Legends of the Old West - CRAIG JOHNSON INTERVIEW |"Land of Wolves"

Episode Date: September 22, 2019

New York Times best selling author, Craig Johnson, returns to the show to discuss his latest Walt Longmire mystery novel, "Land of Wolves." For all the aspiring authors in the audience, Craig also talks about some aspects of the writing process, including the "life blood" of novels. At the end, he previews the next installment of the Longmire series, entitled "The Next To Last Stand." For more details, please visit www.blackbarrelmedia.com and visit us on Facebook, Twitter and Instagram. Learn more about your ad choices. Visit megaphone.fm/adchoices

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a safe digital space to play in. Download Fortnite on consoles, PC, cloud services, or Android and play Lego Fortnite for free. Rated ESRB E10+. Discover more value than ever at Loblaws. Like Fresh Promise. Produce is carefully selected and checked for freshness. And if it's not fresh, it's free. Yes, you heard that right. From the crispest lettuce to the juiciest apples, Loblaws is committed to fresh, so you get the best fruits and veggies. Look for new value programs when you shop at Loblaws, in-store and online. Conditions may apply. See in-store for details. Welcome to what's becoming an annual tradition here on the Legends of the Old West podcast.

My interview with New York Times bestselling author Craig Johnson about his latest Walt Longmire mystery novel. The newest installment in the series is called Land of Wolves, and Craig and I reunited at the Poison Pen Bookstore in Scottsdale, Arizona to talk about it. As you'll hear, this interview took place two days after the release of the book, so we stayed clear of any major spoilers. You are going to hear about a couple small details, but I promise they don't give anything away about the plot or the twists or anything like that. And we also talked a little bit about writing, because I know we've got some authors or some aspiring authors in the audience, so I think you'll hear some good stuff from Craig on that topic. And finally, just a

quick update on another update that's coming out soon. I've planned a major update about the show for a long time, but every time I get ready to release it, something new happens and it delays the update. So I'll be back in a couple weeks to fully explain what's been going on and why we've been gone for so long and what's coming up in the future. Some great things have happened over the last few months, but I just want to wait until they're totally finalized before I talk about them. Thanks for your patience during this unexpectedly long break and this longer than normal opening.

So now let's get to Craig Johnson and our discussion of Land of Wolves. Craig, thanks for coming back. I appreciate it. This is round three on the Legends of the Old West podcast. It is. Does that mean I'm a veteran? I thought about it this morning.

You have the exalted status of being the only recurring guest on this show. Oh, my goodness. You have the distinction of being the only one who's been back more than once. Oh, wow. I am a combat-hardened veteran. Tell you what, thank you very much for enduring it three tours. My pleasure.

Absolutely my pleasure. So what I thought we might do this time around, luckily this time, if any listeners who would have heard last year's episode, I had not quite finished the audiobook version before we sat down to do this. This year, I can say that I have finished the book. Okay. The whole thing is in the bag. Don't give anything away. I'm not going to give anything away.

That's what I was going to say. We've got several things to talk about with the book. They're all going to be talked about obliquely and in vague terms. I'm just laughing because I'm always telling other people, don't give anything away. And then, inevitably, I'm the one that gives something away. Like I said, don't. You're fine. We're going to try and stay clear of them.

I do want to touch on some things, but we'll obviously stay vague. I don't want to spoil anything. We're doing this interview two days after the book is coming out. When people hear this episode, if they listen to it fairly soon after it's released, it'll still be within a week. So we definitely don't want to give anything away for anyone who picks up the book down the road. So I wanted to do a couple of things. I want to talk about the book in a couple of ways. But I also want to talk to you about writing in general so that we don't get too deep into the book and reveal any spoilers.

