Review: Ledoyt, by Carol Emshwiller

Review: Ledoyt, by Carol Emshwiller

by Rich Horton

Carol Emshwiller (1921-2019) was one of the greatest of SF writers, though she never quite got the recognition I felt she deserved -- and much of that she did get came late in life. There are many reasons for that -- she didn't start publishing until in her mid-30s, she stopped for a few years when her kids were young, her vision was very individual, and thus hard for many to get a grasp on, she wrote a fair amount outside the SF field. Another reason, though, is that she wrote mostly short fiction. She published only six novels, the first (Carmen Dog) in her late 60s, in 1988. Her last three were published in her 80s. All too often, it's novels that get the attention.

What about those other two novels? Well -- there's a story there too. Ledoyt and Leaping Man Hill were published in 1995 and 1999, respectively. (In Emshwiller's 70s.) And -- they are not SF. They are Westerns, and not really conventional Westerns. Ledoyt is set in the first decade of the 20th Century, and Leaping Man Hill is set after the First World War. And they aren't shoot 'em up Westerns -- they are about families, about making a life in remote parts of California before anything much like modern technology had arrived. All this is not to say there's a lack of action -- there's plenty. There are fights, shots fired, rape, people dying. There's also sex and partying and honest work and weather and childcare advice from the 19th century. And that's just in Ledoyt.

The novel is set mostly between 1902 and 1910. We begin with Lotti, a 14 year old girl, writing in her journal, dated 1910, "it all began in the spring of 1902." What began? Well, that's when Beal Ledoyt, whose brother T-Bone is a neighbor to Lotti's mother, Oriana Cochran, shows up looking for work. T-Bone suggests he help out Mrs. Cochran, who came from the East a few years before with her young daughter. It's clear that a) Oriana comes from money; and b) that she's fleeing something traumatic. And, very quickly, Mrs. Cochran and Beal Ledoyt are in love. Oriana, who is about 30, is something of a beauty, and has been courted by several men in the neighborhood (I say neighborhood but there's no city, just people farming) and has shown no interest in them. Ledoyt is a few years older, has never stayed in one place for long, is very ugly, often drunk -- and also pretty capable. Lotti takes to him at first, but gets weirdly jealous when he and Oriana, unexpectedly to most everyone, marry. And Lotti's jealousy propels much of the plot.

The point of view jumps between Lotti and Oriana and Beal and eventually Lotti's new brother Fayette. It also jumps back and forth in time, though it's not entirely non-linear. (The 1910 thread, in particular, always moves forward.) It's clear from the beginning that both Oriana and Beal are severely scarred from their childhood, and in bits and pieces we learn why and how. Lotti, too, is a piece of work -- she's convinced she was adopted, and wants to find her real family. She is unsure of her mother's love, in part because of how hard her mother has had to work, and in part ... well, we see why. She takes to Beal right away, tries to help him, decides she'll be a better man than any male ... and also she fancies Beal in a childish way so is furious when he marries her mother. In their tiny house she sees what they do in bed and that confuses her too. After Fayette is born, he follows her everywhere, and she's not exactly nice to him.

Oriana and Beal both have a hard time trusting themselves -- neither sees themselves as worthy of the other. Each believes their dark histories (not at all their own faults) have ruined them somehow. And they react in different and painful ways to the children they end up losing -- a normal part of frontier life, I suppose, but no less difficult. 

I'm making the story sound like a dreary Theodore Dreiser novel or something -- and that's not at all true. Yes, there is pain, there are deaths, there is violence. But there is at bottom love, and much happiness, and family being family. Ledoyt's family -- T-Bone and his wife Henriette and their children and other relatives -- are stable and helpful and loving. The voices of everyone are wonderfully captured, and the novel is suffused with humor. As I said too, there's plenty of action, culminating in a desperate winter trek over the hills (mountains?) in terrible weather, and an encounter with a violent criminal ending with a courageous rescue. And ... well I won't say what's next, but this in the end a realistic and moving account of frontier life -- and love, very much love -- in the early 20th Century. And it's Carol Emshwiller, so it's witty when it needs to be, profound when it needs to be, and wonderfully written.

Emshwiller's novels have in one sense been very well served by their publishers, in the sense that the books have been nicely presented -- but with one exception, each one first appeared from a small press: The Women's Press, Mercury House, Small Beer, and Tachyon. (The one exception, Mister Boots, marketed as YA, appeared from Viking, and was reprinted by Penguin/Firebird, which also reprinted The Mount.) All those small presses are, if you'll forgive the word, classy, and to some extent prestigious -- but there books still probably don't sell quite as well. And Ledoyt and Leaping Man Hill are out of print. This is a complete shame and I hope some wise publisher rectifies this situation soon.

(There is a wonderful review by Ursula K. Le Guin of Ledoyt at Strange Horizons, written back in 2000. I didn't read it until after I wrote the above. But it's very much worth reading.)