In his only collection of short fiction, Glendon Swarthout, author of The Shootist, Where the Boys Are, and Bless the Beasts and the Children, reveals in microcosm the heroic and gritty themes that characterized both his novels and films. Stories such as "Mulligans" and "A Glass of Blessings" explore the seedy underbelly of human desire, while "A Horse for Mrs. Custer" quietly celebrates the dedication of men and women who act above and beyond their capabilities during war and upheaval. Although these stories were written over a span of three decades, their themes of generational conflict, hypocrisy, loss, sacrifice, love, and war remain fresh and startling. Alternately funny and uncomfortable, Swarthout captures the postwar tensions of twentieth-century Americans. This collection reveals the versatility, range, and skill of one of America's great storytellers. Easterns and Westerns includes one unpublished novella and thirteen stories, some of which have appeared in national magazines such as Esquire, Cosmopolitan, Redbook, and the Saturday Evening Post. One of these, "A Glass of Blessings," was an O'Henry Prize Short Story in 1960. Another, "A Horse for Mrs. Custer," became a 1956 Western film for Columbia Pictures; 7th Cavalry, starring Randolph Scott and Barbara Hale. A third story, "Mulligans," has been made into a short comedy film.
Miles Swarthout is the Spur Award-winning author of The Sergeant's Lady. Westerns have been Miles' specialty, as he also wrote the screenplay for The Shootist, John Wayne's final film, based upon Miles' father, Glendon Swarthout's classic novel, which also won a Spur Award from the Western Writers of America in 1975. Miles was nominated for a Writers Guild award as Best Adaptation in 1976, when The Shootist was released. That film has since come to be regarded as one of the Duke's very best Westerns, with its stellar cast of Wayne, Jimmy Stewart, Lauren Bacall, Ron Howard, Richard Boone, Scatman Crothers, and other well-known supporting actors. Miles has recently finished a sequel novel, The Last Shootist, which he hopes to see published in 2012.
Miles lives in Los Angeles near the beach and has adapted others of his dad's novels, including A Christmas Gift (available on Kindle downloads), which became the 1978 CBS TV-Movie, A Christmas To Remember. Miles continues to write screenplays, and one of them, The Homesman, again based upon one of his late father's original Western novels, Sony TV is developing into a miniseries for television. The Swarthouts' book titles are available for downloading on Amazon's Kindle ebook readers now. Miles has a new Western short story in the Western Writers' anthology, Roundup!, available in June, 2010, and a chapter on the making of The Shootist in a newly revised Wayne fanbook, Duke: We're Glad We Knew You, currently out from Citadel Press/Film.
Check out the Swarthouts' entire backlist and the movies made from them on their literary website, www.glendonswarthout.com. That website also contains Miles' short comedy film, Mulligans!, which stars Tippi Hedren and Marcia Rodd, and won many prizes in many film festivals world-wide, besides airing 50 times on the Womens' Entertainment (WE) cable TV network. Mulligans! streams for free.
