Cottonwood [Hardcover]

Scott Phillips (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 18, 2004

Bill, an unfaithful husband and unwilling farmer, has imperilled his marriage because he has stolen his wife's inheritance to build a saloon. A family of serial killers run the Cottonwood Hotel, and as railway money comes to town, Cottonwood's population of prospective victims is about to be increased.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Western epic, black comedy and soft porn are cleverly spliced in this genre-bending offering from Phillips (The Walkaway; The Ice Harvest), which relates the experiences of Bill Ogden, sometime farmer, sometime saloon-owner, sometime photographer in 1870s Kansas. Ogden, 27, is a self-taught Greek and Latin scholar and a sexual libertine capable of seducing almost any woman he encounters. Estranged from his wife, he never brags about his peccadilloes, although it seems that his devotion to oral sex sets him apart from rivals and makes him the heart's desire of the voracious women who seem to be everywhere on the frontier. The story, such as it is, centers on the arrival of Marc Leval and his lovely wife, Maggie, in the tiny farm community of Cottonwood. Marc capriciously selects Bill as a partner in his scheme to attract Texas drovers to a railhead, while Maggie plays a less-than-discreet game of spider and fly with Bill, the Kansas Casanova. In the meantime, an outlaw family embarks on a crime spree that eventually pits Bill against Marc and sends Bill and Maggie fleeing. Jumping ahead 20 years, Bill's story resumes in San Francisco, where he is making his way as a photographer and sexual athlete. He learns that Maggie, from whom he is long separated, has returned to Cottonwood, so he abandons his life in California and returns, bent on rekindling their love affair. Bill's salaciousness rivals Don Juan's and he is utterly devoid of scruples, but his deadpan humor and cunning indifference to life's vicissitudes keep him likable. Lively pacing and artful prose lend polish to Phillips's cheerfully grotesque chronicle of western antics.
Copyright © Reed Business Information, a division of Reed Elsevier Inc. All rights reserved. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Booklist

At first glance, Phillips' third effort seems like quite a departure from his previous noirish crime novels, but it quickly becomes apparent that the author's brand of sly humor and his skilled depictions of nasty human behavior translate well to the historical genre. Set in frontier Kansas, spanning the years 1872 to 1890, the novel tracks the evolution of the young town of Cottonwood, rumored to be a future railroad stop, and its inhabitants, poised to take advantage of the fortunes that will come rolling in on the train tracks. Unfortunately trouble ensues while the residents wait for their ships to come in--most notably, they discover a family of serial killers in their midst (based on a real Kansas family known as the Bloody Benders). Our hero is saloon keeper Bill Ogden, who serves as the town's voice of reason until he takes the wrong married woman to bed. Romance, intrigue, dueling pistols, and a Charles Willeford feel translated to the frontier--a little something for everyone. Carrie Bissey
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Hardcover: 304 pages
• Publisher: Picador (June 18, 2004)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0330493175
• ISBN-13: 978-0330493178
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.4 x 1.3 inches
• Shipping Weight: 15.2 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.5 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (11 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #8,589,724 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

7 of 7 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Extremely entertaining, June 22, 2004

By 

chefdevergue (Spokane, WA United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cottonwood (Hardcover)

I am not much of a reader of novels, nor was I particularly familiar with Scott Phillips. I only picked this novel up because I am originally from Labette County and I was interested to see how he would incorporate the actual historical events of the region into his story.

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.

1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars An enjoyable departure, August 16, 2010

By 

TChris (Tzer Island) - See all my reviews
(TOP 100 REVIEWER)   

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This review is from: Cottonwood: A Novel (Paperback)

Scott Phillips' first two novels -- quirky, darkly funny crime stories set roughly in the present -- proved that he can write. In Cottonwood, Phillips departed from the conventions of crime fiction to write a quirky, darkly funny western. Crime works its way into the story, but the crime plot is secondary to Phillips' strong characterization.

Cottonwood takes place between 1872 and 1890. Essentially a mixture of a western and a thriller/mystery, Cottonwood tells the story of Bill Ogden, a photographer who comes to the frontier town of Cottonwood, Kansas to homestead a farm with his new Dutch wife and their son. Ogden doesn't take to farming, so he hires a hand to do most of the work while he establishes a saloon and photography studio in the town. The handyman catches the attention of Ogden's wife, a circumstance that would probably be more upsetting to Ogden but for his uncontrolled gift for charming women, married and unmarried alike. Eventually he becomes entangled in a dangerous affair, starts wondering about the mysterious disappearance of visitors to Cottonwood, gets involved in an old-fashioned shootout, and begins a journey that years later brings him back to a very different Cottonwood.

The story works because Ogden is such a strong character. As he struggles to build a life, struggles with romance, struggles with family, and struggles with moral decisions, the novel's fascination comes from watching him confront (or dodge) those challenges. Phillips tells a lively, imaginative story that is enhanced by his incorporation of a family of Kansas killers into the plot that actually existed. As he did in his first two novels, Phillips proved that he can write. This fine effort deserves a wider audience. I would give it 4 1/2 stars if that option were available.

3 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Well researched, smartly written., January 15, 2006

By 

Michael G. "mikefromrochester" (Rochester, NY United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)   

This review is from: Cottonwood: A Novel (Paperback)

Just as Charles Willeford did before him, Scott Phillips writes darkly comedic novels punctuated with shocking acts of violence. In Cottonwood, Phillips continues this tradition but does so in the context of a well researched story that unfolds in a day and age well beyond the memory of anyone now alive.

Cottonwood, a small fictitious Kansas farming community, sees itself boom when the prospect of a future as an important hub in the cattle trade materializes a few years after the end of the Civil War. Narration is provided by the book's main character Bill Ogden.

Ogden is a man of many talents. A very incomplete list of his skills would include farming, saloonkeeping and photography. He also is quite adept when it comes to sexually pleasuring a diverse demographic of women, one which ironically does not include his own wife. Ogden is a bit of a paradox. Sometimes his actions seem heroic but more often than not the word scoundrel fits him better than anything else.

What is the book about? A number of things. Greed, jealousy, infidelity, lust, murder, the pioneer spirit, the human capacity to do whatever it takes to survive. Throw in a tornado and a German speaking family of serial killers and you have a novel guaranteed to entertain the most jaded among us.

As he did in his second novel, The Walkaway, Phillips shows an amazing ability to transcend time frames. The second half of the book takes place a full 17 years after the first and only a few details about what transpired in the interim are spelled out. Surprisingly, this unconventional structure does not detract from Cottonwood's appeal one bit.

This novel is written with a healthy dose of dark humor and it unfolds in a way that gives the reader credit for having a modicum of intelligence. An enthusiastic 5 stars.