JAMES WADE'S HOLLOW OUT THE DARK

James Wade has been steadily rising in notoriety within the literary community. His examinations of male identity carried by his rich prose style have brought comparisons to one of his influences, Cormac McCarthy. However his later books have brought out another influence of his, Joe R. Lansdale. It is no more evident in his latest, Hollow Out The Dark.

The plot construction could have flowed from Elmore Leonard's mind with one man navigating several parties in conflict with one another. The setting is in Wade's native East Texas, during The Depression and on the back edge of Prohibition. The protagonist, Jesse Cole, a Great War vet, works to find peace and redemption in his home town of Enoch. When a friend gets on the wrong side of the county's biggest bootleggers. The Fenley Brothers, Squirrel and Frog, he feels duty bound to get involved. It pulls him into a two front battle the brothers have with Aron Atkins, a Texas Ranger brought in to pin a murder on them, and Zek Blackwell, a cold sociopath, who wears a mask worn by disfigured vets, out to take their territory. It becomes even more complicated when Jesse's old love, Adeline also becomes involved.

Like Leonard and Lansdale, James Wade utilizes dialogue in various forms. It can draw out as much of the plot in an interesting and exciting way as he does with action and violence. His characters have an ability to put a vivid movie in your head, directed in their own style. He reveals his people through their words. Like Joe R., he uses the base way of speaking in the region, then shades and defines each character through cadence and word choice to express their background and experience. Through this skill alone, he captures a certain Texas place and time.

He also has a lot of fun with that place and time. He uses it to connect the genres of the western with crime fiction. His frontier world exists outside the easy reach of modern early twentieth century society, allowing for outlaws to run and sometime forcing regular citizens to make a stand. Even the element like the cold winter wind Wade has running through the story can be an enemy as well. He is able to have pulp touches like Blackwell's mask and the old west vibe of Ranger Atkins, while still keeping those characters grounded. It even allows him to bring in a touch of southern gothic to keep that McCarthy influence.