Closed Captioned Video and Full Transcript for Peter Brandvold Talks The Devil and Lou Prophet
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Eric Harper: [On speaker phone] Hello, this is Eric.
Peter Brandvold: Hi, Eric. I didn’t, I didn’t. This is Pete. I didn’t recognize the name.
Eric: Oh! [Laughing] That’s all right. How are you?
Peter: Good. I’m good. Yup. How are you doing?
Eric: I’m doing okay. How are you feeling?
Peter: I’m feeling pretty good. I’m just under the weather for a while.
Eric: Oh, I’m sorry to hear that.
Peter: Yeah.
Eric: Well, we had talked about talking today. Do you want to reschedule?
Peter: Um. Well, I’m making bread right now. Uh, I can talk. I guess I can talk while we’re . . . While I’m making bread.
Eric: All right.
[Music: lighthearted fiddle music briefly plays.]
Eric: Hi, everybody and welcome to another episode of your Neighborhood Bookstore podcast. I'm your host, Eric Harper. We might be joined later by my occasional guest co-host Craig “The Caveman” Duster. He is actually driving his wife to work at the moment, so he may join us in a bit. In the meantime, today's guest is western author Peter Brandvold. How you doing, Peter?
Peter: Hi, Eric!
Eric: I understand you're making bread today. How's that going?
Peter: It's going pretty well, going pretty well. I always end up killing the yeast the first time around. But now I've got a fancy little gauge thingy that will tell me when it's just a perfect temperature. So, so far, so good. I just have to knead it. So if I'm a little out of breath . . .
Eric: Yeah, you're multitasking. You're talking to us, and you're kneading bread.
Peter: Yeah, I'm making bread for tomorrow, or for Thanksgiving.
Eric: Well, by way of introduction, I'm going to embarrass you a little bit. I hope you don't mind.
Peter: Oh, I love being embarrassed.
Eric: Perfect. Okay. So, today's guest, Peter Brandvold, has published more than 70 novels and is considered one of the most successful contemporary authors of Westerns. He writes under his own name as well as the pen names Frank Leslie, Max O’Hara, and others, and he has, in my opinion, filled the void left by the late authors, Louis Lamour and William Johnstone. Chances are, if you've been to Barnes and Noble, Walmart, Target, and others, you've seen Peter Brandvold’s's book on the shelf.
Some of his reoccurring characters, his series characters, include bounty hunter Lou Prophet, who we’ll be discussing today Louisa Bonaventure “The Vengeance Queen,” Gideon Hawk “the rogue lawman,” Yakima Henry, Bloody Joe Manion, Wolf Stockbone. Excuse me, Wolf Stockburn, railroad detective, and others.
Welcome, Peter!
Peter: Thanks! Thanks for having me, Eric. I appreciate it. I appreciate the intro.
Eric: Oh, you're very welcome. I appreciate you're taking the time to visit with us today.
Peter: Sure.
Eric: Okay. So, Pete, today I want to talk about your novel, The Devil and Lou Prophet, which is the first book in a series featuring Lou Prophet, bounty hunter. Um, I was wondering –
Peter: Right.
Eric: . . . Could you tell me a little bit about like how that that novel came about? You know, where that concept arrived from?
Peter: You mean the whole bounty hunter thing?
Eric: Absolutely, the background on Lou Prophet and his series.
Peter: You know, I was just kind of, I had written several of my books in my first series, the Ben Stillman novels. And then I'd also written a couple of standalones. And Berkeley wanted me to start another series. So, I was just out walking my dog down the dirt road by my place one day, and the name Lou Prophet just popped into my head out of nowhere. And he just kind of came, when the name came, he came almost fully clothed in his kind of big, bumbling, comedic presence. You know, where he's, he always gets his man but, you know, usually in a rather inept sort of way. And there's usually sort of, you know, some kind of pathos that goes into it, you know. I mean in the first book he's, he's trying to roust some outlaws out of the cabin, and he climbs up on the cabin roof and puts a, puts his hat over the chimney pipe to smoke them out. But before he can smoke them out the cave caves in, and he goes into the smokey cabin on top of the table that of the outlaws we're playing poker on. So, it's, you know, he's not, he's not your traditional western hero in that everything goes real smoothly for him.
