Review: Old fashioned and new all at the same time
Rating: 4 out of 5
Date: 10 3, 2013
Van Holt's The Gundown Trail is an old fashioned western in the good sense of the term with Ben Hite, a tough, lone gunslinger riding in the west, dealing with various difficulties and varmints along the way. It's written in clear, evocative western prose, and you can practically see the red and orange of the countryside. Holt's attention to visual and historical detail is terrific. At the same time, the novel has a very modern sensibility with a more broad spectrum approach to everyone involved - there are varying shades of good guys, the outlaws are plenty bad but have their human sides, and the Apaches are a terrifying presence, but they have plenty of reason to be mad at the people who are encroaching on them. Which brings up the most interesting aspect of the novel: the three women who appear in the novel. Celia, the widow of Ben Hite's cousin, is a love Ben can never claim. Mary is a woman who runs with outlaws, and Nita is the most interesting of them all: she was abducted by Apaches, but once back in the white world, like other women who had gone through the same experience "still longed for the wild free life they had known while in "captivity." I really enjoyed Holt's exploration of women's lives at the time, and his presentation of three different strong women who for different reasons are freed from the restrictions of society. Ben Hite, meanwhile, aids them all with their destinies, with plenty of shooting along the way! This book is well worth reading even if you're not normally a western fan, and if you are, you'll get a kick out of Van Holt's vision.