I know that we have some aspiring authors in the audience. I've met them and talked to them. I know that there are just some new authors. They've written one or two books. And so I just want to hear some stories from you and hear some of your tales that might help them as they're moving through the process i'll do my best i'll try so we're going to split time a little bit we'll kind of bounce back and forth but i wanted to start here because i love this was a fantastic moment in the book which harkened back to our very first interview in billings wyoming at the western writers

convention i asked you for a story that you love from the Old West. And you told me the story of Buffalo Bill Cody's body. And that story made its way into the book. And I'm not going to give too many details away about it, but I thought that was interesting. So how did that story make it in? And that was, I had a huge smile on my face listening to it and remembering our first interview. You know, I got um what happened was is i i acquired a cabin up in the bighorn mountains an old cabin um way up there about 8 000 feet like it and uh and i you know started doing the research on it because it was kind of an odd cabin you know the way it was structured and everything just didn't seem like the usual mountain cabin and i thought there must

be some kind of a history to this thing or something and come to find out that it actually was you know the headquarters for the national order of cowboy rangers and uh and so that's you know where I started like digging up the ideas and getting the idea that like you know well there's got to be a story to go along with this and there were a lot of stories to go along with this but the the big epic one was the one where you know they actually dispatched a couple of riders from Lodge 34 or Ranch 34, which was where that particular, I guess, social group happened to be, like a fraternal group happened to be. And they're the ones that went after the body of Buffalo Bill down in Denver,

like to try and bring it back. And I kind of thought, okay, well, if I'm going to float this cabin into Walt's world, and it's going to be part of his lexicon, then maybe I probably need to advance that idea and get that idea out there already like that so that when I do write that particular book, you know, it'll, you know, it'll have a little bit of a backstory to it already. All right. So that's all those. So those threads that are in the book as well, like the cabin and all that history that you detail in the book about that group of rangers, that's all true. It is. Maybe what we'll have to do is you'll have to come up like that and we'll do the next episode you

know off the porch you know the cabin that'd be fantastic can it just be rented out for a long period sure sure well i'm working on it right now i need a little bit of work it might resemble walt's cabin oh yeah maybe worse maybe far worse okay well at least we can sit on the front porch as long as it has a working front porch. That's really the best part of the whole operation. Perfect. Well, thinking about small other details that you worked in there, I did love a small one that I want to reveal here that's not really a spoiler,

but I love the inclusion of these Tom Mix toy badges. And this is going to get into a writing question as well. I love that. So how did you discover these? Are these real? You tend to put a lot of these little real details in there. Where did you find that one? Well, they're the real deal.

I've actually got one sitting on my writing desk. I assume you probably do. Oh, yeah, yeah. And so I just started thinking about it, and I thought, okay, I needed something. I don't want to give too much away, but there was a character there that didn't speak. And he needed an ability to kind of draw attention to himself at one point in the story. I don't want to give too much away, but there was a character there that didn't speak. He needed an ability to draw attention to himself at one point in the story, maybe twice in the story or three times in the story. I started thinking about it, and I thought, okay, that might work.

Then I started thinking, how in the heck do you get some toy from the late 1940s into the hands of a kid nowadays? I started working on that idea, and I thought, okay, well, if Ruby can't get a drawer opener, it won't close all the way, and they discovered that these were actually leftovers from when Lucian Connelly was the sheriff there in Absaroka County and used to give them away to kids. It seemed like a way to kind of go back and touch base with a previous period, like include Lucian in that storyline, but then also do everything that I needed it previous period, like that include, you know, Lucian in that storyline, but then also do everything that I needed it to do, like that to actually, you know, draw attention to, you know, this child, like that without him being able to speak.

