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A review by larrys
The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout
4.0
I've seen the movie adaptation of *The Homesman* a number of times and have already written extensively about that. Turns out the film follows the novel quite closely.
I certainly have my issues with it, not as a stand-alone product but as part of a corpus of work in which women exist to offer a men their character arc. Then she has sex and gets killed. Ho boy, do I have an issue with all the stories out there which lean on that hoary old set of tropes.
On the other hand, I absolutely love anti-Westerns, I love Swarthout's style of writing, I love the depiction of the scenery, and I did love Mary Bee while she was alive. I looked forward to reading this book each time I set it down, there's no denying that. I am also a sucker for a tragedy in which the main character comes so close to leading a good life, then misses the mark. For the exact same reason, I fall about sobbing after watching *The Wrestler* and reading *Dead Man's Walk*.
I would like to add one scene to this book. Swarthout's son wrote the after notes to the film-release version of the paperback, and his summary of the mid 1800s era mitigates one of the possible gender problems in the novel -- the preponderance of 'crazy' women (especially when even the sensible one suicides). Back then, mentally ill men out West were simply taken out and shot. But because of benevolent sexism, they couldn't shoot women, which is why women had to be transported back East. Perhaps if there had been a scene in which a 'crazy man' had been taken out and left for dead (not just a wily, trickster one), this would've worked to allay the dominant cultural message that going crazy is a particularly feminine attribute. Even today, the strongly femme-coding of mental illness does nothing to help men seek help when it's needed.
I certainly have my issues with it, not as a stand-alone product but as part of a corpus of work in which women exist to offer a men their character arc. Then she has sex and gets killed. Ho boy, do I have an issue with all the stories out there which lean on that hoary old set of tropes.
On the other hand, I absolutely love anti-Westerns, I love Swarthout's style of writing, I love the depiction of the scenery, and I did love Mary Bee while she was alive. I looked forward to reading this book each time I set it down, there's no denying that. I am also a sucker for a tragedy in which the main character comes so close to leading a good life, then misses the mark. For the exact same reason, I fall about sobbing after watching *The Wrestler* and reading *Dead Man's Walk*.
I would like to add one scene to this book. Swarthout's son wrote the after notes to the film-release version of the paperback, and his summary of the mid 1800s era mitigates one of the possible gender problems in the novel -- the preponderance of 'crazy' women (especially when even the sensible one suicides). Back then, mentally ill men out West were simply taken out and shot. But because of benevolent sexism, they couldn't shoot women, which is why women had to be transported back East. Perhaps if there had been a scene in which a 'crazy man' had been taken out and left for dead (not just a wily, trickster one), this would've worked to allay the dominant cultural message that going crazy is a particularly feminine attribute. Even today, the strongly femme-coding of mental illness does nothing to help men seek help when it's needed.