David Bell's Blog - Posts Tagged "lewis-patten"
Father's Day Tribute to Dad
This is a blog post I originally wrote in 2011, shortly after CEMETERY GIRL was released:
If you asked me to summon a mental picture of my dad it would be this: I’d see him the living room of the house I grew up in on Ferncroft Drive in Cincinnati, Ohio. He’d be sitting there on the couch with a cigar in his mouth, and he’d be reading a book. That’s how he spent most of his evenings during my childhood.
My dad died in January, and CEMETERY GIRL is dedicated to him not just because he’s my dad but also because I probably wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for him. As I’ve gone around and spoken to readers and given interviews about CEMETERY GIRL, I’ve been asked a lot about how and why I became a writer. And I can trace all the answers back to my dad.
I think all writers begin as readers. We love books and stories, and at some point, we decide to make the transition from reader to writer. We ask the question, What would it be like if I tried to tell a story of my own? I grew up in a house filled with the printed word. Like I said, my dad read all the time. Lots and lots of fiction, the kind of stuff probably thought of at one time as “men’s fiction.” He read Louis L’Amour constantly. He would read the same L’Amour novel over and over again and possessed multiple copies of some of his books. Dad also read Jack Higgins and Alistair Maclean. I remember he had a Jack Higgins book sitting around once when I was little. It was called THE KEYS OF HELL. Good Catholic boy that I was I wanted to know why it was okay for my dad to have a book with a bad word in the title. My dad told me that it didn’t count as a bad word when used in the title of a book.
Like most little boys, I wanted to be like Dad. One day, I decided I wanted to read one of his books. I’m not sure why I picked the one I picked, but I chose RED RUNS THE RIVER by Lewis B. Patten. This was a western published in the early 70s. Maybe I liked the alliterative title. Or maybe, even at that age, I was drawn to the striking image of a river running red with blood. Whatever the case, I read that book cover to cover. It might be the first grown-up book I ever read. To be honest, I don’t remember much about it except that a man’s family is killed, and most people think Indians committed the crime, but the protagonist finds out someone else is responsible. (As an aside, I have read more books by Lewis B. Patten as an adult, and his work holds up well. If you like noirish and fairly bleak westerns, he’s the guy. And great titles too like NO GOD IN SAGUARO or RIFLES OF REVENGE or RED SABBATH. Who can resist?) But not only did I read that book because I wanted to be like Dad. I think I read it because on some level I thought: If Dad spends so much time reading these books, they must be good. Reading these books must be a hell of a lot of fun. See, he chose to read. He wasn’t in school. He wasn’t being quizzed. My dad just loved to read. And so did I.
At the end of my dad’s life, he suffered from a rare neurological disorder called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Eventually it affected his vision so he could no longer read. When he was bedridden in his last months, I found one of Dad’s old Louis L’Amour novels, one called THE MAN FROM THE BROKEN HILLS. I asked Dad if he wanted me to read to him, and he said yes. So I read from the gospel of Louis. And a strange thing happened. My dad stayed awake at times he would normally fall asleep. When I thought he was tired, I would ask if he wanted to hear more, and he would tell me to go on. My mom is also a big reader but despises all things related to the Western genre. She hates John Wayne and has no patience for Louis L’Amour. But she started to listen too. We all laughed at the funny parts and tried to guess where the story was going and who was the bad guy and which girl the protagonist would end up with. The reading became a shared experience. And the story provided comfort for my dad in his last days. It was the least I could do for the man who gave me the gift of books.
If you asked me to summon a mental picture of my dad it would be this: I’d see him the living room of the house I grew up in on Ferncroft Drive in Cincinnati, Ohio. He’d be sitting there on the couch with a cigar in his mouth, and he’d be reading a book. That’s how he spent most of his evenings during my childhood.
My dad died in January, and CEMETERY GIRL is dedicated to him not just because he’s my dad but also because I probably wouldn’t be a writer if it weren’t for him. As I’ve gone around and spoken to readers and given interviews about CEMETERY GIRL, I’ve been asked a lot about how and why I became a writer. And I can trace all the answers back to my dad.
I think all writers begin as readers. We love books and stories, and at some point, we decide to make the transition from reader to writer. We ask the question, What would it be like if I tried to tell a story of my own? I grew up in a house filled with the printed word. Like I said, my dad read all the time. Lots and lots of fiction, the kind of stuff probably thought of at one time as “men’s fiction.” He read Louis L’Amour constantly. He would read the same L’Amour novel over and over again and possessed multiple copies of some of his books. Dad also read Jack Higgins and Alistair Maclean. I remember he had a Jack Higgins book sitting around once when I was little. It was called THE KEYS OF HELL. Good Catholic boy that I was I wanted to know why it was okay for my dad to have a book with a bad word in the title. My dad told me that it didn’t count as a bad word when used in the title of a book.
Like most little boys, I wanted to be like Dad. One day, I decided I wanted to read one of his books. I’m not sure why I picked the one I picked, but I chose RED RUNS THE RIVER by Lewis B. Patten. This was a western published in the early 70s. Maybe I liked the alliterative title. Or maybe, even at that age, I was drawn to the striking image of a river running red with blood. Whatever the case, I read that book cover to cover. It might be the first grown-up book I ever read. To be honest, I don’t remember much about it except that a man’s family is killed, and most people think Indians committed the crime, but the protagonist finds out someone else is responsible. (As an aside, I have read more books by Lewis B. Patten as an adult, and his work holds up well. If you like noirish and fairly bleak westerns, he’s the guy. And great titles too like NO GOD IN SAGUARO or RIFLES OF REVENGE or RED SABBATH. Who can resist?) But not only did I read that book because I wanted to be like Dad. I think I read it because on some level I thought: If Dad spends so much time reading these books, they must be good. Reading these books must be a hell of a lot of fun. See, he chose to read. He wasn’t in school. He wasn’t being quizzed. My dad just loved to read. And so did I.
At the end of my dad’s life, he suffered from a rare neurological disorder called Progressive Supranuclear Palsy. Eventually it affected his vision so he could no longer read. When he was bedridden in his last months, I found one of Dad’s old Louis L’Amour novels, one called THE MAN FROM THE BROKEN HILLS. I asked Dad if he wanted me to read to him, and he said yes. So I read from the gospel of Louis. And a strange thing happened. My dad stayed awake at times he would normally fall asleep. When I thought he was tired, I would ask if he wanted to hear more, and he would tell me to go on. My mom is also a big reader but despises all things related to the Western genre. She hates John Wayne and has no patience for Louis L’Amour. But she started to listen too. We all laughed at the funny parts and tried to guess where the story was going and who was the bad guy and which girl the protagonist would end up with. The reading became a shared experience. And the story provided comfort for my dad in his last days. It was the least I could do for the man who gave me the gift of books.