You know, you always run into certain problems whenever you have a character who has limitations, you know, in speech patterns like that, because if they have to convey something in the plot, like that then, you know, it starts getting a little bit tough. And so it was, you know, it was a way to try and solve that problem. something in the plot, then it starts getting a little bit tough. And so it was a way to try and solve that problem. Do you enjoy writing challenges like that for yourself? When you come up with an idea, do you quickly then realize,

oh, okay, if I really want to use this, now I have to figure out the challenge of how this is going to work and where's the backstory come from? Do you find that as a fun part of the process, kind of almost painting yourself into a corner to a degree and then figuring out how to get out of it? Oh, yeah. And I think that in a lot of ways, when you're writing that first draft, that's when you discover all those problems. And then you've got plenty of time to go through and try and figure the answers out. And hopefully you will. You don't want to ever make a situation that you're like, well, what you have to do then is you have to abandon the idea. It's always very painful to have to do that. So I was fortunate

that I thought, okay, wait a minute. And of course, I had one laying on my desk, which kind of made it a little bit easier. But yeah, and then trying to make that connection between the epic, romantic American West and then the contemporary West, that's always a challenge too. Yeah, I do want to talk about that in a second, but I want to focus for a quick second on some of those details. Like the Tom Mix badge, I think is interesting. So I guessed you probably had one of those, or at least you'd seen one of those. You seem to put a lot of those things in, like the cabin that we just talked about. I didn't know that that was probably real life, but you go into such thorough detail about some of these things. It feels like they have to be drawn somewhat from personal

experience. So for a writing question, how important do you think those kinds of details are both maybe in a plot function and then the character details? And the one that really springs to mind is Vic's eye color or the tarnished gold that you always used to describe her eyes. color or the tarnished gold that you always use to describe her eyes for aspiring authors how how reliable how how big do you think those details are to put in your book that's your life blood is what it is if you if you don't you know i mean you can be generic like that you know whenever you're writing but that really isn't going to lead anywhere like that i mean you have to be as specific as you can possibly be one of the biggest things i biggest mistakes that I see a lot of young writers make is they're always shooting for a universal quality to try and reach as many readers and get as much of an impact

as they possibly can. They think to do that, the best way to do it is to leave a lot of detail out. I think that that's a major mistake. You've really got to try and put as much detail as you can possibly tolerate, you know, into your books. Now, of course, there's always going to be an overload factor. There's a point in time where you're like, okay, this is getting a little bit stupid. You know, and I remember when I was writing Kindness Goes Unpunished, my wife, Judy, I was so concerned with the fact that here I was, this cowboy writer out of Wyoming, writing a book that took place in

Philadelphia. You know, I put everything in there. I put every street name, I put every building, every fountain, every statue, everything. And finally, when Judy read the rough draft, she said, this thing reads like a Fodor's Guide. You're going to have to get rid of a lot of this stuff, because it's breaking up the flow, you know, of the book. And she was right. She was absolutely right. And so I, you know, yanked a bunch of that stuff back out because it wasn't essential you know to the to the storyline i was just trying to show off the fact that i had done the research you know and i knew what i was talking about but um yeah i i think you know that the the essential then the more detailed that you can be

you know the better off you're going to be with your novel like that i mean you know because readers are sharp readers are very very sharp And they retain a lot of those details. I mean, I'll be writing a book, eight books down the road, and somebody will write and say, hey, about eight books ago, you said blah, blah, blah. So you've got to make sure you get it right. Because if you don't, then you've broken that wall. And then they don't see it as a real place or real characters. That's always what you're shooting for, like it is the actuality.

Do you think those kinds of details and that type of character development is what's, at least to some extent, helped these novels become a success, not only here, but worldwide? You're just at the beginning of another cross-country tour. You've done European tours to support books. And everybody seems to, I'm constantly surprised at this worldwide following of this small town sheriff, as you like to say, in the least populated county, the least populated state. It's fascinating to me. I love it. But we're here in America. We grew up in a small city in a rural state. We love the Western United States. But people in Germany love these books and France and everywhere else.

