Little Lucy’s Papa: A Story of Silverland by Dan DeQuille/William Wright (review)

Reviews 89 on each page, with the male or female voice dominant in bold or faded ink. The resulting rhythm and counterpoint are breathtaking, truly an impressive work. Sam Hamill has much in common with Robert Bringhurst, both as a translator of poetry from ancient and modern languages and as a voice calling for more than a cursory glance at man’s past. His Nootka Rose has a feeling of historicity. It is peopled by Herakleitos and the pagan gods of Greece and Spanish saints and dictators. Yet, there is a very different feel and rhythm to the Nootka Rose; it is more personal, more feminine than Bringhurst’s work. In a sense, it is a good companion piece to Pieces of Map, intuitive rather than intellectual, emotional rather than detached. Especially powerful are “Count­ ing the Bodies in Peacetime,” an epitaph for the victims of a modern urban landscape, and “Historical Romance,” an encounter with ghosts from Spain’s long past. STEVEN PUGMIRE Seattle, Washington Little Lucy’s Papa: A Story of Silverland. By Dan DeQuille/William Wright. (Sparks, Nevada: Falcon Hill Press, 1987. 30 pages, $49.) Forty-nine dollars may seem like a lot for 30 pages. But if you could see this small book, with its heavy sable pages, its flawless printing, its multi­ colored embellishments on each page, and its creamy blue hard cover, you would understand the care that publisher Dave Basso gave each step of the publishing process, and thus the necessity for the price. This is one of the loveliest limited edition books I’ve seen. The story given such special treatment is “Little Lucy’s Papa,” first pub­ lished in San Francisco’s The Golden Era in 1864. Its author, Dan DeQuille, is credited by many as being the one who taught “frontier journalism” to Mark Twain. DeQuille’s writing, like Twain’s western writing, reveals the manner­ isms, the folkways, and the concerns of nineteenth-century people living in the West. This particular story is set in Virginia City, Nevada. Its main character is a man who has left his wife and children in the East, planning to return to them in one year, after he has made his fortune in the mines. Predictably, the years drag on and he has not returned. Just as a twist of fate finally offers him a way to make his fortune, it also takes away his chance to return home. The man dies, and is buried by strangers. The story opens and closes with a real­ istic, but at the same time romantic, image of his unmourned grave. Senti­ mental? Definitely. Overstated? Yes, but no more than most stories of its time. Moralistic? To be sure—though not without some application in materialistic times such as these. And the verbal embellishment is complemented by the artistic embellishments. Basso is to be commended for his sense of design and balance in relation to text. CHARLOTTE M. WRIGHT Utah State University ...