On Reading Jory Sherman’s Sidewinder While Ordering Chinese Food

On a trip through the Raleigh-Durham airport yesterday I found a used book store in Terminal B, and even more surprisingly it had four shelves of westerns.  With just a few minutes to look before boarding I spotted a copy of Jory Sherman’s Sidewinder.  A vague memory that some blog had given it a good review came to mind, I plunked down my $4.50, threw the book into the backpack that passes as my briefcase, and boarded my flight.  I bypassed Sidewinder, though, and read comics on my Ipod and half of Peter Brandvold’s Dust of the Damned (review forthcoming, I hope).

Today after a long day of work I stopped on the way home at a chinese takeout place.  Knowing it would take a few minutes for my order to come together I reached into my backpack and found Sidewinder.  The girl at the register laughed when I ordered my General Tso’s Bean Curd (what, there are no vegetarian cowboys in China?!?).  Taking a seat, I flipped open the book.

Chapter one, page one, paragraph one.  Already there is a square jawed hero.  No, really, he is described as having a square jaw.  The rest of the page is exacting descriptions of two characters.  Our hero, Brad Storm (seriously?), is given more visual description in this first page than the Kid was given in 327 pages of Blood Meridian.

On to chapter two, in which our hero beats nine kinds of shit out of a rattlesnake.  I think.  That happened really fast and I’m not sure exactly what happened to chapter one.  I go back and reread all of chapter one.  I’m back to chapter two and the snake is still dead and the hero is dying.

Is this the book that got such a good review?  I look at the cover.  Yeah, I think this is it.  I hope the writing picks up.  Wonder what’s taking the food so long?  I like how the delivery guy has his collar flipped up like a bad boy from an 80’s movie.  Is that woman cooking the same woman who took my order?  No, she’s older.  Oh, there’s the cashier, she’s sitting behind the counter playing with her phone.  I’ve really found some good comics for the Ipod.  Wonder if the cook’s married to that delivery guy, they seem to get along.  Can you believe that woman at the other Chinese place by the yoga studio is having another kid?  Amazing.  I don’t have any kids.  She’ll have two.  She seems so young.  Oh yeah, I’m reading this book.

There’s some woman, and she knows how to handle a gun.  Sherman really knows a lot about guns.  I wonder if he knows how to develop characters without direct exposition?  I bet this woman is the wife of the main character and she gets kidnapped.  Let’s read the back cover.  Yup, she gets kidnapped.  Huh, what’s that say:

"Jory Shreman is a national treasure"- Loren Estleman.  

Estleman.  That guy can write.  Didn’t I listen to The Adventures of Johnny Vermillion on my morning walk?  Yeah, I’ll have to listen more in my evening walk.  He writes a lot of good books.  So does F.M. Parker, I should dig some of those out.  Like that trilogy of interconnected novels all taking place in parallel during the Mexican American War?  That was cool.  Amazing how Riders of the Purple Sage turned out to be such a crisply written, proto-feminist, erotic read.  Man I love that book.  Can’t believe Mrs. Slap loved it, too.

Always trust the opinions of Mrs. Slap.

Man, this food is taking a while.  Had to go hunt up extra bean curd.  Where was I?  Chapter four.  Four?!?  Are you fucking kidding?  Okay, now there’s an Arapaho and a Navajo who are helping out the poisoned hero.  Wow, that’s some bad dialog.  Did this come right out of the 1950’s crazy racist Injun dialog book? 

There’s the table with a stack of free magazines.  I should read one of those.  Maybe I’ll leave the book here.  No, someone’ll just throw it away.  People really seem to like this guy’s writing.  I wonder why?  If I review it on my blog and he reads it will he be pissed?  Last time I published an article someone told me to never read the comments.  Then I read the comments.  One day I’ll publish my novel and people will hate it.  That sucks.  Got to finish it first.  First comes my yoga certification, then I’ll finish the book.  Where’s my food?

I really should be reading something better than this.  Ed Erdelac sent me a copy of Merkabah Rider, what, a year ago?  And I still haven’t read it.  I bet it’s better than this.  

Ah, my bean curd.  Smile at the Chinese girl, she’s laughing at your bean curd.  That’s fine, I don’t have to read any more of this book now.