{"product_id":"warlock-paperback","title":"Warlock - Paperback","description":"\u003cp\u003eby \u003cb\u003eOakley Hall\u003c\/b\u003e (Author), \u003cb\u003eRobert Stone\u003c\/b\u003e (Introduction by)\u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003eOakley Hall's legendary \u003ci\u003eWarlock\u003c\/i\u003e revisits and reworks the traditional conventions of the Western to present a raw, funny, hypnotic, ultimately devastating picture of American unreality. First published in the 1950s, at the height of the McCarthy era, Warlock is not only one of the most original and entertaining of modern American novels but a lasting contribution to American fiction. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003e\"Tombstone, Arizona, during the 1880's is, in ways, our national Camelot: a never-never land where American virtues are embodied in the Earps, and the opposite evils in the Clanton gang; where the confrontation at the OK Corral takes on some of the dry purity of the Arthurian joust. Oakley Hall, in his very fine novel Warlock has restored to the myth of Tombstone its full, mortal, blooded humanity. Wyatt Earp is transmogrified into a gunfighter named Blaisdell who . . . is summoned to the embattled town of Warlock by a committee of nervous citizens expressly to be a hero, but finds that he cannot, at last, live up to his image; that there is a flaw not only in him, but also, we feel, in the entire set of assumptions that have allowed the image to exist. . . . Before the agonized epic of Warlock is over with--the rebellion of the proto-Wobblies working in the mines, the struggling for political control of the area, the gunfighting, mob violence, the personal crises of those in power--the collective awareness that is Warlock must face its own inescapable Horror: that what is called society, with its law and order, is as frail, as precarious, as flesh and can be snuffed out and assimilated back into the desert as easily as a corpse can. It is the deep sensitivity to abysses that makes \u003ci\u003eWarlock\u003c\/i\u003e one of our best American novels. For we are a nation that can, many of us, toss with all aplomb our candy wrapper into the Grand Canyon itself, snap a color shot and drive away; and we need voices like Oakley Hall's to remind us how far that piece of paper, still fluttering brightly behind us, has to fall.\" --Thomas Pynchon\u003ch3\u003eAuthor Biography\u003c\/h3\u003e\u003cp\u003eOakley Hall was born in 1920 in San Diego and grew up there and in Honolulu, where his mother moved after his parents' divorce. After graduating from the University of California, Berkeley, Hall joined the Marine Corps and was stationed in the Pacific during the Second World War. Following the war, and with the aid of the GI Bill, he continued his studies in France, Switzerland, and England, returning to the US to receive an MFAin creative writing from the Iowa Writers' Workshop. Hall published his first book, \u003ci\u003eMurder City\u003c\/i\u003e, in 1949 and his most recent, \u003ci\u003eAmbrose Bierce\u003c\/i\u003e and the \u003ci\u003eAce of Shoots\u003c\/i\u003e, in 2005. In between he wrote more than twenty works of fiction and nonfiction, including the novels \u003ci\u003eThe Downhill Racers, Separations\u003c\/i\u003e, and \u003ci\u003eWarlock\u003c\/i\u003e, which was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize in 1958; a libretto for the opera based on Wallace Stegner's\u003ci\u003eAngle of Repose\u003c\/i\u003e; and two guides to writing fiction. Hall was director of the writing program at the University of California, Irvine for twenty years and, in 1969, co-founded the Community of Writers at Squaw Valley, an annual writers' conference. Among his many honors are lifetime achievment awards from thePEN Center USA and the Cowboy Hall of Fame. Oakley Hall lives in San Francisco. \u003c\/p\u003e\u003cp\u003e\u003c\/p\u003eRobert Stone was born in Brooklyn in 1937. He is the author of seven novels: \u003ci\u003eA Hall of Mirrors, the National Book Award-winning Dog Soldiers, A Flag for Sunrise, Children of Light, Outerbridge Reach, Damascus Gate, \u003c\/i\u003e and\u003ci\u003e Bay of Souls\u003c\/i\u003e. He has also written short stories, essays, and screenplays, and published a short story collection, \u003ci\u003e Bear and His Daughter\u003c\/i\u003e, which was nominated for the Pulitzer Prize. He lives in New York City and in Key West, Florida.\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eNumber of Pages:\u003c\/strong\u003e 488\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003eDimensions:\u003c\/strong\u003e 1.06 x 8.02 x 5.32 IN\u003c\/div\u003e\u003cdiv\u003e\n\u003cstrong\u003ePublication Date:\u003c\/strong\u003e November 21, 2005\u003c\/div\u003e","brand":"Books by splitShops","offers":[{"title":"Default Title","offer_id":42167060103303,"sku":"9781590171615","price":19.95,"currency_code":"USD","in_stock":false}],"thumbnail_url":"\/\/cdn.shopify.com\/s\/files\/1\/0601\/2623\/2711\/files\/f1a5cd17c7d4ebcfbd3fdba95be0fa25.webp?v=1733324921","url":"https:\/\/booksby.splitshops.com\/products\/warlock-paperback","provider":"Books by splitShops","version":"1.0","type":"link"}