May There Be A Road, by Louis L’Amour.
New York: Bantam Books, 2001.
$16.95 - 288 pages.

Dear Calla Roo ... Love, Savannah Blue, by Sudie Rakusin.
Carrboro: Winged Willow Press, 2000.
$16.95 - 36 pages.

Although books printed after an author’s death sometimes do more to diminish rather than enhance the reputation of a particular author - some of Hemingway’s posthumous novels and stories come to mind - such is not the case with Louis L’Amour’s May There Be A Road. In this volume of short stories, L’Amour shows us both his scope in terms of subject and his gift for writing books that appeal to a general male audience - a tough audience both to find and to please, I might add.

May There Be A Road is a collection of stories ranging from the Old West to the boxing rings of the 1930s, from the Communist Revolution in China to a murder mystery in California. Although most of the stories were previously published, they were never collected and are nearly impossible to find except in this volume.

“Fighter’s Fiasco,” “Making It The Hard Way” and “The Ghost Fighter,” three short stories about boxing, reveal L’Amour’s intimate knowledge of the ring. He won over 50 fights as a professional boxer and also spent quite a bit of time training other young men on the finer points of pugilism. All three stories are similar in that they employ ironic or humorous twists in the plot. In “Fighter’s Fiasco,” for example, some small-time hoods who are threatening a trainer are themselves frightened into cooperation when they mistake the fighter’s Balkan relatives for the trainer’s gang.

All three stories also show signs of L’Amour’s knowledge of boxing. Here in “Making It the Hard Way,” he describes Finn Downey’s attempts to defeat a main rival:

The second round was a brannigan from bell to bell. Both men went out for blood and both got it. Finn took a stabbing left that sent his mouthpiece sailing. The next left cut his lips, then he took a solid right to the head that drove him to the ropes.

He came off them with a lunge and drove a smashing right to Gilman’s ribs. Tony wrestled in the clinches and tried to butt, but Finn twisted free, then stepped in with a quick, short hook to the chin that shook Gilman to his heels.

One nice touch to this collection is that it reveals the hard-boiled, action-packed fiction of the 30s, 40s and 50s. All of the main characters of these stories are blunt, hard men who do what is right and push back when pushed. The dialogue has the same fast pace and jabbing style as one of the “Thin Man” movies from that same era.

Read these stories and enjoy, L’Amour fans. While not up to the best of L’Amour’s novels, they are nonetheless intriguing stories.

° ° °

For a complete change of pace, take a look at Dear Calla Roo ... Love, Savannah Blue. Written and illustrated by North Carolina’s Sudie Rakusin, Dear Calla Roo is the story of a Great Dane, Savannah Blue, who writes letters to a little girl named Calla Ruth. In this first letter, Savannah Blue describes her daily activities and frequently asks questions about Calla Roo’s life.

Here is a book that would make an attractive and delightful gift for anyone in the lower elementary grades or younger (or anyone, for that matter, who loves Great Danes). Rakusin’s illustrations, simple and colorful, will draw young children into this book; Rakusin also captures in several of the drawings the quirky, funny personality of Savannah Blue.

Rakusin’s writing will also appeal to the young. Savannah Blue’s letters make it seem as if she was speaking directly to the reader, so that one can imagine the young listener of four or five years of age answering Savannah Blue’s questions as Mom reads the book aloud. The Great Dane’s daily adventures - digging up the lawn, watching a hawk, walking in the woods - will also appeal because of their simplicity and because preschoolers often have similar adventures themselves.

Dear Calla Roo is handsomely bound and should stand up to a good amount of wear by young owners.
It may be ordered from your local bookstore or by writing to:

Winged Willow Press
PO Box 92
Carrboro, N.C., 27510

(Minick owns Saints and Scholars Bookstore on Main Street in Waynesville.)

 

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