Eric: Right.
Peter: There's, I sort of see that, I sort of see the, the Lou Prophet series as sort of a comedic series, a lighthearted, a lighthearted series. I hadn't read too many lighthearted western series books before I, I started that one. And I thought the genre needed it. And it needed a, a big bumbling, you know, Southern boy.
Eric: Yeah. Understood.
Peter: Yeah.
Eric: Well, one of the –
Peter: And then –
Eric: Go ahead.
Peter: After several books, Louisa Bonaventure . . . I thought he needed a foil. So I, I brought in the very serious and lovely Louisa Bonaventure, who was hunting the gang that murdered her family. And Prophet dubs for the “Vengeance Queen” because she is so good at what she does. But she's totally disgusted with Prophet because he's such a big fumbling idiot and a skirt chaser to boot. So, she's really kind of disgusted by him, but she is also, of course, in love with him.
Eric: Of course.
Peter: And they're, they're trail partners, you know.
Eric: Yeah. So, one of the, one of the aspects of the Lou Prophet series is that, even though he's a sort of like a slob and a big, bumbling, likable guy, he claims to have sold his soul to the devil.
Peter: Right
Eric: Is the devil a literal character? Like, is that a literal deal? And will we ever see the character of the devil in the books?
Peter: You know, I kind of wondered that myself. I'm not sure. I, I think, I think for Prophet, you know, he's, he's Southern and very superstitious. And I think he probably believes in the devil, and I think he probably really believes that he sold his soul to the devil, even though he, you know, he's not totally sure that, you know, the devil is really real. But to him he's real enough so that, you know, he's, he's expecting that when he dies, if the devil gives him a good time, you know, on this side of the sod so he can chase skirts down in Mexico for a good many years after his terrible experience during the war, he'll be shoveling coal all right.
Eric: Oh, Peter, my occasional co-host, Craig Duster, is available. If you don't mind, I'm going to bring him into the conversation.
Peter: Sure.
Eric: Alright, just one moment.
Peter: Gotcha
Eric: Craig, are you there?
Craig Duster: I am here. Yes.
Eric: Hello! Welcome back. How was the drive?
Craig: [Laughs.] Oh, it was delightful. Thank you for asking.
Eric: Good. Well, we're talking with Peter Brandvold. We did just get started, and you're welcome to join us.
Craig: Right. Thank you.
Eric: For first time listeners, my guest co-host today is Craig “The Caveman” Duster. He is the Owner and Head Ne’re-Do-Well at my favorite bookstore, which is POP Art, Books, Culture in Boardman, Ohio. A very fine used bookstore. And we're happy to have you here, Craig, thank you.
Craig: Thank you.
Peter: Hi, Craig.
Craig: Hi.
Eric: Craig, meet Peter Brandvold, author of The Devil and Lou Prophet.
Craig: Hi, Peter, how are you?
Peter: Good. Craig McAvian Duster?
Eric: [Laughing.] I call Craig “the caveman.” His name is Craig Duster.
Craig: Right.
Peter: Oh, Craig “The Caveman. Got it.
Craig: Craig literally – [sic. means rock or crag.]
Eric: And Craig, just to bring you up to speed, Peter is talking with us and he's making bread simultaneously.
Craig: Wow, simul . . . I'm not sure I could do that.
Peter: Yeah. Well, I was far enough into it when he called, so . . . I'm going to be a little out of breath here, but that's all right.
Eric: Well, Peter, before we get back to Lou profit, I wanted to mention, my friend Craig here is not . . . We've read your book, but he's not actually much of a Western reader. I think it's possible that the Devil and Lou Prophet might be the first Western novel he's ever read, although I know Craig has watched Western movies. So, before we sign off later, I'm going to want your opinion on how we can get Craig reading more Westerns and what your suggestions are for him to start with.
