Customer Reviews

Cottonwood

5 star:		(8)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(0)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(0)

 

 

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.

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.

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.

I continue to be impressed by Scott Phillps' versatility. This western/horror/crime novel is simply fantastic. The "vibe" stayed with me a long time after I finished reading it. I really like the characters, setting, everything. The author does not pander by using "best-seller" techniques. He remains true to his vision. I've been a fan since ICE HARVEST and I plan to buy every single thing this guy ever writes.

COTTONWOOD is that rare read, lean and rich. A novel with a startlingly different sensibility; by turns- casually sensual, nerve hammering, and rictusly hilarious. In the American West of Mr. Scott Phillips, life-or- death decisions are forced by events without benefit of the facts, ever. A place where an evil whim, rotten luck or worse weather are as likely to kill as stupidity or bad judgment. Where the difference between lust and love is perhaps only a matter of the duration of the impulse. A land where death can be more deliverance than a threat. If COTTONWOOD was nothing more than this, it would still be great entertainment, but what makes this novel special is its powerful, almost off-hand observation of human decency even in the worst of its population. Thanks to the author's informed and enveloping style the Old West is made real in a new way.

Recommend this novel for any western fan, or even if you're not. It won't disappoint. Reminds me of the Deadwood HBO series

Scott Phillips is an author in total command of his craft.
Having read and loved The Ice Harvest I was looking forward to Cottonwood.
I am not going to compare the two novels, they are both first rate but different.
Cottonwood is told in the first person, which lends an intimacy to the events that unfold.
The novel is about a one-horse town set in Kansas and events that took place in 1872. Bill Ogden owns a saloon and needs money. He gets involved with Marc Leval, a rich Chicago developer who becomes obsessed with Leval's widow. Meanwhile a local family is butchering travelling salesmen. The novel dramatises real crimes that were committed by a clan called The Bloody Benders in the late 1800s.
It is wry, tightly structured, well researched and full of surprises. It is never laboured, which is a tribute to Scott Phillips's ability to make his research come alive.
There is much of the frontier here, and I was reminded of Zane Grey at times but without his idealism. It reads like a Western crossed with Noir
Cottonwood is a tense story that draws you into a seedy world, one which Scott Phillips draws with unerring realism. I look forward to his next one.

Great characters, a dry and cutting sense of humor and grisly murder -- all served up against the swirling chaos of a Kansas boomtown. The plot surprises as do the many colorful and darkly comic characters, making this tale feel both authentically period and modern in tone. Scott Phillips writes like no other noir author I know; I've read all his stuff and very much look forward to his next piece of fiction.

Scott Phillips has to be giving his editors fits. He begins his career with THE ICE HARVEST, an absolutely brilliant, enthralling novel that is one long swerve from first sentence to last. It was nominated for three different awards --- the Hammett, Edgar and Anthony --- and should have won at least four of them. Phillips followed this first effort with the sequel, THE WALKAWAY. Set a couple of decades after THE ICE HARVEST, THE WALKAWAY is almost incomprehensible without close familiarity to what has gone before, practically forcing the reader to read (and, in at least one case, reread) THE ICE HARVEST. Now we are presented with Phillips's third novel, which is a --- western.

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

In late 1872 into 1873 Cottonwood, Kansas saloon owner Bill Ogden has no problems with his wife having extra marital affairs as the duo lives apart with Bill mostly residing above his saloon while Ninna calls the family ranch her humble abode. However, Bill wishes her choice in bedmates were of a higher quality though he also cheats with a few lowlifes too.

He takes exception to Ninna's latest pathetic lover by shooting holes in the bowler hat of the salesman. Not long afterward, someone kills the pots and pans traveling peddler. The townsfolk wonder if perhaps Bill dispatched a rival, but he questions the disproportionate number of vanishings and murders. He begins to hone in on self proclaimed mystic healer Katie Bender and her mother as clever killers of the Plains. However, Bill switches concerns when Chicago industrialist Marc Leval offers him a business partnership that unbeknownst to his new associate includes the man's wife in his bed. As the violence increases, Bill finally heads west to start over as a photographer wondering if anything will ever bring him back to Cottonwood.

Cottonwood is an amusing western tale that provides a distinctive look at the Old West through the eyes of an antihero over about two decades. The story line ironically tears apart beliefs established by Hollywood and the genre, but also pays homage to the Wild West. The tale lacks a central plot drifting from one major anecdote to another in a fiction kind of manner in which Bill serves as the focus. Still fans of satires will appreciate this humorous look that is mindful of the west of Jane Fonda (Cat Ballou) not John Wayne.

Harriet Klausner