newman). Instead of undergoing attacks by hostiles, the coach is held up by a gang of thieves.

Leonard's novel

The gang takes a hostage, the wife of an Indian agent, but Newman kills one of them, and a stolen bag of money is retrieved. Set afoot in the desert with little in the way of food and water, the passengers must reach safety before the gang finds them again to reclaim the money—and either leave them to die or kill them outright.

Characters. Newman’s character, John Russell, besides being twice the age of the 21-year-old created by Leonard, seems very close to the man we find in the novel. He is single-mindedly focused on survival—his own. What the others do, whether they stick with him or not, is their own business. Expressing nothing but cold, calm determination, he seems never roused to an emotion.

Glossay of frontier fiction: I, J(ignus fatuus – jerk-line)

Below is a list of mostly forgotten terms, people, and the occasional song, drawn from a reading of frontier fiction, 1880-1915. Each week a new list, progressing through the alphabet, “from A to Izzard.”

ignus fatuus = will-o’-the-wisp; a phosphorescent light that appears in marsh lands. “At the time he was following that ignis fatuus, Holy Grail, pillar of cloud and pillar of fire, which was to him his Duty.” A. B. Ward, The Sage Brush Parson.

I’m a Chinaman = derogatory reference to Chinese, expressing surprise and disbelief. “‘I’m a Chinaman,’ says Billy, ‘if it ain’t a kid!” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

I’m a Mexican = derogatory reference to Mexicans, expressing surprise and disbelief. “I’m a Mexican if this yere Sal don’t come wanderin’ in, a-cryin’ an’ a-mournin’ powerful.” Alfred Henry Lewis, Wolfville.

Man with imperial

imperial = small part of a beard growing below the lower lip. “The snapping black eyes, with the straight brows almost meeting over the nose, suggested Goethe’s Mephistopheles, and Flemister shaved to fit the part, with curling mustaches and a dagger-pointed imperial.” Francis Lynde, The Taming of Red Butte Western.

in bond = a term applied to the status of merchandise admitted provisionally to a country without payment of duty, to be kept in a bonded warehouse or for shipment to another point where duties will be imposed. “She gave final and minute orders to tailors and dressmakers, instructed them to send the trousseaux in bond directly to Great Falls, Montana.” Gertrude Atherton, Perch of the Devil.

in high feather = in good spirits. “The tireless little animal followed him along the fence rails for perhaps a hundred yards, seeing him off the premises and advising him not to return, then went back in high feather to his task.” Charles G. D. Roberts, The Backwoodsmen.

“In the Baggage Coach Ahead” = a sentimental song popular at the turn of the last century, written in 1896 by African American composer Gussie L. Davis (1863-1899). “For nine months I have heard nothing but ‘The Baggage Coach Ahead’ and ‘She is My Baby’s Mother.’” Willa Cather, The Troll Garden.

in the sulks = unhappy. “But he was divided between his impulse to send the trio on a double-quick about their business and the doubt as to what effect it would have on the tribe if they were sent back to it in the sulks.” Marah Ellis Ryan, Told in the Hills.

John Reese, They Don’t Shoot Cowards (1973)

In a John Reese western, nothing is likely to be what it seems. Despite a wide, well-traveled trail across the genre’s terrain, you can expect Reese to take you someplace you haven’t been before. Try guessing what this novel is about from the title, the cover art, and the cover copy (“Cahoon had a killer’s reputation and a yellow streak down his back”), and you’ll be maybe 10% right.

Characters. The premise of the novel is actually not so unusual. A man has acquired a reputation as a gunman, but has nothing of the required constitution or skill. Honker Cahoon’s is the story of an ordinary drifter cowhand trying to keep from attracting trouble. The problem is his frighteningly scarred face and a peculiar disorder—like a form of Tourrettes. When terrified, he explodes in angry outbursts so threatening that even the meanest men are intimidated.

And Reese gives his condition a further twist. Cahoon loses his hearing during these episodes and has no idea what he is saying. He lives in fear that someday he will meet a real gunman who decides to draw on him.

1974 edition

He is befriended early in the novel by a 14-year-old runaway, claiming to be 18, whose name, Johnny Smith, sounds so fictional Cahoon calls him Beansie. Against his better judgment, Cahoon cannot resist entertaining the impressionable boy with tall tales of imagined confrontations with notorious gunmen. The two get a job in a bustling mining camp in the California Sierras, supplying slaughtered beef for Bill Shenker, the owner of a highly profitable tent saloon.

Trouble brews as the camp’s merchants hire a gunman, Dewey Score, to provide protection from a criminal element, and they grant him the authority to collect his own pay. Soon he is raising the price of his services and demanding a share of Shenker’s substantial profits. Thanks to young Beansie, who never misses a chance to brag about Cahoon’s assumed prowess with a gun, the two men are destined to confront each other.