Peter: Okay, okay, you bet.
Craig: Okay.
Eric: And Pete –
Peter: And by the way –
Eric: Go ahead.
Peter: I said, shame on you, Craig.
[Craig laughs.]
Eric: We're going to turn him around. We're going to make him a convert.
Peter: Yeah, I've got the right books to do it.
Craig: Great. Great.
Eric: Perfect. Okay, Peter. So, you were describing the, The Devil and Lou – or you were describing the Lou Prophet book series – as kind of lighthearted. I think. I think I agree with that. You know, when I was reading the first book in the series, it's sort of, I would call it rootin’-tootin’ in a way. Like, it's a cross between sort of a sly 1970s western movie and sort of like a 1940s traditional. It, it walks the line between them.
Peter: Yeah, a little bit Hopalong Cassidy and little bit Blazing Saddles. Or Silver . . . or Silverado.
Eric: Oh, yeah, absolutely both good comparisons. Ones that are not, not that heavy.
Peter: Right. No. There are, there are serious aspects to them. And there are some fairly, you know, hard-boiled scenes, too. But generally, they're, they're, you know, they're going to make you smile every chapter.
Eric: Pete, would you say that the Lou Prophet books fall into the category of the Adult Western?
Peter: Well, there are definitely adult aspects to them. Yeah.
Eric: For the uninitiated listener, Adult Westerns are, they, they are a sub-genre of the Western novel. They tend to be shorter. They tend to be more focused on action, and they tend to also include sex scenes, which are typically not included in many Westerns.
Peter: Right.
Eric: But Pete, you've actually, probably under pseudonym, written adult westerns. So how, how does that experience compare to writing your own series featuring Lou Prophet and others?
Peter: Well, I wrote, I wrote about. I wrote 29 Longarm novels, and those are fairly explicit. But my Longarm novels are also, I wrote up those also tongue in cheek. There's a lot of humor in those, too.
Eric: Okay.
Peter: And I think, I think that I just kind of carried over what I was doing in Lou Prophet to the Longarms and vice versa.
Eric: Understood.
Peter: So, there's explicit sex in it. Lot of, lot of shooting, and, you know, riding hard, and a lot of humor. But I suppose, I suppose that's how, it’s my personality. You know, it's just kind of that's who I am. You know, you can't, really, I don't think you can really try for a style. You know. It's just I . . . When I, when I started the first book in the Lou Prophet series, I really didn't know what I was . . . how, how this character was going to, going to go. He just kind of evolved as I was typing.
Eric Harper: Interesting.
Peter: Yeah, I didn't think, I didn't make this a big, you know, you know, a big, rollicking, funny western. It just ended up being that way because that was kind of the guy Lou Prophet was.
Eric: So basically, he revealed himself to you as he, as he was on his adventure.
Peter: Yeah, exactly. That's how they all do.
Eric: Interesting. How does the Lou Prophet Series compare to some of the other series characters you've written like Bloody Joe Mannion?
Peter: Well, there's a lot of humor in Bloody Joe, too. So, the only one that they're really not – that it's really not similar to – is the Rogue Lawman series. That is very hard boiled, with not a whole lot of humor at all. It's very . . . That's a fairly bleak series.
Eric: Okay.
Peter: And you know, the Rogue Lawman is totally uncompromising. He doesn't believe in having any fun at all. And after his wife died, he certainly wouldn't think about . . . Well, he does later on but . . . sleeping with another woman. It took, it took a long time for, you know, that, his relationship with the, with the woman, the outlaw named Saradee. I can't remember her last name now. It took a long time for that to evolve to the bedroom.
Eric: Lou Prophet was not your first. It's the first book in the series. But it was not your first novel, correct?
Peter: No. My first novel was Once a Law . . . Once a Marshal.
Eric: Okay, how did you get into writing Westerns? Because you've written a lot of them.
