Here time was as nothing; here sunset and sunrise were as incidents of an uncalendared, everlasting day; here chaotic grandeur was that of the earth’s crust when it cooled after the last convulsive movement of genesis.
Librarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
Frederick Palmer (1873 - 1958) was an American writer and war correspondent. He was born in Pleasantville, Pennsylvania and was the subject of the biography Fifty Years at the Front: The Life of War Correspondent Frederick Palmer. Works by Palmer include: Lucy of the Stars (1906), The Big Fellow (1910), The Vagabond (1910), Danbury Rodd, Aviator (1910), Over the Pass (1912), The Last Shot (1914), - a novel about a fictional major European war, from the point of view of a small set of soldiers and civilians. Written before the start of WW1. - My Year of the War (1916), - Palmer's account of his experiences as a journalist, starting the day WW1 was declared. - My Second Year of the War (1917), - Palmer's account of his second year as a WW1 Journalist - and With My Own Eyes (1933).
Dressed as a 'play cowboy' with a carefree whistle on his lips, Jack Wingfield rides over the pass from Arizona to the small town of Little Rivers, where he immediately rescues a damsel in distress and ends up in a duel at dawn.
A whimsical New Yorker prone to flights of 'persiflage' which entertain the kiddies and the town's founder, Jasper Ewold, Jack intends to head back East the day after his arrival. Of course things don't work out that way.
It transpires that Jack is the son of a millionaire father who wants him back in New York to take over the family firm, but he falls in love with Mary, the daughter of Jasper Ewold. Uncertain about Jack's true character, she is not easily won.
Something of an uneven Western romance story ensued, which promptly flipped in the second half into a story of family secrets and self-discovery, with both strands becoming entwined and resolved at the end.
The episodes of 'persiflage' and the author's frequent habit of personifying the Arizona sky as 'the Eternal Painter' belonged to one story - one I didn't care much for - while the father / son story belonged to another, better one.
As such the narrative was occasionally interesting and just as often irritating.