Slogum House

I have just reread this book and have decided to place it in my top 50 favorite books (I had to kick off Madame Bovary). The other reviewers have done a good job explaining the story and I will not add. Rather, I want to make a recommendation. Before you read this book, I really believe that you should first read OLD JULES, which is a biographical novel of the author's father(it creates his thoughts and dialogue before the author was born)that gives the reader the necessary background to understand the sand-hill culture, and to understand one of the daughters in SLOGUM HOUSE, which is Mari Sandoz aka "Libby." Also, one precaution: this is a stark book--to put it mildly--and readers who can not conceive that there are truly evil people in this world will not appreciate this story. I am planning on spending a day or two in the Mari Sandoz Center at Chadron State College next May--I want to read the author's correspondence as she defended her writing of the novel--and if I pick up anything useful to a potential reader, I will add it to this review.

I'd never heard of Mari Sandoz until the other person who reviewed Slocum House sent me a copy, along with the suggestion that the tome should be on my SYLT Guide for good western fiction. After reading it twice I'm still puzzled about why Sandoz isn't more well known, even though the book was written in 1937.Slocum House is one of the few works of fiction I've ever read that successfully portrays the nasty side of the power/wealth battle for the west. That battle and the results can be found easily enough in the nooks and crannies of actual history and autobiography. The Albert Fountain homicide in New Mexico, the various works gradually seeping out of the cracks about Mountain Meadows, Elfigo Baca, the Salt War and the Catron Gang and even the Pat Garrett homicide all portray a time in our history when county elections were a life and death matter. Until Mari Sandoz all that's mostly escaped the notice of fiction writers.

Slogum House should not be missed--it's certainly on a par withLonesome Dove. It's realistic and uncompromising--but don't lookfor the sweep of Lonesome Dove, or the shootouts of most westerns.The novel is about the Slogum family of Nebraska in the late 1800's and up to the 1930's. Gulla Slogum rules the ranch--she's greedyand unscrupulous--willing to prositute her daughters and encourageher sons to rob and kill in order to expand her small empire. Shekeeps a map, and slowly over the years is able to add new piecesto the Slogum holdings. The sheriff and judge are kept on thestring with payoffs--both money and the sexual favors of two ofthe daughters. There are no traditional shootouts--the sonsfind things are much safer if they shoot someone in the back witha rifle from a distance--why take chances? The husband, Ruedy, is well-meaning, but weak. The two youngestchildren, Libby and Ward, are decent people. There are othersover the years who come and go--such as Butch, Gulla's sadisticbrother. This is a portrayal of frontier life at it's best andit's worst--at a time when the indian fighting is past, and whenwe think that things are civilized. Reudy and Libby and Wardpersevere--they turn out to be the strongest ones in the end.So--no cattle drives, no shootouts in front of a saloon. In fact,almost all the scenes are at the ranch. It's a bleak, harsh, verytough picture of rural Nebraska. The writing is excellent--thereare no parts that you find yourself hurrying through. I keep 3-4copies--so that when I reread the book (about once a year) I canfind it easily.