Is at least the character development somewhat attributable to that? Oh, I think absolutely that that's the case. Like any other genre, whether it be mystery, whether it be Western, whether it be romance, science fiction, whatever, you can't abandon character. You can't abandon the details that are going to make that character real. And, you know, I think an awful lot of readers, like, they expect that to a certain extent, you know, that they're not going to give that up, you know, and they're not going to forgive you, you know, if you try and, like, ride roughshod over that idea like that. And so I think that, yeah, those small details,

like, are what are going to, like, make or break, you know, the character. They're going to make or break the plot, too. It's not just plot too it's not just character its place you know you have to be as detailed as you can possibly be you know about about that place you know and the only way I don't know I guess I would have a hard time you know if I lived in an apartment in New York or LA or something and trying to write about Wyoming especially that specific part of Wyoming that I write about it would be very difficult for me to do that, because I go out and I have these bits and pieces of Wyoming, the smell, the sound, the taste,

the look, the color, the temperature, all of those things are so, so important to me, and they inform Walt to such an extent. In the beginning of this book, Walt talks about the wind. You know, he talks about the wind, you know. Sure, sure, yeah. At the edge of the big parks, you know, up in the big horns, you know, asking the trees basically to come out and dance, like, you know.

And the question becomes, you know, do the trees, you know, miss the wind, you know, whenever the wind is gone, you know. And, first of all, it doesn't happen very often that the wind is gone in Wyoming. It sounds like, from what I heard in the book, it sounds like you guys have pretty constant wind. It pretty much is. gone you know and first of all it doesn't happen very often the wind is gone in Wyoming. From what I heard in the book it sounds like you guys have pretty constant wind. It pretty much is I think it was that the Eskimos have 50 words for snow like we in Wyoming have 50 words for wind like most of them not usable in polite society like it and so but you know those are the actualities of place and I think that you know if you leave those things out you got a problem on your hands.

Yeah actually I in similar straits I remember writing a screenplay set in west texas while living in la and i'd been to central texas i'd been to austin but i'd never been to west texas i'd seen you know i'd seen movies and i'd seen that kind of thing but i there's i think imagination can only take you so far yeah when you're trying at least for scenery location those kinds of things you've never been there there's only so far your imagination can take you without losing a little bit of authenticity. And an awful lot of the time, it's not the big, epic stuff that's going to sell the idea. It can be something very small and seemingly insignificant.

But suddenly, it's what it is that sells the idea. It perfectly describes what exactly it is that you're trying to say. And, you know, boy, being out there and listening and hearing and all that is the only way to get those. Yeah, for sure. There's no question. And you mentioned it a second ago, so I do want to come back to this idea of the contemporary West versus maybe the old-time Westerns. And I've been curious about this as I've watched the rise of the TV show Yellowstone that has become a very popular summer hit now. I think it's now the most popular show on cable TV in the summertime. It's got huge ratings, doing very well for Paramount. The creator of that show has made a nice career for himself out of

producing things like that. And I wanted to ask you, as you travel across the country and across the world, how are you seeing the Western United States, the modern West? How much do people talk about that? How are people viewing that kind of world? I think I'm seeing, I feel like, or maybe it's a little wishful thinking. I feel like I'm seeing a little bit of resurgence of material set in the West and having this modern West feel from your books and the TV show Longmire to Yellowstone. The Paramount Network's got another show coming out in 2020 that's set in the Southwest. There seems to be a little bit more of this focus than I remember several years ago. Are you seeing any of this?

Well, you're always going to fight that juggernaut of the epic, romantic American West of the past, the period West. And, you know, I mean, that's the biggest difficulty, of course. I mean, I'm always sitting there, you know, in those meetings with the Western Writers Association. And as always, there are all these people that are trying to rewrite, you know, Louis L'Amour and Zane Gray. And I'm always like, Louis L'Amour and Zane Gray were pretty good at writing. Louis L'Amour and Zane Gray, maybe you need to try something different. You know, and so for me, the obvious thing was, the obvious thing was is that try and do something contemporary. Because, I mean, I kind of write what I tend to refer to as socially responsible crime fiction.

