
As Forty Lashes Less One begins, Yuma penitentiary is getting a new superintendent, the ironically named Mr. Everett Manly. A minister by trade, he has no prior prison experience. Arriving at the same time is former soldier named Harold Jackson, Right away, the predominantly white inmates single him out because he’s black, but Harold remains defiant and holds his head high. Frank Shelby, the local kingpin among the inmates, decides to put Harold in his place and engineers a fight between him and another outcast, a Chiricahua Apache named Raymond San Carlos.

That, in a nutshell, is Forty Lashes Less One. But it is a highly condensed nutshell that loses the ferocity of the characters, the spontaneity of the plot, and the unexpected humor and violence of the narrative. Everything unfolds so whimsically that the story feels alternately like a hardboiled prison narrative, a magical realist fantasy, and farcical nightmare. At points, Leonard seems to even be channeling the sardonic, anticlerical humor of Luis Buñuel, particularly in Mr. Manly’s attempts at educating Harold and Jackson about the Bible. Manly’s story about how all men are brothers turns into an unintended defense for incest. And Manly even admits to himself that one of the biggest motivations for him reforming these prisoners is so that, in the eyes of God, he might be redeemed for lusting after the female prisoners. Mr. Manly may be a minister, but his soul is as impure and corrupt as the murderers in his prison.
One of the reasons Forty Lashes Less One feels so unique is that, in many ways, it runs completely antithetical to the traditional Western. The West is supposed to offer endless horizons, heavenly vistas, and opportunities for renewal and purification. Forty Lashes Less One is the exact opposite: almost the entire book takes place within the penitentiary walls, and a significant portion even takes place in solitary confinement. All the characters are filthy, sweaty, and covered in blood or feces or sand. Even the brief glimpses of the landscape don’t inspire hope in the prisoners: “There was nothing out there but sky and rocks and desert growth that looked as if it would never die, but offered a man no hope of life.” The prisoners are confronted with a harsh landscape with little food or water, and few places to hide. An early escape attempt proves almost immediately futile. So much for Manifest Destiny—these characters couldn’t control their lives, let alone the world that surrounds them, no matter how hard they tried.

One of the great legacies of the Western genre is its social commentary. The building of homes, communities, industries, and legal systems are recurring themes in Western novels. While some books choose to idealize the past, others use the stories as an opportunity to deconstruct both historical and modern life, to take apart the pieces and examine them critically before piecing them back together. In Leonard’s book, Yuma Penitentiary becomes a microcosm for society as a whole. He critiques power structures, racial and gender attitudes, legal corruption, and even religion. When looked at in this light, Harold and Raymond’s rebellion becomes heroic not because they embody any righteous moral attitudes, but because of their defiant spirit. They’re non-conformists to the core. They recognize the bullshit and the corruption around them, and they don’t want to correct it so much as get the hell away from it all. There’s more than a bit of Huck Finn in them. In the end, however, they realize that a little revenge goes a long way, and they decide to revel in the pleasure of giving Frank Shelby and Mr. Manly their long-overdue comeuppance. Their final gesture in the novel is an inspiring moment of cultural dissent, a true declaration of independence. Harold and Raymond were freethinkers, counter-cultural idols whose resistance wasn’t at all out of place amidst the political upheaval of 1970s, Vietnam-era America. Elmore Leonard may have set Forty Lashes Less One in the first decade of the 20th century, but in a way he was still writing about contemporary times. Nearly four decades later, Harold and Raymond still have a lot to reveal about the topsy-turvy, politically screwed up world we live in. The Old West may be long gone, but it is still ever-present in the world in which we live.
Excellent review. The first Western I read was a Leonard (Valdez is Coming) and it set a very high standard. I love that his protagonists tend to be (as you pointed out) the characters who would normally be on the periphery in any other story. And he never goes for easy, pat solutions. Gotta love that guy.
ReplyDeleteThe ending of FORTY LASHES is terrific. I wish I could have quoted their last bit of dialogue, but that would have spoiled the surprise. Like most of Leonard's Westerns, this has been reprinted numerous times. I picked up a newer printing used for like a buck or two.
ReplyDeleteI've often wished that there were more western novels dealing with Yuma Prison instead of the tired rustler, rancher, robber plots. Too bad Leonard had to stop writing westerns but the readers and editors wanted crime novels. I see from the notes in my copy of the book that I read the novel in 1987 and liked it. My copy is the Bantam paperback, November 1985, 3rd printing. It has a really uninteresting, bland cover of a bullwhip and boots.
ReplyDeleteWalker, my copy is the new Bantam edition (pictured above), which has the most unrepresentative cover imaginable. There aren't even that many horses in the entire book! It's a real shame, because I think the uniqueness of the prison setting might actually draw in a lot of readers that might otherwise pass up the book as "just another cowboy yarn."
ReplyDeleteOver here Orion (the publishing house that has Leonard) bundeled his western's together in these handsome editions awhile back. http://www.amazon.co.uk/Elmore-Leonards-Western-Roundup-Gunsights/dp/0385333226/ref=sr_1_2?ie=UTF8&qid=1316446293&sr=8-2
ReplyDeleteI love Leonard. My cut off point is probably his eighties work...but he's a very, very good writer.