Max Brand’s Best Stories ed. by Robert Easton (review)

Reviews 159 Max Brand’s Best Stories. Edited by Robert Easton. (New York: Dodd, Mead 8c Company, 1967. xv + 255 pages, $5.00.) Max Brand was the best-known of Frederick Faust’s twenty or so pen names. Driven by a truly Faustian impulse to experience success, this one man produced and sold over 30,000,000 words, flooding every corner of the popular literary market. (Destry and Dr. Kildare are the most famous figures of Faust’s outpouring under the name of Max Brand.) Add to these thousands of short tales—his novels, plays, lyric and epic poetry, plus the motion picture, radio, and television shows based on his work, certainly it must be said few writers have reached more people. But the alchemy of turning quantity into quality, of turning popular successes into works of recognized merit is a trick not easily turned. Faust’s pen of gold did not produce much golden prose; Max Brand has become a name linked as surely with sub-literary fiction as Luke Short or Horatio Alger. One major disappointment with this selection of stories is that it improves Brand’s image so little. This is partially true because Robert Easton has selected the stories more on a basis of diversity than quality. The anthology displays a panorama of Brand tales, including fiction about the rich, the poor, the obsessed, the West, and Dr. Kildare. Inevitably, such an eclectic editorial method will make Brand connoisseurs lament the omission of some favorite tales. Easton has done readers the service of making some widely-scattered stories available under one cover. His headnotes for each story are inform­ ative. In a brief introduction stating Brand’s central myth—the king-sized hero who forges king-sized problems into glittering heroism—we are given the picture of a writer spelling out lessons of strength, wealth, and democracy. Unhappily, the majority of even these select stories are let-downs. Most are examples of sadly thin formula fiction, nostalgic artifacts belonging to an audience that has largely faded into by-gone days. The only western stories Easton includes, “Wine on the Desert,” and “The Sun Stood Still,” are, interestingly, the best tales the collection offers. That Brand’s western fiction measures up so well next to the other tales in this anthology is not surprising. Setting and plot are his strong points, not characterization. When Brand re-creates a land that is myth-sized, the American West, he is good enough at the craft of writing to make the material become engaging. Brand is at his too frequent worst in stories with minimized set­ tings; stories which focus on appallingly stereotyped characters, who by some counterfeit means, boldly turn bad luck into heroic destiny. The paucity of western fiction in this anthology reduces its value con­ siderably. Brand has gained such renown as a writer of western stories that 160 Western American Literature it is surprising and unfortunate Easton did not include more selections from this genre. For this anthology clearly shows that the only Max Brand stories with possibly lasting value are the westerns. Patrick M orrow , University of Washington Navaho Folk Tales. By Franc Johnson Newcomb. (Santa Fe: Museum of Navaho Ceremonial Art, 1968. 203 pages, $8.50.) The authenticity of these simple and often amusing Navaho folk tales is apparent at once. The author was the wife of A. J. Newcomb who estab­ lished “Pesh-doclish Dezi”, the Newcomb Trading Post on Captain Tom’s Wash north of Gallup, New Mexico. During the twenty-five years or more that this was her home, she assidiously studied all phases of Navaho culture: beliefs, customs, art, and religious ceremonials. Among the many books she has published are: Navajo Omens and Taboos; Hcsteen Klah, Navaho Medicine Man and Sand Painter; and as co-author, Sandpaintings of the Navajo Shoot­ ing Chant. She is presently Research Associate of the Museum of Navaho Ceremonial Art which has published this book to help make its exhibits more understandable. Mrs. Newcomb’s change in spelling Navajo from the Spanish “j” to the English “h” during these years reflects a long-continued argument. The Museum, with a new and aggressively enterprising museum director...