What's your candidate? I'm sure everyone has their own horse in this race, depending on histories and tastes. My personal list these days has three entries - Moby Dick by Herman Melville, Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy, and Shadow Country by Peter Matthiessen. Moby Dick is, of course, a pretty traditional choice. Like most, I was forced to read it in high school. Unlike most, I loved it. I mean, it's about whales. Shadow Country is a recent addition. I read and enjoyed the three books that were blended to form it (Killing Mister Watson being the best known), but the combined, trimmed-down version is, I believe, Matthiessen's masterpiece. The caveat - it deals with the part of the world I love. Again, I'm biased. So, two of my choices must be taken with a grain of salt.
That leaves Cormac McCarthy's brutal masterpiece, which tells the story of the bloodthirsty Glanton gang's forays into Mexico in pursuit of Apache scalps. Quite frankly, Western's aren't my thing - I'm not that guy that seeks out old reruns of Rawhide and has DVD collections of Pale Rider and The Outlaw Josey Wales. Still, I've never read anything as powerful. As American, with all the good and bad things that implies. And Judge Holden is, in my mind, the single most powerful figure in American literature - the only one that compares is Ahab himself. Caution - it's not for the faint-hearted.
So, it pleases me that the lead singer (Ben Nichols) of a favorite band (Lucero) released a solo album built around Blood Meridian. It was an ambitious undertaking, but I think he pulled it off. Here's the opening track.
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