Ordinarily, I would plow through a 272-page borderland thriller from James Carlos Blake in handful of days. Maybe two. I haven’t done that with The Bones of Wolfe.
The demands of work — newspaper and Frontier Partisans — have forced me to slow it down and read in small chunks. Not necessarily the best way to let the momentum of Story sweep you up, but the upside is that I have a fine, pulpy world to slip into each evening — which has enhanced my already deep appreciation for Blake as the silver-tongued devil bard of outlaw masculinity.
Make no mistake, Blake’s recent spate of “Border Noirs” featuring the Wolfe Clan are faerie tales for men. That may sound dismissive or pejorative — but you all know better: Blake spins yarns that “re-enchant” the world with a vivid sense of freedom and virility that modern living tends to leach away.
I am quite certain that Blake would endorse the characterization. This is from a UK Crime Time interview on The House of Wolfe:
“My mother began reading to me almost as soon as I was out of the womb, mostly fairy tales, and so you could say my earliest storytelling inspirations were the Brothers Grimm and others of their ilk. Set in dark, spooky worlds fraught with mortal dangers of every sort, those stories were frightening but utterly absorbing, and I couldn’t get enough of them.”
The Wolfe Clan are true outlaws in the sense that they operate entirely outside any sovereignty other than their own. They are not beholden to external legal or moral constraints — but they are tightly bound to tradition and code. Bound by blood ties that extend back to a piratical ancestor, ties that extend from Texas down into Mexico, they wield power derived from a network of legitimate business holdings and what they call “The Shade Trade” — the original family enterprise of smuggling and gun-running.
Blake knows damn well that such an outfit makes the blood sing.
“I forget who it was that said we all have secrets that would shame hell, but the dude was right on the money. Excluding reveries of sexual cavort, what fantasies are more common among us than those of refusing to submit to the will of others, or of bending others to our own will, violently if necessary, and maybe even preferably? There’s a close bond between pride and violence, and we all have our pride. When the battered but unrepentant Satan of Paradise Lost rises up out of the fiery muck and tells his minions he’d rather rule in hell than serve in heaven, I suspect that, as they read those words from the boss gangster of them all, more readers than would ever admit to it tighten their lips and nod.”
With obvious relish, Blake has created a metanarrative for his Clan. The modern border noirs tie back to Blake’s historical novels, in particular Country of the Bad Wolfes and In the Rogue Blood (which shared a setting and baroque flights of language with Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian). There are also callbacks to the Mexican Revolution and his novels Under the Skin and The Friends of Pancho Villa.
General Rodolfo Fierro: The Deadliest Man in Mexico. Part of the Wolfe Clan bloodline.
The women of the Wolfe Clan are no less formidable than the men. They are strong, capable, smart and sexually assertive — the kind of women genuinely strong men love. To borrow from the world of Blake’s spiritual brother Robert E. Howard, these women are Valeria or Sonya of Rogatino or Dark Agnes de Chastillon — no Natalas need apply.
Yes, just like that.
Matthew says
I haven’t read Blake but the book sure sounds interesting.
You know fairy tales are interesting. If you read the really old versions they were basically horror stories. However, over the years they have been soften until they reach the height of saccharine: i.e. Disney animated musicals.
They were also fairly frontier literature since they tended to take place in the deep dark woods away from civilization (and in medieval societies.)
Stories about outlaws seem universal to the human condition. They appear even in very law abiding societies like Japan (I could name at least two Robin Hood figures from Japanese folklore.)
Greg Walker says
Gonna read this book.
Jeff Letson says
Thank you for the tip! Looking for it!
Jeff Letson says
Hi, so, looking for his books left me confused. I can only find 4 books earliest from 2013, labeled book 2. Second book, 2015, 3 rd and 4th 2017, and 2020, respectively. So, cannot find first book in series. Any help? Got the second book anyway.
JimC says
There are four books in the contemporary Border Noir series of Wolfe books. The book that introduced the Wolfes is a big historical novel titled Country of the Bad Wolfes, from a different publisher. So the “series” looks like this:
Country of the Bad Wolfes (Cinco Puntos Press: El Paso, 2012)
The Rules of Wolfe (Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic: New York, 2013)
The House of Wolfe (Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic: New York, 2015)
The Ways of Wolfe (Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic: New York, 2017)
The Bones of Wolfe (Mysterious Press/Grove Atlantic: New York, 2020)
Ugly Hombre says
“Friends Of Pancho Villa” is a great read- only Blake book I have so far- “The Pistoleer” is on the book hunt list, as is John Westley’s autobiography.
James Carlos Blake is one of the only non P/C men fictions writers active and respected today far as I know anyway. Kind of books you would read as a young man with a beer and some pulutan. Fun stuff for sure. Reminds me in a way of the stories told in the “Argosy” and “True” magazines my dad used to get in the 60’s. Old school American adventure. More power to him.
Hope they will make some movies of some of his work some day, sad that’s not likely though, Blake probly scares the hell out of Hollywood. lol
JimC says
These contemporary thrillers would film well — and they offer a straightforward route to the “representation” that seems to be important to Hollywood right now. The Wolfes are a polyglot lot. If Cinemax can give us Strike Back and Banshee, they can give us some Blake. The historical stuff might be a challenge.
Ugly Hombre says
I hope they will try it, “Friends Of Pancho Villa” was going to be filmed with Johnny Depp as Pancho (bleh) Selma Hayak as a romantic lead/ soldadera (outstanding!) but it fell through, scared Hollywood, casting problem or something.. Blake could do it right has deep historical knowledge of Mexico and the U.S. and… his favorite western is “The Wild Bunch”. I would like to see it happen for sure.
Really a interesting writer, one of the few with much and varied real world life experience who is working today.
That’s a major reason he is so good imo.
JimC says
I’d forgotten about the “Friends” film. Serbian director, I believe. Would love to see a good Mex Rev pic with Blake’s sensibility.
Ugly Hombre says
https://survivingmexico.files.wordpress.com/2014/11/girl-revolution.jpg
Me to Amigo! Maybe someday..