Peter: I like them as a kid, you know. I liked them a lot as a kid, and I loved all the television western series. And you know, I really started out kind of wanting to be a literary writer. But that wasn't going anywhere. So, I decided to write for a market, you know. Just figure out, figure out a market I thought I could write for. So, I went to the library here in Fergus Falls, and I checked out a whole pile of westerns from the spinner rack. And I thought, you know, I have a pretty, pretty good shot. I think I could probably be successful at this. And I thought that it needed . . . I was, I had enough hubris to think that I could add to it, you know, add to the genre. And try to make it, try to make it more contemporary and fun, you know. And action-packed. So that's kind of how it was. It was a marketing decision. It really was.
Eric: That makes sense. What was the Western publishing market like when you first got into it, compared to say nowadays?
Peter: Well, it was paperback, back then, you know. And you were primarily writing for Walmart, Barnes and Noble, and B. Dalton. I’m not really sure if the genre has changed all that much, but there are more westerns out there now. When I was writing, it was a pretty tight market, you know. I didn't think I was going to be able to get that first book published because people kept telling me that, you know, it's a dying market. It's not going to happen. You got to really distinguish yourself if you're going to write westerns in this day and age, and . . . but I wasn't discouraged. I thought, you know, I just, I was confident enough in my skills that I was still developing when I was writing that first book that I thought: I can do it. I'm going to, I'm going to keep going here. And I was, it was a really tough book to write. That first one is a bear, and I had to do a lot of rewriting as I went. And lot of crying and sobbing and pulling my hair, and . . . because I can tell that I just wasn't getting it right, you know. So, I had to go back and rewrite, you know, sometimes whole chapters. Or just had a chapter. And you know, because I didn't need it. I mean, it was just nuts and bolts, that early stuff, you know. You're learning to walk. You're, you're just. You're learning to ride your first bike with training wheels on, you know. And fortunately –
Eric: Yeah.
Peter: Fortunately, my wife at the time, Gina, was a really good editor. I mean, I didn't, I couldn't believe how good she was at editing. She just knew what was working and what, what wasn't working. Because she's not really a writer herself. But we met in graduate school. We had a creative writing program. She was in the poetry program and I was in the prose program. But she knew a lot about editing prose. And I, I don't, I think without her that that first book probably would not have happened. She would go through. She would go through and line edit. You know, line by line, through chapter by chapter, line edit, and sometimes cross out whole sections, and just make me enraged. And . . . but I knew she was right. I knew she was right, because I, I had the instinct that when she changed something I could tell that it was right. 9 times out of 10. She was always right.
Eric: Wow!
Peter: And she would. She was ruthless. You know. I would bring her a chapter. And we were living in Montana at the time, and we'd go, and we'd drive from Haver to Great Falls. Huh! Go have fun on Saturday, or, you know, go shopping. And she would edit on the way down there, and I could hear that felt pen of her’s just scratching and scratching. Crossing out whole paragraphs. And I'd look at her and I'd say: What are you trying to kill me?
She’d say: “This isn't working. This is not working.” She was the toughest editor. She was the toughest editor I ever had.
Eric: Wow! Well, but I mean, like, it definitely worked. Because, you know, all these years later, you're out there still doing it.
Peter: Yeah. And I'm editing my own stuff now. She edited for me until we divorced. And that was probably the first. She probably edited the first, man, 20 books of mine.
Eric and Craig: Oh, wow!
Peter: I bet it was pretty close to the first 20 books. And when we divorced, I thought: Oh, there goes my career. I lost my editor. But I just, you know, you just have to buck up and do it.
Craig: Yeah.
Eric: Pete, you mentioned that creative writing program where you and your former wife met. I, I think I want to use this as a moment to sort of like somehow dispel a myth that westerns are a lesser form of literature. Because you were in the Masters program for creative writing at the University of Arizona. Correct?
Peter: Right. Yup.
Eric: And you were classmates with David Foster Wallace.
Peter: Yeah. I was. Yup. He and I were acquaintances. We weren't really good friends, but we were . . . We had a rapport. How’d, how did you know that?
Eric: You know, you and I have communicated on . . . online a little bit. I follow your social media, and I think at some point that might have come up.
