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    Warlock
    Warlock
    Warlock
    Audiobook22 hours

    Warlock

    Written by Oakley Hall and Robert Stone

    Narrated by Patrick Lawlor

    4/5

    ()

    About this audiobook

    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.
    LanguageEnglish
    PublisherTantor Media, Inc
    Release dateJun 5, 2018
    ISBN9781977377388
    Warlock
    Author

    Oakley Hall

    Oakley Hall is the author of twenty works of fiction, including Warlock (1958) and Separations (1997). He lives in San Francisco.

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    Reviews for Warlock

    4/5

    172 ratings14 reviews

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    • 5/5
      Amazing. This extraordinary 1958 Western novel made me miss my subway stop 3 times in 2 weeks.
    • 3/5
      The Citizens’ Committee made up of the prominent merchants and professionals in the mining town of Warlock want some law and order. The territorial governor and the county sheriff are miles away and they don’t seem to care. So they hire a notoriously fast shootist from out of town to act as marshal. Any trouble-making cowboys like a few rustlers from nearby San Pablo Valley will be told to get out of town and stay out! Wonderfully full of characters and action this intricately plotted novel appropriates some of the historical events and characters of famous western conflicts: the Lincoln County (New Mexico) and Johnson County (Wyoming) Wars and the gunfight behind the O. K. Corral in Tombstone, Arizona, and turns them into a meditation on social conflict, political power, and the law as well as a powerful narrative tale.
    • 5/5
      My in-depth review of Warlock was lost to a tripped circuit breaker, so suffice it to say that this book is to your typical Western as an Austen novel is to Bridget Jones' Diary. An obvious inspiration to David Milch's cable series Deadwood, it presents an unsentimental mix of complex characters and lets their internal and external struggles throw light on issues of individual and social morality that are relevant in all places and eras, and never more so than today. Rich, long, and increasingly absorbing as you do the necessary work of paying attention, it's the first novel I've read in several years that made me want to return to the first page and start again.
    • 4/5
      An epic story. The writing is dense, with meaning in every sentence. The story arc reminded me very much of "The Octopus" by Frank Norris.
    • 4/5
      Morgan is a dish, don't @ me.
    • 5/5
      This reads like an existential western, with real character development and angst abounding, but with no lack of dramatic showdowns. The film starring Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn is okay, but removes the entire subplot regarding the miners (the economy of Warlock is based on their livelihoods). Now to track down the second of Hall's trilogy: The Bad Lands.
    • 5/5
      I was going to knock the rating down on this book one notch because...well, because the writing style didn't tantalize me like, say, Daniel Woodrell's. But that would be unfair, since I feel stupid, really stupid that I didn't know about this book earlier and hadn't read it and maybe reread it a long time ago. (Besides, the word styling is just fine.) I've thought about whether I'm so impressed by this book because I expected so much less. It's "just" a Western after all. And early on, the reader is introduced to a number of well-trodden Western themes and issues to resolve, which has you wondering if this isn't just Western drama smorgasbord style. What sets this off from the multitudes -- beyond the fact that it tackles multiple Western themes -- is that (1) it weaves these many factors together in an intricate (yet not complicated) whole that fits tightly together, and (2) it uses all distinct, credible characters to do so. No dramatic conflict or resolution just pops out of the authors pen on a whim. I read the last several pages dreading that the book was going to end, but even the ending satisfied me. Even if you're not a Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey fan, read this.
    • 5/5
      If you find yourself missing Deadwood, and you don't think its crassness is its main draw, this is the next best thing.
    • 5/5
      If you were to read one Western, ever, this is it! The themes reviberate in the fictional town of Warlock, where things are badly out of hand. The action somewhat resembles the events in the real Tombstone, but there are significant changes. The cast is relatively large, and the events dealt with are the matters of the historical West, not the pulp fiction one. Like the the TV epic "Deadwood" we are present at the evolution of a community, and live through serious challenges to law and order, the problem of conflicting jurisdictions, and the attempt to make a living from a rough landscape. Never forgotten if read. Dipped into quite often. There was a movie, dealing with only the showy bits, but a showcase for that great, but often misused actor, Richard Widmark. (and for Trekkies..an example of the kind of thing Dr. McCoy could get into if left to his own devices.:-), )
    • 5/5
      BrilliantClassic of the Western GenreThe pursuit of truth, not facts, is the business of fictionTake every single cowboy trope you can think of, its in here - Rustlers, lawless town, gunslingers, town drunk with philosophy, stagecoach hold ups, apaches, US cavalry and much much more. I mentioned to the guys in the book store that I was thinly read when it came to westerns but had hugely enjoyed [lonesome dove] and this is what they sent me. This was a Pulitzer nominee in the 50’s and is loosely based on the gunfight in the OK Corral (there is a chapter called gunfight at the Acme Corral). When a town without a charter, and no sherrif but a long line of deputies (who either run or are shot) has a problem with local criminal cowboys, rustlers and road agents led by Abe McQuown they hire a Texas gunslinger named Clay Blaisedell to be Marshall of the town. Although things improve the moral ambiguity of his “posting” men out of town so that if they return they are under sentence of death quickly complicates matters. This is a brooding character study not least of one of the Deputies John Gannon who has a foot in both camps having once worked for McQuown but left after becoming tired of the rustling lifestyle. Things are further complicated by the fact that Blaisedell brings with him a gambler friend Tom Morgan. No-one really comes out well in this morality tale but although it doesn’t pass the Bechdel test there are two very strong female characters that are central to the plot.The earth is an ugly place, senseless, brutal, cruel and ruthlessly bent only upon the destruction of men's souls. The god of the old testament rules a world not worth His trouble and he is more violent, more jealous, more terrible with the years. We are only those poor, bare, forked animals Lear saw upon his dismal Heath, in pursuit of death, pursued by deathOverall – absorbing reworking of the Wyatt Earp legend
