The Ox-Bow Man: A Biography of Walter Van Tilburg Clark by Jackson J. Benson (review)

BO O K REVIEW S Yet Reese’spoems celebrate as well, at times with a raucous humor. Reese’s fondness for friends and dogs, his deep love of his wife and daughter, and his affection for misfits and eccentrics give counterweight to the grim cadence of survival. In postmodern, Whitmanesque mode, his poem “Nebraska Bumper Stickers” energetically catalogues the plethora of political, personal, and com­ mercial statements found on passing cars (including the sly addition of Reese’s own Logan House Press motto, “Books Are Heavy”). One senses the wide embrace of humanity in such poems. In the section “Ten Penny High,” Reese honors the salt of the earth, poor folk living and singing the blues. Mustang Dick philosophizes, in “Backstage Pass— Interviewing Mustang Dick,” “It’s not the money we’re after anymore. / Just one more dance / on a bright light shine” (48). Reese’s people drink, eat, gamble, dance, and noodle for catfish, seizing small moments of joy from life’sdifficulties, making even leftovers and German bologna boiled in beer (“and throw in some onions and kraut”) sound like a feast for princes (“Ring Bologna and Beer,” 56). Whitman’sghost haunts these poems (Reese even calls the Mutter Museum to discover the fate of the poet’sbrain), as well as Bukowski’s, but perhaps Reese’s biggest nods go to regional mentors, David Lee, J. V. Brummels, and William Kloefkorn. A tradition underscores his lines, but Reese’s voice adds new impe­ tus and direction. Hardpan and salt-licked country can still be fertile ground for a talented poet. Like Mustang Dick’s songs, Reese’s poems “just taste like more” (48). One can forgive these trespasses that bring such luminescent news of life and love. The Ox-Bow Man: A Biography of Walter Van Tilburg Clark. By Jackson J. Benson. Reno: University of Nevada Press, 2004- 426 pages, $34.95/$21.95. Reviewed by Joseph M. Flora University of North Carolina, Chapel Hill With TheOx-BowMan: A Biography ofWalterVanTilburgClark,Jackson Benson provides valuable service to American letters. It is true that Clark’s reputation has faded since he won national fame in 1940 with the publication of The OxBow Incident, but the perfectly named novel has never gone out of print and assuredly deserves its place in the Modem Library Classics. The 1943 movie based on the novel (too disturbing to become nationally popular during the war years) eventually won recognition as one of the great films of the century. But because Clark published no book after 1950, he came to be remembered for that early triumph. In the West, Clark’s fame endured more vigorously. He was one of the essential entries for Fred Erisman and Richard W. Etulain’s Fifty Western Writers (1982) and merited a chapter in A Literary History of the American West (1987). Writing the first major biography of Clark, Benson recounts a story that is not only a western story, but one that also mirrors much of the American experience. 1 0 0 W e s t e r n A m e r ic a n L it e r a t u r e S p r in g 2 0 0 7 Benson’s title skillfully highlights the enigma of Clark’s life. An ox-bow river turns against itself: flowing in one direction it shifts course, seemingly seeking to merge with an earlier place. Clark became like that river. To an extraordinary degree, his was a life with two urges: to teach and to write. He wrote The Ox-Bow Incident in Cazenovia, New York, while happily teaching high school English and coaching basketball. By 1950, two novels, a novella, as well as short stories (several immensely popular and often anthologized) had followed. Clark was never, however, far from the classroom, where he was enor­ mously successful. No calling, he believed, was greater than that of the teacher. He did not seek grants that would free time for writing. Needing money to support his family, he was usually teaching summer school as well. Many of those appointments required that he live apart from his family for extended periods. Some of his decisions baffle. He turned down an...