{"id":1847,"date":"2013-06-26T21:25:57","date_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:25:57","guid":{"rendered":"http:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/?p=1847"},"modified":"2013-06-26T21:25:57","modified_gmt":"2013-06-26T15:25:57","slug":"on-morris-collinss-knockout-debut-novel-horse-latitudes-and-the-anxiety-of-influence-part-2","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/williamjcobb.com\/blog\/index.php\/2013\/06\/26\/on-morris-collinss-knockout-debut-novel-horse-latitudes-and-the-anxiety-of-influence-part-2\/","title":{"rendered":"On Morris Collins's Knockout Debut Novel, "Horse Latitudes," and the Anxiety of Influence, Part 2"},"content":{"rendered":"

So in my review\/comments about Kent Wascom’s debut novel The Blood of Heaven<\/em> I mentioned how the press release hyped it as being similar to Cormac McCarthy, which it is, stylistically, but how I don’t think his feet should be held over that (intense & burning) fire. And with Phillip Meyer’s Texas epic\u00a0The Son<\/em> coming out virtually the same time, which has subject-matter similarities to McCarthy, it does seem there’s a herd of All the Little McCarthys stampeding over the literary prairie. But it’s not like McCarthy\u2014great (and my favorite) that he is\u2014is the only writer in the world. There’s a Justice League of great writers out there for others to follow and emulate. I’m reading Dosteyevsky’s Brothers Karamazov<\/em> (1880) right now, noticing how different the style is from the average North American Scribbler<\/em><\/em> contemporaneous<\/em>.
\nAnd reading Morris Collins’s terrific debut novel, Horse Latitudes<\/em>, I’m impressed with the influence of Graham Greene on his fiction. You never seem to hear much about Graham Greene anymore, although in his prime, post-WWII, he was considered one of the greats, one of the Big Names. Novels like The Heart of the Matter<\/em> (1948) and Our Man in Havana<\/em> (1958) were all the rage. Greene deserves a place in the international company of greats such as Vladimir Nabokov and Joseph Conrad.
\nGreene’s a Brit, and Morris Collins an American, but Collins picks up on some of the same quirks and scratchy realities of being a less-than-innocent abroad. In Horse Latitudes<\/em> Collins describes a man from Boston in Latin America, both hanging out and hanging on, and he makes for a 21st century anti-hero in the era of Globalization, trying to do the right thing but not without getting his hands dirty. Horse Latitudes<\/em> has the best qualities of literary influence: Collins follows a great tradition while reinventing the world with his own individual stamp of originality. Plus he has a bird (and skull) on the cover, to boot.
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So in my review\/comments about Kent Wascom’s debut novel The Blood of Heaven I mentioned how the press release hyped it as being similar to Cormac McCarthy, which it is, stylistically, but how I don’t think his feet should be … Continue reading →<\/span><\/a><\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"om_disable_all_campaigns":false,"_monsterinsights_skip_tracking":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_active":false,"_monsterinsights_sitenote_note":"","_monsterinsights_sitenote_category":0,"_uf_show_specific_survey":0,"_uf_disable_surveys":false,"footnotes":""},"categories":[7,1],"tags":[55,66,85,95,125],"class_list":["post-1847","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-books","category-uncategorized","tag-book-reviewing","tag-cormac-mccarthy","tag-fiction-writing","tag-good-fiction","tag-morris-collins"],"aioseo_notices":[],"aioseo_head":"\n\t\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t\n\t\t