Peter: Okay, right. Yeah.
Eric: And, you know, on social media, you and I have had interactions about authors that we like, or follow.
Peter: Right.
Eric: You know: Norman Maclean, who wrote A River Runs Through It, and Jim Harrison and Richard Hugo. So –
Peter: Yeah.
Eric: – It's always interesting to hear what writers read. You know what I mean? Because everything you read is probably informing your, your work in one way or the other.
Peter: Oh, definitely. Yep. Yeah. When I was starting out, I wanted to be Jim Harrison, because I loved Legends of the Fall so much. You have to find your own voice. By hook and by crook, usually.
Eric: Yeah. Are you a full-time writer?
Peter: Yeah.
Eric: How do you think that impacts, say, your writing process, or your style of writing, or the, or the stories that you land on?
Peter: Well, it's easier. Writing is still hard, but I'm faster at it. The ideas come pretty quick to me. I don't really have to think about it, you know, overlong before I sit down to write. Sometimes it's best if I just sit down and start typing. I've got enough confidence that, you know, when I sit down in the morning, I know I'm going to fill my quota by the end of the day. Even if I don't know what, what I'm going to write. And that's often the most fun, to do it that way, too. Just sit down and start typing, you know, even if you're on, if you're on the first page, or you're on a page 170, and you've come to the end of a chapter, and you don't know what's going to happen next. Start typing. And it'll, it'll just come.
Craig: I'm interested. What, what is your process? Do you have like a, do you have a set schedule that you write on? Or do you have a certain quota that you try to meet each day?
Peter: I try to meet at least 2,000 words a day.
Craig: Okay.
Peter: And, if it's going good, I'll, I'll stay there for about 3,000. So, I usually try to write 500. I get up fairly early, have my coffee, and I write 500 words. And then I take my dog out. And then we come back and we have, I have breakfast, and then I write another 500 before noon. And then I have lunch. Sometimes I'll go out for lunch and, and take my laptop with me and edit what I wrote that morning. And then I'll come back and have a nap for a half hour, or 45 minutes, and then I'll try to get another a thousand words in before, before 5:00 or 5:30. And then I'll do right supper. And then at night I'll edit what . . . the rest of the stuff that I wrote.
Craig: Wow, that's so like a full day process then.
Peter: Yeah, yeah. My whole, my whole day is arranged around it. Yeah.
Eric: Which makes sense, because it's your occupation.
Peter: Yeah, it's my occupation. And it's pretty much a full-time occupation.
Craig: Yeah, I would, I would just think of my brain would be tapioca by the end of the day. But yeah.
Peter: Well, it was like that when I was starting out. I mean, when I was starting out just 500 words a day was, would take me all day long. Because I, you know, I was still learning how to write sentences. You know, and I was still trying to figure out how to get a character from one room to another. Or into a canyon and out again, you know, I mean the process, it was just excruciating. Because you just don't . . . You know, it's now that happens so fluidly, I don't even realize I'm doing it. But I used to labor over having a character, say, get out of a motel room, walk down the hall, and go down to the lobby and order a drink. Sometimes that would take me like almost a thousand words just to do that, when all I really needed was about 300. Yeah, it was not easy for me starting out. Not at all. But I stuck, I stuck with it because I was obsessed, you know. I’m very OCD. And I think you really have to – if you're going to have a long career as a writer – you have to be pretty OCD. Obsessive Compulsive.
You got to really want to stick with it and make it perfect before you go on, you know.
Eric: Oh, yeah. Pete, what do you love about Westerns?
Peter: I like that they can be more than just the western. They can. They can be . . . They can be adventure novels. They can be love stories. They can be coming of age stories. They can be a little bit sword and sorcery. You know?
Eric: I do.
Peter: I learned a lot from reading Robert E. Howard about how to how to write the western, and it's not necessarily his westerns that taught me so much, because those are kind of tall tales. But Conan and his other, you know, his other epic heroes taught me a lot about how to create the western, the western hero. Because they have to be fairly epic, too. That's another thing I like about them, is the hero is sort of this mythological creature, you know. And, and they're epic. I love, I love epics like that.
