Charley had never seen anybody throw like Bill. It was magic, the way things connected for him. Bill climbed into the wagon and came out with a bottle. He pulled the cork with his teeth and spit it onto the ground, signaling his intentions. It was a bottle without a future. He took a drink and handed it to Charley. Charley wiped off the lip and joined him. The whores were shrieking again.
-Deadwood
Ah, Deadwood. I'd been wanting to read it since I watched the HBO series the summer before last. Haven broken my tibia that June, I had a lot of free time and very limited mobility--you can imagine how much I enjoyed being absorbed into the show's colorful world. The book, by Pete Dexter, offers a different take on the characters (many of whom are historical figures), but is still quite good in its own right.
Much like the show, Deadwood deals with the establishment of the eponymous town in the Black Hills in the 1870s. We see how characters as different as lawman Seth Bullock and weary legend Wild Bill Hickock are drawn here, and how they survive (or don't). The stories run the gamut from preaching to poker to pestilence--everything you might expect from the Old West, I suppose, but at some point that became enormously compelling to me. Blame the show, I guess.
The one issue I would take with Pete Dexter's take is the way he handles the story of Solomon Star. In the series--and in real life, as far as I can ascertain--Star was a smart, practical businessman who was unfailingly levelheaded and honest. Dexter's Star is as well...up to a certain point. And it's not that I can't imagine Star doing the things Dexter proposes, exactly, but I'm not happy to do so. It was just a bit too much for me.
Overall, though, I enjoyed it, and I thought Dexter's prose in particular was fantastic. I'd definitely be interested in checking out more of his work.
Up next: Jo Nesbo's The Snowman.
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