Cottonwood: A Novel (Paperback)

Having finished a book that was very very hard to put down, I find myself anxiously awaiting Phillips' next effort while simultaneously seeking out his previous two novels, which as I understand were set in 20th-century Wichita.

Phillips has a gifted eye for the absurd (which occasionally veers into the realm of the obscene, so be warned) accompanied by a talent for good dialogue. There were several times where I literally had to struggle not laugh out loud (the baby had just fallen asleep, after all), and I often found myself repeatedly reading passages to my wife so that she too could appreciate one ludicrous scene after another. It was great fun.

The novel can get dark at times, and is often downright gruesome, but for the most part it is ribald Western satire featuring a very interesting protagonist & narrator, Bill Ogden, who is wonderfully amoral --- for the most part, until the chips are down --- and irreverent. Circumstances of his own doing (and some beyond his control) come to pass which force Ogden to flee Cottonwood for almost 20 years as a much-maligned individual, until other events come to pass that induce him to return to the scene of the crime (so to speak) and confront his past actions, as well as dispense justice.

Most of Phillips' strengths lay in his skill with dialogue & character development. He does not spend much time describing the countryside as other authors might do. Some readers may consider this a liability & others may see it as an asset --- all I can say is that I would not have recognized Labette County from any other region in Kansas based on Phillips' descriptive powers. However, his characters are so entertaining as to make you not care particularly. What matters is the story in any case, and this is a good one indeed.

Ah, but what a western it is! This is not the West of your daddy's Zane Gray, but the West of your uncle's George Gilman or your big brother's Joe Lansdale. This is the West where violence, passion and rough justice occur quickly and without prior warning --- and often without consequence. The voice of this fine, engrossing tale is William Ogden, a farmer who, as it turns out, does not want to do his job any longer, leaving his wife and farm to the care of a hired hand while he pursues the dual occupations of bartending and photography in the town of Cottonwood.

The town, and Ogden, is forever changed by the arrival of Marc and Maggie Leval from Chicago. Marc has grand plans for running a railroad through Cottonwood and making it a center of the cattle industry. He sees something in Ogden and takes him under his wing. Ogden and Maggie, meanwhile, feel an unspoken mutual attraction at first sight, one that is given voice when Marc leaves town for a two-week business trip. Ogden's passions, and the mysterious disappearance of a Kansas City businessman, dramatically coalesce around the Benders, a rural Dutch family whose greatest and darkest secret is revealed with a violent suddenness. The results of the revelations regarding the Benders spark calamity, indirectly sending Ogden across the country only to return some fifteen years later to find that much has changed in Cottonwood, though what is of utmost importance to him has stayed very much the same.

Though primarily a western, COTTONWOOD has a fine mystery subplot as well and should be pleasing to aficionados of both genres. Given Cottonwood's geographical proximity (other than for a brief foray into San Francisco) to Phillips's other novels, I am wondering if Phillips is, perhaps, laying the foundation for a chronology of the area told out of sequence and painted on a dark, ominous and occasionally comic canvas. His next novel may shed some light on this, or not; the only certainty is that it will be worth reading immediately.

--- Reviewed by Joe Hartlaub