Eric: I absolutely. I absolutely agree. I'm a reader of westerns. It's one of the reasons why I was so excited to talk to you today. And I really think that, as a genre, it's more pliable than any other out there.
Peter: Exactly.
Eric: You know, you can have a western, as you said, that it, it's a comedy. You can have a western that's a romance. You can have a western that's sci-fi. And, and not to say that there aren't other blended genres. But, for example, if you have a story that’s sci-fi and comedy, it's always going to be more one or the other. It's always going to be a comedy with sci-fi elements.
Peter: Right.
Eric: But, with the western, you know, it's literally, it's a setting. So, like in a lot of ways, it's the American version of the Novel of Cornwall. You know?
Peter: Right. Yep.
Eric: And the setting, it’s a character. But there are many stories that can exist inside it.
Peter: Rights. Exactly.
Eric: One of, one of my favorite authors is Willa Cather, and I'm convinced that she's a western author.
Peter: Oh, she is definitely. Didn’t she write Death Comes for the Archbishop?
Eric: Yeah, she did. And O’ Pioneers and My Antonia.
Peter: Yeah. Oh, yeah! My Antonia, that's definitely a western! You know I like her so much that I, I drove out to Red Cloud to visit her home and museum.
Eric: Oh, wow!
Peter: And I wrote an article about it for the Great Falls Tribune. Yeah, I really, I was very enamored of her when I was in graduate school, and, and in the year, years following.
Eric: Now, Pete, correct me if I'm wrong. You were talking earlier about how, when you started out writing, westerns were still primarily in paperback. Can I take that to mean that it, the readership is moved to the eBook?
Peter: Yup definitely.
Eric: Why do you think that happened?
Peter: Cheaper. Cheaper, and some people are just really love their electronics. You know? I still like reading the old paperbacks myself. But um –
Eric: Sure.
Peter: But if there's a certain author that I'm reading, I'll, I'll buy the paperbacks. Johnny Gunn. He's published by Wolfpack, as I am. I just love his stuff, I love his novels. They're so authentic sounding, you know? And you can tell that he's, you know, he's, he's a part of that landscape. And I get his, I’ll, I'll buy his in paperback, and if . . . and I've got probably an equal amount of his and paperback as I do on eBook.
Eric: How did you get involved with Wolfpack Publishing? Because they're, they're making like huge waves. For an independent publisher, they are really out there.
Peter: Well, they know how to market. I mean, Mike Bray is a marketing genius. If it wasn't for him I would probably be, you know, working in my local Fleet Farm store right now. But he got a hold of my backlist, and he just turned it. He turned my career completely around. I owe that guy a lot.
Eric: Mike Bray seems to be, like, he seems to have a method for acquiring the entire backlist of established authors and then publishing their new work going forward.
Peter: Right. Yup, that's what he does.
Eric: Are all of your books now coming out through Wolfpack?
Peter: Yep, they all are. Yup.
I'm going to . . . I'm trying to finish this Bloody Joe number 9, and then that'll be the end of the series. And I've already started the, the, the first book, and a short story, of the new series. But I've been struggling with this Bloody Joe book just because I was sick a couple of weeks ago, and it's hard, hard for me to get back on track. But I'm going pretty well now, so I'm hoping I'll finish it up in a week or two and then get started. I'm really ready to get going on a new series.
Eric: Nice.
Craig: What goes into that idea? What goes into that, that process? Like, you decide that you want to end what you're doing with the character? You just come up with a good idea for ending it? Or is it more of a, you know, is it just the right story comes along at the right time? . . . are there, is there other considerations? Are you just tired of the character?
Peter: No, I think Mike just wanted 9 books.
Craig: Okay.
Peter: I think he can sell the first 7 or 9 of them better than he can sell the rest of them. So that, then, that's, that's kind of the way it is with the other publishers, too. My other publishers, too. I mean, I've written a lot of books in a series. My Lou Prophet series is, there's, you know, 25 or 28 of 'em. But that was a really, a very popular series. But I think Mike just likes to stick with a fairly short series, you know, and then start another one.
