Richard Wheeler

RTW [ReadTheWest]: Why do you write about the historical west?

RSW [Richard Wheeler]: It is the best material on earth. The settling of the west was one of the great dramas of all time. People plunged into a wilderness and were on their own, dependent on their own character and courage. That is the very stuff of riveting fiction.

RTW: Was the American expansion unique?

RSW: Largely, though Australia came close. The western story embraces diverse tribes fighting for their homes, cavalry, ranchers, miners, stagecoaches, teamsters, gold strikes, cattle drives, land wars, and more. Nothing in world fiction approaches the West for texture.

RTW: But your novels go beyond the exterior world, and into the personal one.

RSW: Yes, that is what makes writing about the West even more fascinating. People headed into the unknown west brimming with hopes and visions, carrying dreams in their pockets. The West transformed them, broke the weak, tested the courageous, tempted the virtuous, transformed the dependent into independent, drove some mad, and broke family and generational ties. People were transformed by their foray into a new land, so there is an ongoing drama of personal growth or destruction, testing new ethics, abandoning old ones. I focus on this interior drama in my characters because it fascinates me as well as my readers. I build my novels around these afflictions of the heart, and that has become my hallmark, the signature of my work.

RTW: Are there other Wheeler hallmarks?

RSW: Yes, several. Ive done more with frontier mining than others. The mining was as wild and romantic as the cattle business and I love to write about it and the hectic mining towns. I often probe religion, and the impact of the frontier on belief. For some reason that is an area that does not find daylight in most literature of the West, and yet it is one of the most important aspects of frontier life, and it adds depth to my work. And early on, I took pains to portray women accurately in my stories. When I first started in the realm of western literature, women characters were sketchy, at best, and I helped change that. Now, of course, both sexes are well drawn.

RTW: You grew up in a Midwestern and urban milieu, Milwaukee, Wisconsin. How did you evolve into a novelist of the West?

RSW: I need to divide the answer into two parts. The first is that I became a newsman in western places, including Phoenix, Oakland, Carson City, and Billings. It was from these bases that I discovered the West as a place: a vast, grand, breathtaking land, lightly populated, comfortable, brimming with optimism. So I came to love the west as a place, a refuge, an unspoiled wilderness of plains and canyons, mountains and deserts. The west reached out to my heart and touched me. In the rural west I feel a peace and joy, an at-home sense that I feel nowhere else on earth. The West has an amazing, vivid history, and once I discovered that and read it, I lost my heart forever.

The second is that I came to love the legendry, the romance of the west, the national myth embedded in countless films, TV episodes, and novels. These were stories of courage and loyalty, and caring about the little guy and justice. These stories touch most Americans. A John Ford western film touches the heart and awakens our patriotism. How much that man loved this country! Other western stories are funny or dark. But they have the frontier or wilderness in common; the harsh conditions that etch the characters, who must overcome terrible obstacles. So I read and saw westerns, loved them, and eventually began to write them.

RTW: You began by writing traditional westerns, but now your work is mostly shelved in the fiction and literature sections, and less and less in the bookstore western bays. How did this happen and what is your relationship to the Western?

RSW: Ambivalence would describe my relationship. I keep pushing the boundaries of the fiction of the American West. I have always admired the classical western story such as Shane. They are taut, dramatic, stark, and portray good against evil. At the same time, the field is exhausted, and I keep pushing into other realms. My Skyes West series has a hero whos a deserter from the British navy and a binge drinker. Hes also a philosopher, asks questions about the purpose of life, and knows fear. The late Graham Greene once said that he wrote "entertainments" and he wrote "novels." The novels examined the human condition and sought to elaborate truths, while the entertainments did just what they were intended to do, offer a riveting story. That is my goal: novels and entertainments, mainstream and Western.

RTW: So your writing life is divided.

RSW: Yes, because of growth. My career has been one of discovering rising horizons. I keep raising my sights and trying new things, sometimes annoying people who want comfortable formulae when they buy a book. I started with traditional Westerns, and now write mainstream historical novels. But not always. Ive been working on a new classical western series for NAL in which the protagonists face moral or ethical dilemmas, and their task is to adhere to their conscience no matter what adversity comes their way. The first of these, , is out in July. Im proud of those books and consider them a gift to the American people in a time of cynicism about beliefs. In fact, my ultimate goal is to give gifts. Maybe, somehow, I can turn each story into a gift. I would like my readers to feel heartened by the time they turn the last page.

