Questions for Author Alan Geoffrion

Your story, while well-rooted in the Western-novel genre, has some unusual traits, particularly the incorporation of many strong women, notably the five Chinese girls. How did you come upon this story?
I am always asked, “Is this a real story?” My reply is that it is a collection of real stories. The horse drive came from a conversation with a rancher in Nebraska. The Chinese girls came from my interest in Donaldina Cameron, who worked for forty years to rescue young Chinese girls from the underground slave trade. And the ranches and places along the journey are all real, though some of the towns are only ghost towns today.

How much did your long friendship with Robert Duvall shape the character of Print Ritter?
I have always felt that Bobby is the actor of the proletariat. Regular folks identify strongly with the characters he portrays, especially in Westerns. It was easy to write the dialogue for a Duvall character. It was hard not to make that character a thinly veiled knockoff of his other roles. I think we both believe that you can define the big story from a small action or thought. I always want to use a sentence of dialogue or a gesture or action to say, “Ah ha, so that's what that person is about.”

Your use of colloquial language is remarkable, giving the book an authentic feel. How did your years as a horseman shape the language you use in the book?
The world of horses is populated with “characters,” and those characters lead to others, and they lead to great stories. Not all the people and dialogue came from the horse world. I am always prospecting and mining—a word, a story, a physical gesture. I try to sock it all away for the future.

While the story is quite serious and filled with many dramatic events, there is also a keen sense of humor that fills many moments. Who are some of the writers who have influenced you and your own writing style?
I was always drawn to adults in my youth. I thought they had great stories. Stories that Hollywood would never accept as possible. It was the voices of those adults that impressed me. Writers? Certainly Twain and O.Henry. Sherwood Anderson, Horton Foote, Kipling, Hemingway, Dickens, Beryl Markham, J. P. Donleavy, Alan Paton. Many of these authors are not very politically correct these days and won’t be found on college syllabuses next semester. In the Western genre, I am a big fan of Thomas McGuane and Cormac McCarthy.

You have lived with the characters for more than a year, throughout the writing of the novel and the screenplay. Which character have you grown to like the most?
Asking this question is a lot like asking which of your children you like the best. Surely Prentice Ritter is the tent pole of this book. However, it is the character of that place of undefined borders that starts at my doorstep in the Virginia Piedmont and can stretch to Hawaii, to Alberta and British Columbia, and deep into old Mexico:The West. It is the character that I most respond to. For better or worse, it has helped define us as people. Personally, I think it’s been for the better.

Short Biography:Learn more about Alan Geoffrion

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