I don\u2019t read fiction often, and I review it even less frequently on this blog.\u00a0 I\u2019ll make an exception for something that touches the brain, the heart, or the gut, however\u2026and Jackie Clay\u2019s \u201cSummer of the Eagles\u201d scores a triple-tap of center hits on all three targets.<\/p>\n
When people whose work you know and like create a book, it\u2019s a safe bet you\u2019ll know what you\u2019ll find in that book, and like it.\u00a0 I\u2019ve never met face to face with either Jackie Clay or Oliver Del Signore, but I\u2019ve been reading Jackie\u2019s work for almost twenty years, and have been thankful for Oliver\u2019s skills since I\u2019ve been doing this blog.\u00a0 You see, Jackie Clay wrote this novel, and there\u2019s a reason she\u2019s the most popular Backwoods Home <\/em>writer. Oliver Del Signore published it, and he\u2019s the webmaster for Backwoods Home, <\/em>and has pulled my sorry Luddite butt out of the depths of cyber-confusion more than once.\u00a0 They are both very good at what they do\u2026but since you are here, you obviously read Backwoods Home <\/em>and obviously know that already.<\/p>\n A Western, \u201cSummer of the Eagles\u201d is a book you actually can<\/em> judge by its cover. A proud horse is carrying its human burden through a dark rainstorm, and you can just about feel the cold and the damp, and the need to keep going when there\u2019s no safe place to stop.\u00a0 Now, open the book. It gets better.<\/p>\n The protagonist has led a hard life, and it\u2019s about to get harder. He\u2019s in a dangerous place, his Winchester \u201973 empty in its scabbard because the last five .44-40 cartridges he still has are in the Colt Frontier Six-Shooter on his hip.\u00a0 (I found myself thinking of Cormac McCarthy\u2019s classic novel of future post-apocalypse dystopia, \u201cOn the Road,\u201d with its protagonist in dangerous places armed only with a revolver and two cartridges. As a gun guy, I can relate to that.)<\/p>\n When the hero breaks a rogue Morgan stallion and makes the animal his own with loving patience instead of a whip, it seems real because it is: Jackie based that part on a couple of her own Morgans.\u00a0 When he helps a benefactor raise a building on his homestead, it rings true because it is: Jackie Clay has been there and done that, too, and BTDT authors write the best fiction.<\/p>\n Regular readers know that Jackie Clay is a damn good writer. I don\u2019t know if anyone has compared her to Shakespeare or Mark Twain yet, but if they haven\u2019t, allow me to be the first. The comparison lies in the fact that the Bard, and Samuel Clemens, and Jackie Clay all write on two levels. There\u2019s one part that a teenage kid reading for a book report can \u201cget.\u201d But there\u2019s another level, like sound frequencies that only dogs can hear, which only someone who has been kicked in the ass by life can hear and understand.\u00a0 If you haven\u2019t read \u201cMacBeth\u201d or \u201cHuckleberry Finn\u201d since high school, re-read them both again now and you\u2019ll see what I mean.<\/p>\n When people do good for others, good comes back to them when it\u2019s their turn to need it.\u00a0 When the protagonist gains the fine new Morgan, he doesn\u2019t send the broken-down sorrel that has been loyal to him to the glue factory; he finds a placement for the animal that has purpose and dignity.\u00a0 \u201cSummer of the Eagles\u201d is a subtle celebration of the values the Backwoods Home <\/em>extended family of writers and readers has shared from the beginning.<\/p>\n