And so I hope that the things that I'm discussing, the things I'm talking about, I'm trying to get something, a message across. And it's a lot easier to do in the world that we live in. And so, I don't know. As far as the media is concerned concerned am I seeing more and more involvement like it you know in a higher rate and a lot more of the you know the contemporary West I don't know I don't know it seems like you know yeah there are a couple of shows out there now like that and every once in a while a movie

will pop up you know but I think if you did a comparison contrast and did contemporary westerns versus period westerns, period westerns are always the ones that win. Because everybody likes to ride the horses and shoot the bad guys and do all that stuff. So I don't know. I think there's always going to be a niche. I would hope that it helps that resurgence of the West as a whole, as a genre. That contemporary stuff, you know, kind of helps to kind of, you know, move that process along a little bit.

I guess maybe by the same token, are you seeing any kind of uptick as far as fans are concerned? Is there potentially a more growing appetite? Certainly if Hollywood is greenlighting more shows and if maybe we're seeing more books written that it's a pretty clear indication that you want that material kind of where I'm basing some of this on yeah yeah I think that's definitely the case I mean you know I you know obviously you know with the success of Longmire I know and the fact that it's on Netflix and it's streaming 24 7 like that it's not like you know we're waiting for reruns to come on or anything like that it's on now all the time.

And so what's been kind of interesting to see with that is, of course, that it does trend. And it was interesting, too, because when the new book came out, when Land of Wolves came out here just, you know what, two days ago, suddenly Longmire was trending on Netflix again. Really? And we're still one of the top 15 shows on Netflix. And so that's kind of interesting to see, you know, whenever you've got a symbiotic kind of relationship between books and TV shows and movies and that type of thing, then yeah, I think one's going to advance the other. There are two ways about it. Yeah, I guess it doesn't, I hadn't thought about that, but it makes perfect sense that I'm sure there is, like I just said a second ago, an uptick in

popularity of the Longmire TV show. When you release a new book, everybody wants to come back and they use the TV show to launch a reading of a new book, and they both work together back and forth and fuel each other. They do, they do. And it's interesting, too, because there's an awful lot of people out there that actually go back and reread all the books before they read the new book. Wow. That's a commitment.

Used to, that was not that big of a deal. But now that there are 15 of them you know it's it's you know quite an advancement but um but yeah and then you know the the every day i'm still getting like emails from people that say you know i just found the tv show you know on netflix you know and i've started reading the books okay you know they'll watch the tv show seven times they'll binge you know all six seasons about seven or eight times and then they'll decide okay if i want any more right now you know it looks like i'm gonna have to you know jump in to read some books okay but it's kind of interesting too because you know you

mentioned you know about Paramount and Yellowstone and all these things I mean what's going on right now is kind of interesting in the in that particular you know business simply because they all it's interesting been interesting to watch all of the studios are slowly but surely kind of like you know pulling their material back from a lot of these um streaming platforms and starting up their own streaming platforms you know like Warner Brothers just you know what six months ago said that they were going to start doing their own and uh of course Paramount doing theirs Disney doing theirs all these different groups and I think what happened of course, Paramount doing theirs, Disney doing theirs, all these different groups. And I think what happened, of course, is they discovered that making TV shows and movies is hard.

Having streaming platforms is actually rather easy. But, yeah, that does make total sense that it's almost a return to the old Hollywood system, the vertical Hollywood system where they owned the theaters, the production, the distribution, everything. So I think we finished up. We took a quick little break in there for all the listeners. So I think we finished up the, we took a quick little break in there for all the listeners. So hopefully we finished up and made our points about the kind of studio system and Hollywood now finding that direct pipeline to the audience with the streaming system. Yeah, if you're Warner Brothers, Disney has learned, why not send your stuff directly to the streaming service where everyone's watching their shows anyway.

So we're going to see, you're right, we're going to see a huge rise in that. So maybe that's just new outlets for these new types of content. I'm hoping that's the case. It doesn't turn back into an old studio system where they have so much control. They can strangle out the things that they really don't want to do, like Westerns. I'm hoping that won't be the case. But I don't know. As long as there's an interest, as long as there's a viewership, you know, a viewership, you know, they're going to go with it. Right. No question. Yeah. If they think there's potential for it, they're going to make it.

