Mark Medoff by Rudolf Erben, and: Thomas and Elizabeth Savage by Sue Hart, and: Theodore Strong Van Dyke by Peter Wild, and: George Bird Grinnell by Robley Evans (review)

BO O K REVIEW S satire or if it tries to capture a Bukowski enigma, it succeeds at neither. Rather, Bukowski seems a crank, not the “sure bet”; he seems difficult, as bartenders, bullies, truck drivers, people like us, may be. He does not, how­ ever, seem an important eccentric. And what does offending Bukowski matter, now that he is dead? Additionally, in the long “In the Presence of Greatness: The Bukowski/Barfly Narrative,” we are never quite certain of the greatness. Locklin knew the man as well as nearly anyone, knew his excesses, his penchant for booze and horses, the proclivity toward writing too much and sometimes too poorly. Yet he knew, as Bukowski did, that greatness might surface in the midst of all that productivity. However, Locklin never really explores the greatness. Whether Bukowski remains a permanent part of the canon is, at best, speculative when we are more apt to recall Kerouac, Ginsberg, Burroughs, among other of Bukowski’s contemporaries. Even so, Bukowski deserves a more serious, searching study. Currently, the most useful sources on Bukowski remain written by Bukowski and can be found in any of his nov­ els, collections of stories, and volumes of poetry. Perhaps, though, it is most fitting we remember a writer for his own words rather than what someone else says. There, alone, is the “sure bet.” Mark Medoff. By Rudolf Erben. Boise: Western Writers Series #117, 1995. 55 pages, $3.95. Thomas and Elizabeth Savage. By Sue Hart. Boise: Western Writers Series #119, 1995. 50 pages, $3.95. Theodore Strong Van Dyke. By Peter Wild. Boise: Western Writers Series #121, 1995. 54 pages, $3.95. Qeorge Bird Qrinnell. By Robley Evans. Boise: Western Writers Series #123, 1996. 55 pages, $3.95. Reviewed by Paul Varner Oklahoma Christian University For twenty years now the fifty-page Boise State Western Writers pam­ phlets have developed a solid reputation for providing the essential facts and useful introductions for both major and minor western writers. Those pamphlets devoted to lesser-known authors inevitably have served a most useful function, first by introducing authors to the scholarly community and second by beginning, often, the process of critical réévaluation. Perhaps such short studies will lead to longer studies. The four pamphlets under review here serve these functions well. lOO W A L 3 3 (1 ) SPRING 1 9 9 8 Rudolf Erben’s Mark Medoff provides a valuable introduction to the contemporary playwright of such works as When You Cornin’ Back Red Ryder and Children of a Lesser God. While Erben’s treatment of the bio­ graphical details of Medoff are somewhat confusing (for example, when did he live in small-town Illinois and when did he live in Miami, Florida?), his analysis of individual plays and of M edoff’s primary contri­ bution to current theater should be adequate until a major study comes along. Erben’s assertion that Medoff “redefines the Western heroic tradi­ tion and creates new myths for the New W est,” especially as they relate to women, deserves much examination. Also worth much more study is Erben’s observation of M edoff’s view that the Vietnam War “crushed the essentially masculine myth of the Old West” and ‘“killed the Western code embodied by John Wayne and Roy and Hoppy and the Durango kid.’” The necessary limit of fifty pages per pamphlet in the Western Writers Series certainly restricts what might be said of any given writer’s entire career. But when, as in Sue Hart’s Thomas and Elizabeth Savage, the pamphlet covers the careers of two writers, the strain shows. Perhaps two pamphlets should have been written. After all, Peter Wild devoted sepa­ rate pamphlets in the series to two brothers, Theodore and John C. Van Dyke, whose work is closely related. Nevertheless, Hart does well with her analysis of the husband and wife novelists. A n obvious pitfall of such a treatment is the possibility of writing two twenty-five-page pamphlets that are simply bound together as one. But Hart deftly compares the two writers, showing how Elizabeth Savage treats women characters while Thomas Savage focuses on the outsider as dominant character, and show­ ing how...