RTW: You have made the western field larger?

RSW: Yes, in part by adding an interior dimension. There is a brilliant new book by Jeff Wallmann called . It is probably the most important book written about the field, and I draw insight from it every time I examine it. I wrote the Foreword to it. He argues that for generations, Westerns have reflected the concerns and values of the times in which they were written. What an incredibly brilliant thing weve done in America, creating the mythic Western, which even now, in these urban times, speaks to our hearts and souls.

RTW: You focus on the interior life of your characters; that is what makes your novels different?

RSW: I guess so. And Im probably losing some western readers in the process. Most readers of action stories dont much care for characters who ask why. They just want a big body count. I dont plot my stories. I just let my characters take over, so I never know what will happen or how a novel will end. But the deeper I delve into their inner life, the more inevitable becomes the ending, because character is Fate. This inevitability leads some reviewers to think I write formulary novels, even though my characters are constantly surprising me and I never plot.

RTW: Have you done books you wish you didnt write?

RSW: Oh, yes, Ive some regrets. The best I can say is that they schooled me.

RTW: Want to name any?

RSW: Often its not so much the book, its the technique I was trying at the time. Some books are loaded with baroque verbs or other peculiarities that embarrass me such as weird utterance verbs to avoid "he said, she said." I wrote some weak books. Montana Hitch is one. But they are all my children, and I disown none.

RTW: Your favorites?

RSW: . Its theme is that ordinary people have within them the amazing power to overcome acute trouble and begin anew. It is a deeply spiritual book. is a great favorite of mine. I think it perfectly captures Virginia City and the wild times there, and I have never portrayed another mortal so well as I portrayed my protagonist Henry Stoddard. He begins life as a bumbler, and ends up a man of dignity and wisdom, a sort of Everyman. Some people would add , because it rings true. It is the story of an old man examining his life to see if it was worthwhile. We who have reached a certain age tend to do that.

RTW: Have you a theory of literature?

RSW: I leave those theories to brighter people. Ive tried and discarded everything, feeling dumber and humbler over the years. I thought I knew, but now I know I dont. What makes great literature? Is it the mythic heros journey described by Joseph Campbell? Is it great tear-evoking emotion? Is it the depiction of lifes truths? Page-turning tension? Memorable characters? Universal dilemma, experienced by all people in all generations? Wit? Drama? The problem is, some readers dont want mythic heroes; others flee from emotion; others are uncomfortable with stream-of-consciousness; others want action rather than probing of truths, others think commonplace dilemmas are a bore, others are confused by complex characters and want things simple.

Also, movies have reshaped the way we moderns view fictional characters. A film story is told externally, with nothing but a camera and microphone. So modern readers are used to seeing characters depicted externally, through their behavior and conversation, because films cant get inside their heads very well. That means that most moderns are acutely uncomfortable with a characters private, interior life. But there is a whole different world of storytelling that lies beyond what films can do, and that is my special world. I like to invite young people to explore it.

Its all rather mysterious, so I write whats in my heart and hope that somewhere in the big old world, a few readers share my vision. I was born in 1935, at the bottom of the depression. The demographics are fascinating. There were fewer Americans born that year than in any other of the century. So I am not part of any baby boom, or intimately tied to any generations icons or beliefs. Im virtually alone in the world of literature, and maybe thats good. The one thing Im not is trendy. I know some novelists who need to be on the cutting edge, trendy, politically correct, with it. But Im off in my own world.

RTW: Youve won some very prestigious awards. What kind of effect has that had on you?

RSW: Yes, three Spur Awards. Those had a powerful impact on my self-confidence. My peers affirmed my work. Im honored by the awards, and enjoy the cachet. Once I lusted to win them, and I still am set aglow when I do. And yet, the ultimate test of an authors merit is a combination of other things: the longevity of the work, its market success, and the critical evaluation of it. These realities humble me, because my novels vanish quickly, dont sell in large numbers, and are beneath the periscopes of the literary critics. I hope I can leave behind me a few good books, and I keep striving toward that end.

RTW: And the future?

RSW: Ah, the unknown. Write as long as I can. Try to make each novel better than the previous ones; push boundaries outward and upward. Leave behind me some vision of the goodness of life, and what it means to be truly human. Touch the stars. Interpret our westward expansion. Give readers a gift, something in my work that will buoy them along through lifes perils, give them courage and faith.

©2001 Site Designed and hosted by
American Western Magazine

Visit our other Western Author Sites