The Ballad of Dingus Magee [Hardcover]

David Markson was recently (2007) named as one of the 60 best authors you've never read by New York magazine. Up until yesterday I counted myself as one of the unread, but no more. I did not read one of his postmodern works like The Last Novel or Vanishing Point: A Novel, but rather one of his earliest works, the anti-Western The Ballad of Dingus Magee.

The back matter on the recently reissued paperback asserts Markson wrote Dingus Magee in a `much more traditional narrative style' than his postmodern works. That claim makes me wonder if the publisher actually read the book!

Whatever. The Ballad of Dingus Magee is a hoot from beginning to end as it relates the feud between the desperado Dingus Billy Magee and Sheriff C.L. Hoke Birdsill. The book starts in the middle and then runs in hilarious circles to and fro, but basically Magee seeks feminine companionship (and fortune) whilst Hoke Birdrippings seeks fame (and fortune). Sheriff Birdbottom repeatedly captures Dingus only to fall victim to some folly before Hoke can collect the reward money. Dingus and Hoke conspire to inflate Dingus's desperado repute so that the reward grows even when Dingus is down in Old Mex.

The hapless Turkey Doolan finds himself in the middle of the feud on more than one occasion and wants nothing more than to bask in the shade of Dingus Magee's glory. Markson holds the whole Old West in some disregard. Witness his description of the (allegedly!) phony heroics of the Earps, Hickok, and Pat Garret to name a few (pages 109-110) , and of George Armstrong Custer as: "nothing but a mule-sniffing, boastful, yeller-haired fool that dint have the sense to wait on the rest of his troops and got massacred for it..."

What Markson's Old West lacks in heroism it makes up in overflowing randiness. As the independently operating entrepreneur Anna Hot Water might have said, there's a bim-bam here and a bim-bam there, everywhere a bim-bam. Even the equine Miss Agnes Pfeiffer manages to engage in intimate contact with Dingus, Hoke, and Turkey after convincing each of them that her chills can only be cured by brotherly cuddling.

Nacherly, Dingus runs afoul of the town's business woman, `Big Blouse' Belle Nops who enraged describes him as, "The lamb-ramming, rump-rooting, scut-befouling, fist-wiving, gopher-mounting, finger-thrusting, maidenhead-barging, bird's-nest-ransacking, shift-besh*tting, two-at-a-time-tupping lecherous little pox."

Markson riotously debunks the heroic image of the Old West in ways reminiscent of Thomas Berger's Little Big Man (Panther) and has great fun with the dialect along the way. Highest recommendation for anyone with an interest in the Old West mythology or in need of a few laughs.

I came across this book by accident. I read it and thoroughly enjoyed it. I wish I had known about it ahead of time. It was a fun read and a lot more interesting than you would at first think. The writing is terrific and very stylized.

› Go to Amazon.com to see both reviews  4.5 out of 5 stars