So let's wrap up with two questions back on the book about Walt. OK, so again, I'm not going to give any details here. We'll talk around this central piece, but a new piece of technology has been introduced into Walt's life in this book. And we're not going to reveal what it is. I'm sure the listeners and anyone reading the books will enjoy that. What made it, what made now the right time to introduce this specific piece of technology? You know, I don't think it'll give anything away if we talk about what specific piece of... Okay, it's up to you. I wasn't going to stay coy with it. I appreciate that. I appreciate that. Well, actually what happened was, is I was talking to a dispatcher from, I did a speech for the Wyoming Dispatchers Association. And there was one dispatcher there who still would print out the emails of her sheriff and leave them on his desk so that he could handwrite the responses.

And then she could go back and retype them in and answer his emails. Wow, that's real too. It is. She'd had it. She'd had it and she lowered the boom on him and said, hey, look, you're either going to start, you're going to get a computer and you're going to start answering your own emails or else I'm retiring. And boy, nothing scares the living daylights out of a sheriff as much as their dispatchers

and that they're going to walk out the door and never look back. And so I started thinking about it and I thought, okay, boy, nothing scares the living daylights out of a sheriff as much as their dispatchers, that they're going to walk out the door and never look back. And so I started thinking about it, and I thought, okay, well, Ruby's of a certain age where she's finally gotten to the point where she's kind of had it. It's become a luxury for Walt to not have to do this. And so it starts complicating things around the office there whenever this computer first arrives. And it's certainly humorous what happens throughout the entirety of the book. I mean, that's always something that, you know, you always get surprised by. Like, at least I do. I mean, I really went into this book thinking that, you know, boy, the issues that this book deals with are really dark, really weighty, you know, kind of social issues.

Yeah. You know, and so I thought this is going to be a really serious book. You know, and then After Depth of Winter, which was another book that was really serious, like in many ways, you know, kind of like, you know, in comparison with the other books that I've done, like a little bit hyper violent. But, you know, you try and do something different with each one. And I thought, OK, well, this is going to be a, you know, it's going to be a really kind of serious book.

And then I don't think what I took into consideration was Vic kind of comes roaring back with a vengeance. And so she and Henry are always characters that I can count on for a lot of humor in the books. And so in this one, she came roaring back. And there was a lot more humor in the book than I suspected whenever I first started. There was a lot more humor in the book than I suspected, you know, whenever I first started. And then, you know, the other major aspect, of course, is that technological, you know, aspect of trying to drag Walt Longmire kicking and screaming into the 19th century, you know. And so, you know, he just doesn't respond very well to technology. It's not something that he does really well.

So it'll be interesting to see what people think about how I deal with that in the end, you know, if I've, you know, summed it up, you know, to their satisfaction or not. Well, I know that I got particular enjoyment out of the character of Sancho. Cesar Vittoria. Yeah, Sancho Cesar Vittoria. Sancho, yeah. I knew I was gonna screw it up. I knew I was gonna screw up his full name. So I was reaching for the shorthand and I missed that too. Generally what people do is they write me and go, the bass character with the 13 letter name is what they do. I'll have to start doing that but I just I was picturing scenes in there of him actually setting up computers for the office and it just it was like flashbacks of every anyone who's had to set up their computer has been through that crawling under the desk piecing it all together something's not going to work so those were I

love those moments those and they weren't necessarily written to be particularly humorous, but just the fact that they happened, everybody's been through that. And Walt has no intuitive knowledge of computers. And that's really funny. Well, and so it's annoying to everybody else because he doesn't know anything. So, I mean, even when he's trying to send an email, and Ruby is like, it's the little paper airplane up on the right-hand corner. He's like, paper airplane, that's clever. Left click and right click are challenges for Walt, which is

priceless. Priceless. And so that was the first half of the Walt stuff that I want to use to wrap up with. The second half is more serious, that this book finds Walt in a more introspective, The second half is more serious, that this book finds Walt in a more introspective, contemplative world. And he's contemplating different things throughout the book that are new to Walt's world. And so, again, without talking too much specifically about them, how much of that kind of stuff that the readers will certainly understand and see is just natural aftermath from the trauma of Mexico? And how much of it is maybe genuinely hinting at things that might come in Walt's life down the road. Oh, absolutely. Like,

