Warlock (New York Review Books Classics) (Paperback)

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Review
"[A] brilliant novel of the violent West." --"San Francisco Chronicle"
""San Francisco Chronicle" Book Editor Critic Oscar Villalon's Picks Oakley Hall's novel "Warlock, "reissued by the New York Review of Books. 'Excellent genre stuff. A riveting Western that's also a work of literature'" --NPR, Talk of the Nation
"Also in '59 we simultaneously picked up on what I still think is among the finest of American novels, "Warlock," by Oakley Hall. We set about getting others to read it too, and for a while had a micro-cult going. Soon a number of us were talking in Warlock dialogue, a kind of thoughtful, stylized, Victorian Wild West diction."-Thomas Pynchon
"Not since Walter Van Tilburg Clark's "The Oxbow Incident" has there been a novel of the West of as high a dramatic and literary quality as this one."-"Library Journal"
""Warlock" is a big novel in every sense of the word . . . Hall has earned his place above the literary salt with such as Van Tilburg Clark and Conrad Richter and A.B. Guthrie." -"San Francisco Chronicle"
"Compelling . . . A powerful narrative that throbs unmistakably with the hum of a really big talent." -"Chicago Sunday Tribune"
"Oakley Hall has a gift for making the historical moment immediate and concrete, pulsing and white-hot." -MacDonald Harris
"Oakley Hall is among our most absorbing novelists." -"Los Angeles Times"
"Oakley Hall is one of the country's finest writers." -Robert Stone
"Like Henry James and Mark Twain, Oakley Hall is a master craftsman of the story. [His] dialogue is perfectly pitched, and intrigue will keep you turning the pages." -Amy Tan
"Oakley Hall is a novelist who never seems to make a wrong move. Hisimpulses for what's dramatic, for what will touch and move us, for how to engage the issues of the heart with those of the mind, all are uncommonly acute. He is a writer to read and read again." -Richard Ford
"The mastery shines forth undimmed." -"San Fransisco Chronicle"
"A vast mural of a novel, the best of the year . . ." -"Los Angeles Times"
""Warlock" is a story of the birth pangs of law and order, and the final arbitration of the six-shooter . . . filled with richness of background and foreground . . . hard to give a higher tribute to a book on the early West." -Paul Wellman, "New York Herald Tribune"
"Monumental!" -"Springfield Daily News"
"Oakley Hall's Warlock is a super-Western about a frontier marshal, a tremendous piece of writing, with with subtle characterizations of a giant cast, and dialogue that rings as true as a silver dollar tossed on the bar." -"Milwaukee Journal"
"A 'Western' which is literature!" -"Hartford Courant"
"As good or better than the all-time greats, "Warlock" whips and lashes with shootings, lynch mobs, men incredibly swift on the draw, and men who weren't swift on the draw, and men who weren't swift enough, with a drunken judge who is the town's conscience, and a prostitute who is probably its finest woman, with all the violence and blood-letting that were the fearful growing pains of the settlement of the West." -"Omaha World-Herald"
"[An] intelligent, richly detailed mystery." -"Booklist"

Hall's brilliant, complex take on the American western, first published in 1958, more than stands the test of time. A newly hired gun-slinging lawman, Clay Blaisedell, tries to restore order to the mythical silver mining town ofWarlock, Calif. His reputation for violence serves him well during the first robbery on his watch, but his quick trigger finger, and that of deputy John Gannon, also get him in trouble. A bizarre killing spree (covertly perpetrated by Blaisedell's best friend, a murky political figure named Tom Morgan) and an impending miners' strike (one that allows gang leader Abe McQuown to mount a charge against Blaisedell and Gannon) set up the inevitable final, blazing set of confrontations. Hall, who has written more than 20 novels, taps into the mythic essence of the Wild West with a potent combination of dense but fast-moving prose; a colorful cast of violent, corrupt characters; and a diabolical, ethically neutral worldview. His prosaic tracking of the town's violently shifting nodes of power is prescient and brings Cormac McCarthy to mind as the story unfolds. No account of the fictions of the American West can be complete without reconsidering this revelatory novel." --"Publishers Weekly"

Product Description
Oakley Hall's legendary Warlock revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction.

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First Sentence
DEPUTY CANNING had been Warlock's hope. Read the first page Browse Sample Pages
Front Cover | Copyright | Table of Contents | Excerpt | Back Cover

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2 Reviews 5 star:  (1) 4 star:  (1) 3 star:    (0) 2 star:    (0) 1 star:    (0)           Average Customer Review 4.5 out of 5 stars (2 customer reviews)		Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review
Most Helpful Customer Reviews   2 of 2 people found the following review helpful: 4.0 out of 5 stars A quirky, oddly intriguing novel, to be long remembered, 14 April 1999 By A Customer This review is from: Warlock (Western Literature Series) (Paperback) Although you won't hear much talk about this book today, it was well thought of in its day, and they even made a movie of it with Henry Fonda. The movie is good, but this book is better. This is pretty much an existential western, our hero a man confronted with living up to a code which even he knows is phony and impossible to sustain, and those who love him trying to make it possible for someone, anyone, to live their life truly. Unfortunately, when the hero knows this is happening, conflict ensues. Well, it's a great book, a better western than The Ox-Bow Incident, with more action and a more provocative theme. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this)   5.0 out of 5 stars AT LAST!, 1 Jun 2009 By  John Fordyce (france) - See all my reviews (REAL NAME)    I have waited 50 years to relocate this book and thank most sincerely the New York Review Books for the re-issue. Atmosphere is one of the features of this Western novel. The likes of Wyatt Earp, Ike Clanton, the O.K. Corral, gun fights, lawlessness, Tombstone, Arizona, all come together in Warlock. You can feel it as you read on and on and on. Super stuff. I am so glad to have found the book again. Comment Comment | Permalink | Was this review helpful to you? Yes No (Report this) Share your thoughts with other customers: Create your own review › See all 2 customer reviews...		Search Customer Reviews Only search this product's reviews

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