Welcome, Mike!

Tell us, why does America need westerns?

America Needs Westerns

My third western, A Score to Settle, was recently released by The Wild Rose Press. It’s set in 1870 New Mexico Territory on the notorious Goodnight-Loving cattle trail. My first two western mysteries, The Reckoning, and The Renewal, are set in about the same timeframe in Colorado.

They say the traditional American western is dead. It’s true the golden age of westerns was some time back. Since then, there’s been a bit of a dry spell, until recently when several big box office westerns based on great new novels have been released.

Are they’re coming back? I hope so. Westerns embody timeless values—a place where right triumphs over wrong. Not always, certainly, but in my stories it does. The Old West was a black and white society with clear-cut rules—there were things you were and weren’t supposed to do. And if you did wrong, there were consequences, oftentimes immediate, many times violent.

There was a Code of the West, even observed among the bad guys. Simple rules for simpler times. Unwritten, but adhered to nonetheless. The Code drew its strength from the underlying character of westerners, both men and women alike. Life back then was hard, but it was also simple. Things that needed to get done got done. Whining wasn’t tolerated. Complainers were ignored. You weren’t a victim. You played the hand you were dealt.

If you’re getting the idea I like that kind of culture, you’re right.

The world we live in today sometimes baffles me. Everything is different shades of gray. Honor and fidelity seem to be out of fashion. People are entitled. The media are advocates, not reporters.

While the Code of the West was unwritten and existed in various forms, there were certain common elements everyone—from the hard-working sodbuster, to the law-abiding citizen, to the hardened criminal—typically abided by. Granted, there were exceptions, but generally that held true.

The Code gave westerners a guide to live by that they broke at their own peril. Are there still things today that aren’t for sale? I’d wager we all have values that are non-negotiable. After all, values don’t really change—only times, circumstances, and people do.

The good news is that the values the Code embodied haven’t vanished from today’s America, but more often than not they’ve been marginalized. Popular culture tends to look down on old-time values, or should I say the timeless values of nineteenth century America. We’re an instant gratification society that focuses on the here and now, and disregards the lessons of the past. Imagine a world where a man’s word—and a woman’s—was their bond. Where handshakes took the place of fifty-page contracts and lawyers.

So, yes, occasionally I yearn for those simpler times amid today’s hustle and bustle. Sometimes, the world I created in A Score to Settle looks pretty appealing. And it might to you. American westerns serve to remind us of our solid roots and what we were and could become again. That’s why I write them and why they’ll never die.

Mike Torreano has a military background and is a student of history and the American West. He fell in love with Zane Grey’s descriptions of the Painted Desert in the fifth grade, when his teacher made her students read a book and write a report every week.

Mike recently had a short story set during the Yukon gold rush days published in an anthology, and he’s written for magazines and small newspapers. An experienced editor, he’s taught University English and Journalism. He’s a member of Colorado Springs Fiction Writers, Pikes Peak Writers, The Historical Novel Society, and Western Writers of America. He brings his readers back in time with him as he recreates western life in the late 19th century.

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