The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard Deoto by Wallace Stegner (review)

Reviews 231 discovers, however, that his view is the old way and, like himself and the old coyote on his ranch, the old way of life is crippled and dying. Govern­ ment subsidies and corporate farming are creating a new system of imper­ sonal values. Almost alone among the ranchers, Charlie refuses to sell “his freedom bit by bit” and be paid for it “on the installment plan.” As one of the government supervisors said, “He’s gone out of style, but the world will be a poorer place when it loses the last of his kind.” Though Charlie Flagg dominates the novel, other finely drawn ranchtype characters cluster about him : his quietly determined wife is more stubbornly concerned about his diet than she is anxious about the drought; his prodigal son, Tom, the rodeo circuit rider, manages both in his life and in his career to fall short of winning a championship; the loyal Flores family live on Charlie’s ranch and work for him until the drought forces them to leave; his banker supports Charlie in a cause which both he and Charlie know is bound eventually to fail; and Page Malden, his enterprising old friend, dashes madly about in his cadillac trying frantically to keep his financially shaky cattle kingdom from falling apart. With Charlie Flagg, these, and a host of other supporting characters make The Time It Never Rained almost unique as a modern novel: a refreshing affirmation of the rugged dignity of man, a wasteland which is not full of Prufrocks. In effect, like the hero he created, Elmer Kelton has refused to compromise his artistic vision to accommodate modern acclaim for bravado brutality and weeping narcissism. Charlie Flagg is made of sterner stuff. JAMES V. HOLLERAN, University of Missouri The Uneasy Chair: A Biography of Bernard Deoto. By Wallace Stegner. (Garden City, New York: Doubleday and Company, Inc., 1974. xll + 383 pages, 42 photos, notes, index. $12.50.) In a letter last autumn when Wallace Stegner was winding up his work for publication, he said that he thought it would be easier to write a biography of Napoleon than one of DeVoto. The statement was no doubt a cri du coeur, for probably few subjects of biography have been such complex individuals as was Bernard DeVoto, and Stegner was no doubt breathing a deep sigh of relief as he neared the end of his demanding task. But it was nevertheless a work of love, and one finishes reading the book with increased esteem for the author and deeper admiration, tinged with more than a little affection, for the bumptious Mr. DeVoto. Bumptious, however, is hardly a fair word to apply to Benny, as his friends called him, and Stegner would never have used it, although he frequently acknowledges the ebullient, self-assertive, contentious, and often insulting character of DeVoto’s natural stance. 232 Western American Literature DeVoto was born on January 11, 1897 in a small settlement near Ogden, Utah and spent part of his boyhood on his grandfather’s farm. His mother was a daughter of a pioneer Mormon fanner, and his father “was a vagrant Catholic intellectual, a former “perpetual student” and part time teacher at Notre Dame.” In a resulting atmosphere of conflict the child grew up as an agnostic with a strong prejudice against Mormons. Under his father’s direction he began very early to read the epics of Greek, Latin, and Italian authors, developing an intellectual background that widened the gap between him and most of his peers in Utah. Through high school he nourished a taste for journalism by writing occasional pieces for the Ogden Examiner and deepened his antipathy for the general public of his area, which he regarded as an intellectual wasteland inhabited by boors. It was not until he reached Harvard that he discovered virtue in his background, for the Easterners found interest in him not because he was a good writer, but because he came from the West. Actually, he had enjoyed the mountains and canyons of the Wasatch, had become a selfreliant camper, and had achieved considerable skill with both rifle and revolver. Eventually his greatest accomplishments as a scholar revolved about the...