    • 5/5
      Oakley Hall populates his novel Warlock with an entire townfull of characters, the way Charles Dickens does, or more apropos the way Pete Dexter did in his western Deadwood. While there is a central plot with its handful of major characters, Mr. Hall takes the time to bring each minor player to life, enough to fill his small Arizona town of Warlock with a memorable populace.Like Pete Dexter's Deadwood, and the television series that was probably based on it, the main plotline of Warlock centers on a gunslinger attempting to go straight as the town marshall. Clay Blaisedell, who is loosely based on Wyatt Earp, is hired by a citizen's committee made up of the moneyed property holders of Warlock. They need someone to keep the locals in line and to prevent the nearby gang from further robberies and rustlings. But Blaisedell soon finds that the citizen's committee also wants him to keep people they deem undesireably out of town, even if those people haven't violated the law. After he is forced to fire upon men he laters finds innocent, he refuses to remain the town's marshall, stepping aside in favor of Deputy Gannon, another former gunslinger.Blaisedell and Gannon are soon set on a course of conflict that will inevitably lead them to fight eachother as they try to maneuver between the citizen's committee that wants to control them and the townspeople who either worhsip them as heroes, fear them as villains or envy them as rival gunslingers. That both men want a peacefull town, won't help either of them in the end. Too many people have too many conflicting demands on them. I desperately want to tell you what happens in the final shootout, but I can't. I will say that it took me completely by surprise; it's unlike anything I've ever read before; I loved it and I so should have seen it coming.Into this more-or-less typical scenarios, Mr. Hall introduces a cast of supporting characters centered around the local mine and the minors who attempt to form a union. The citizen's committee demands the sheriff drive the union agitators out of town, but he refuses as they have done no wrong in his eyes. This is but the first in a series of events that will culminate in a showdown between the minors and the army, brought in from the nearby territorial capital at the mine owner's request. Warlock is an excellent novel for the way it explores the complexity of what is morally right in a place without law. The citizen's committee has no real legal standing--they are simply the ones with enough money to hire the best gunslinger. Blaisedell and Gannon both are as dirty as the outlaws they attempt to keep in control. They've just switched sides sooner. Gannon's brother fell to Blaisedell's gun just before he became deputy. That he did not seek 'justice' for his brother has put Gannon under suspicion as far as many in Warlock are concerned.There is an element of romance for both Blaisedell and Gannon, though here the novel is arguably at its weakest. Blaisedell is in love with the "Angel of the Mines." A local woman who runs a boarding house for miner's that doubles as a hospital for them when needed. She functions as the woman on a pedastal much the way so many women did in 19th century fiction. Through the example of her goodness she hopes to redeem many of the men in town. Gannon is in love with a former prostitute who has come to town hoping to see Blaisedell gunned down at last. She cannot kill him herself, but she wants to know that the man who killed her brother has finally met his end. She is not above trying to manipulate Gannon into killing Blaisedell for her.The two are such obvious Madonna/whore characters that many readers may find them trying. But if you can look at them not as stereotypes but as explorations of stereotypes, you'll find both have much to offer, both are fully developed characters, both speak to something profound, a desire for security or a desire for the sense of quietess justice might bring but never does. It's a tribute to Oakley Hall that what should be characterture become memorable characters. Lots of people avoid westerns for reasons I don't really understand. Warlock is among the best I've read to date. If I still gave stars, I'd give it five out of five, maybe four and half. Butcher's Crossing is still my all-time favorite, but Warlock will hold certainly hold it's own.
    • 5/5
      Pre politically corect western good yarn
    • 2/5
      Yes, there is a book (actually there have been several over the years) that I do not like. In this case, Warlock by Oakley Hall, is a book that I found uninteresting and repetitive in spite of being otherwise well written. Amazingly, it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958 when it was originally published. I say amazingly although I have never been able to determine the basis for the Pulitzer judges' selections and I've found the winners (those that I have read) uneven in quality and readability. Warlock was, however, thought highly enough by the editors at the New York Review Books press to warrant a recent reprinting. And writers as noted as Robert Stone and Thomas Pynchon have sung its' praises.The novel does have some redeeming features for this reader. As I noted it is well written with a readable style that helped me to persevere in my reading and it has one structural feature that I found appealing: inserted throughout an otherwise straightforward narrative are selections from the "Journals of Henry Holmes Goodpasture". This character and his journals add a personal note and interesting commentary on the events in Warlock. Oh, by the way it is a "western" with all the typical characters and events including a shootout at the (Acme) corral. There is little else I can say about this book other than now I can take pleasure in moving on to other summer reading.
    • 4/5
      Is it just me, or is this novel not as fantastic as Thomas Pynchon claims in his introduction? It has all the right elements, and some well-drawn characters and situations, but I couldn't love it.