I mean, you know, whenever, you know, when Walt gets ready to go down into Mexico, like, and Henry looks at him and says, you're going to have to go back and you're going to have to find that guy that you were in Vietnam because what you're walking into here is not a police action. You're walking into a war. And if you are not ready for that, then you're not going to make it back. So Walt does. Walt unpacks that individual that he was as a Marine investigator in Tan Sonat Air Force Base in Vietnam, like that back in 1968. Well, after unpacking that individual from the footlocker, he discovers that that individual does not want to go back into the Dark Knight gently. He's not going back easy.

So Walt's having to be confronted with himself, a past self that may be a little bit dangerous. So what that does, of course, is that not only is Walt, in many ways it kind of harkens back a little bit to the proverb that is the title of the book, that a land of strangers is a land of wolves. And Walt finds himself as a stranger in a strange land in his own home. He can't make it all the way home. And then even worse, as a stranger to himself, he doesn't recognize who he himself is. And it starts having psychological difficulties for him to try and overcome that.

I write the books in a cyclical pattern, and they're a seasonal pattern, so it takes four books to get through one year of Walt's life. And of course, I've said it before, the great thing about that is Walt doesn't age as fast as the rest of us. So I can keep him going for a lot longer than, you know, anybody would suspect like that. And then the other thing is, is that it gives a resonance to each book. I mean, when you have, you know, a new book come out, it's only a month or two after the last book. And so I don't have the luxury of being able to ignore what happened in the previous book. I mean, he's got to deal with the things that happened. And, and in this one happened and in this one particularly it's the chickens have kind of come home to roost.

Yeah how do you how do you repack that person that you had to unpack basically he's trying to put it back but obviously it's not going to be an easy process. No he's not going into the eiderdown real easy no. No and so yeah so I believe this is in the spring right it takes place in March so this is the spring book and next time we'll have time we'll have a summer book. We will. Again, following your typical pattern, it typically goes outside of Walt's comfort zone. A little bit, a little bit. Do you want a preview? If you want a preview, go ahead.

Sure, sure, sure. Like you just said, everybody wants more. I'm 13 chapters into that one already. When do you take a break? Do you ever stop, or is it just continuous? No, I had to do about 20 cords of firewood and I had to do about 10 tons of hay. Jack hammered an old hearth out of the old cabin up there on the mountains and stuff. There's a lot of physical work involved. There's nothing like working with a jackhammer for about three hours to make you think,

you know, damn, I like being a writer. It's one of those moments like that. They really hit me there. But, you know, it's a joy. I mean, I love the writing process. That's, for me, the big thing is I really still enjoy it after 15 years. I'm having a great time. And it's not boring like that because I'm able to do, you know,

with the literary press I'm with, I'm able to go in any direction I want, do whatever I want to do. And Walt is, you know, very conducive to whatever it is that I might be interested in writing about. But, yeah, the next one's actually called The Next to Last Stand. Okay. And I will tell you that probably the biggest item in the entire book is a painting by a painter by the name of Cassile Adams. And I know you've seen the painting because it's called Custer's Last Fight. And to give you the history of it first, before you find out where it is that you've seen it,

