Author Interview with Preston Lewis for Outlaw West of the Pecos

INTERVIEW WITH PRESTON LEWIS

 You are best known for writing humorous westerns and historical novels.  Why humor?

Every writer needs a niche and western humor is mine.  I didn’t start out that way, but an editor with Bantam recognized I had a knack for odd takes on traditional western themes and personalities and suggested I try humor.  Some readers who might not pick up a traditional action-oriented western might tackle one if they think they’ll get a chuckle or two out of it.  With humor perhaps I can draw more readers to the genre.

Haven’t your comic westerns have been recognized with several writing awards? 

I’ve certainly been blessed with several awards for my humor writing.  The first book in the Lomax series—The Demise of Billy the Kid—is the only one that didn’t receive some sort of recognition.  The Redemption of Jesse James and Mix-Up at the O.K. Corral were both Spur finalists from Western Writers of America.  Bluster’s Last Stand and First Herd to Abilene were both Will Rogers Gold Medallion Award recipients while North to Alaska earned a Will Rogers Silver Medallion Award, all for written western humor.  Additionally, my standalone western caper The Fleecing of Fort Griffin, another comic novel, received an Elmer Kelton Award from the West Texas Historical Association for best creative work on West Texas.

You seemed to have fun with Judge Roy Bean in Outlaw West of the Pecos, did you not? 

Bean was a colorful and exuberant character in real life and lent himself to some fictional comic elaboration.  I hope I have embellished his reputation with plausible interactions with H.H. Lomax, my protagonist.  Too, Bean was—with Lomax’s help—the man who resolved the issues behind the most bizarre heavyweight title fight in boxing history by hosting the bout on a sandbar in the middle of the Rio Grande River.  The Bob Fitzsimmons-Peter Maher Prizefight occurred on February 21, 1896, outside Bean’s hometown of Langtry, Texas, after months of national controversy about allowing the fight to even take place.  It was the perfect situation for Lomax to interject himself.

It seems like wherever H.H. Lomax goes, legends of the Old West die.  In Outlaw West of the Pecos, it’s John Wesley Hardin who meets his maker.  How many notches does Lomax have on his gun?

(Laughs)  I never thought about it that way, but Lomax certainly got around, though he would never carve a notch on his pistol because he might need to hock it one day.  But I guess if you tally it up, he was in the vicinity when Billy the Kid, Jesse James, George Armstrong Custer, Wild Bill Hickok, Soapy Smith and John Wesley Hardin crossed the final river.  When I started the series, my editors wanted Lomax to encounter the legends of the Old West with a twist of humor and irony, so that’s what I’ve tried to do.  Many of the frontier legends were vagabonds that went where the money or the action was.  So, it’s plausible he could’ve been in all those locations where legends went to die.  It’s also possible he had the fastest tongue in the west!

Is it true that both Judge Roy Bean and John Wesley Hardin were interested in seeing books published about themselves?

It is indeed.  Bean, always a self-promoter, desired to broaden his fame and Hardin desired to justify his murderous past.  Bean never produced an autobiography at least that has been found.  Hardin did and it was published posthumously.  It’s sort of ironic that the worst judge and the worst lawyer in the history of Texas jurisprudence—and that’s against stiff competition in each category—both wanted biographies published on their lives.

What’s next for Lomax?

I began setting up the next book in Outlaw West of the Pecos with references to Oscar Wilde.  By a weird set of circumstances as Lomax always seems to find himself in, he winds up having to rob a bank as a matter of honor and ultimately winds up as personal bodyguard for Oscar Wilde during his 1882 American speaking tour.  I think the contrast between Lomax and Wilde will lead to plenty of laughs.  Volume 8 in the series is tentatively titled Call of the Wilde!  Clever, huh?