Cassile Adams painted this painting about maybe, I don't know, maybe 10 years after the actual Little Bighorn Battle. And at that period in time, a lot of what artists would do is they would paint these big, huge canvases. And this one was like about nine and a half feet by 16 and a half feet. And then what they would do is they would take them out and tour them all over the country and charge people two bits to go in and see the painting. And basically the idea being that you would be seeing history you would see it in the way it was I mean this is before movies before TV all that kind of stuff so they would tour these book I mean tour these paintings like it well they took this painting out they

toured it they brought it back to st. Louis you know where Cassie Lee Adams lived like that and he there was a big saloon near the train station in st. Louis like that and they bought the painting, and they put it up on their wall as a conversation piece. So there it was in the saloon in St. Louis for a number of years until the saloon went bankrupt. And their biggest creditor was a then, at that time, not-so-large brewery called Anheuser-Busch. time not so large brewery called Anheuser-Busch and Augie Bush walks down to the saloon like it looks around at him and says you owe me $10,000 and they said we don't have any money at all we're bankrupt and he goes I'll take the

painting again so they took the painting off the wall took it back into the headquarters of Budweiser like it and Budweiser you know and Bush decides you know what you know I'm gonna make posters out of this thing we're gonna make prints and I'm gonna send them to every bar and every saloon in the American, all over the country, everywhere. And I can't remember how many copies they made. I believe it was over two million copies that they made of this print, of this painting. So I know, I'm pretty sure you've been in a saloon or a bar at one point in time,

even just to go in and get changed to park your car. I glanced in a couple times. Exactly, exactly. And so it may be the most seen art in American history, for gosh sakes. you know, it's quite possible that this painting, you know, in many ways, other than, you know, Libby Custer, you know, was one of the things that made Custer as much of, you know, this, this, you know, this bigger than life legend than, you know, than he possibly was. And of course, it sold a lot of beer for Budweiser, look at, and they became the largest brewer in the United States. And so after giving out, you know, millions of these posters that they actually

even like sent, you know, tubed posters, look at, to servicemen in World War I, for gosh sakes. Wow. Still then they were still going strong. And then after World War I, I think it was in the 30s, I think it was, they shut down the idea of doing any more posters. And then they made a gift of the painting to the 7th Cavalry. At that point, the 7th Cavalry was in Fort Bliss, Texas. And so they gave the painting back to them, and they put it up on the walls of their commissary. And it was there until 1946 when the commissary burned down and the painting was destroyed.

Oh, no. Or was it? Uh-oh. Mystery. So that's the beginnings of The Next to Last stand. Walt's first art heist book. Oh, perfect. There's your cliffhanger, listeners. Maybe it burned down, maybe it didn't. Here we go. Cool. Yeah, obviously that's a great way to relate the title. Fantastic. Looking forward to it next year. Maybe we'll be talking to you again right here at the Poison Pen next year. Or up at the cabin, either way. At the cabin would be better. I would love to see that. Who

knows where you'll be at in the reconstruction. Absolutely, absolutely. As long as you've got a front porch with a couple rocking chairs, something like that, we could all bring the bourbon. Oh, yeah. I'm pretty sure the insulation will be done, the ceilings will be done, the floors will be done, all the stoves and hearths will be all finished. So I think by next year it will actually be remarkably habitable.

Perfect. Keep it in mind. I look forward to seeing it. Thank you very much. My pleasure. Thanks to Craig for another great interview. I hope to talk to him again next year at the Poison Pen or maybe at his cabin in the mountains. Who knows?

And thank you all for listening. I'll be back soon with the full update. Talk to you then. Si vous faites vos achats tout en travaillant, en mangeant ou même en écoutant ce balado, alors vous connaissez et aimez l'excitation du magasinage. Mais avez-vous ce frisson d'obtenir le meilleur deal? Les membres de Rakuten, eux, oui. Ils magasinent les marques qu'ils aiment et font d'importantes économies, en plus des remises en argent. Et vous pouvez aussi commencer à gagner des remises en argent dans vos magasins préférés, comme Old Navy, Best Buy et Expedia, et même cumuler les ventes et les remises en argent. Sous-titrage Société Radio-Canada Rechargez l'application gratuite Rakuten et ne manquez jamais un bon deal. Ou allez sur rakuten.ca pour en avoir plus pour votre argent. C'est R-A-K-U-T-E-N.