Eric: You said that it's, it's giving you a run for your money. Like, what are the challenges of wrapping a series up?
Peter: Well, that's the challenge is, I want to give him the, the, the, the best sendoff possible. You know? I still haven't decided if I'm going to kill him yet, but if I kill him I can't bring him back to do any more books, if the series, you know, somewhere down the road happens to be popular again. You know? And, and then I've got, you know, throughout the entire series there's recurring characters. You know. Just like in Gunsmoke, there's Newly, and Festus, and the Doc, and, and Miss Kitty, and all that.
Well, I've got all these, these subplots going that I've been kind of stringing along, off and on, throughout the, throughout the whole series. You know? And I'll focus on 2 or 3 of those characters, including the hero, and in each book. And then in another book I'll focus on, of course, Bloody Joe, and then a couple of other secondary characters. Maybe there'll, there'll be a love affair. You know, a, a woman comes to town and falls in love with my aging deputy, Rio Waite. And then I won't pick up that story line maybe again until 2 or 3 more books down the line. So, I'm kind of going through and having to skim these early, earlier novels so I don't leave anybody out. I want to wrap everything up. I want to, want to give them, you know, I just, I want there to be that arc, a complete arc, so that the reader, if the reader is reading, you know, these books one after another, say, they, a lot of, lot of western readers will read a book in a day. So, potentially, they could read the whole series in 2 weeks. You know? And they're going to know, they're going to, they're going to have a, they're going to have a better recollection than I do what I did in those first couple of books. They might be wondering if I don't end the story line. They might be wondering what the hell I was doing. You know, they want satis . . . They want satisfying endings, you know.
Eric: That seems to be a product of like modern storytelling, because, you know, in the old days a lot of series just sort of ran until they became unprofitable. And then it, you know, the story fell off a cliff. Whereas now it seems like the, the audience has an expectation of a satisfying conclusion.
Peter: Yeah, I think so, too. Yeah. That was the way my Yakima Henry series ended is, well, Signet just folded. So that was how that series ended. And that was, I'd still like to go back and, you know, write a good ending to that. And also my Lou Prophet series. I'd like to go back and tie that one up, too. So that, you know, after I'm gone, these, it's a complete, each of these series is a complete series. You know?
Eric: Yeah. That makes sense.
Peter: They didn't just didn't just fade off into the ether. Like Agatha Christie did with, like Agatha Christie did with Hercule Poirot in Curtain.
Eric: Yeah. It did bring a, you know, a conclusion to that character. It was nice, I think, that Christie had actually written Curtain back in the forties. I think I read that somewhere, and she put it in a safe and held it until she retired.
Peter: I didn't know that! That's interesting! Yeah.
Eric: So you would, you would bring all of your series to a conclusion if you could?
Peter: Yeah, if I could.
Eric: Is your back catalog of Yakima Henry and Lou Prophet with Wolfpack Publishing now?
Peter: Yeah, it is. They published all of them.
Eric: Oh, nice! What do you think the chances are that that Mike Bray would order a final book in those series?
Peter: Oh, I don't know. He's pretty practical, you know. He's probably going to say: “Well, you're not going to make much money on it.” And then, of course, I’m going to think: “Well, you're right.” And I do want to make money. So, I'll probably cave and say: “Okay, well I'll send you a new one.”
It's just my sentimentality, maybe, or my – I don't know what it is, but – I just I want, I would like to have that sense of completeness, but not if, you know, they're not going to sell.
Eric: Lou Prophet actually has something of a, of a future. I wanted to ask you about this, because he appears as a, as a supporting character in the Daisy Gum cozy mysteries written by Alice Duncan. And after the twentieth, like, in the twentieth century. So how did that come about?
Peter: Alice and I were talking. She was my editor at the, at the Five Star. And she liked Lou Prophet. She liked editing my Lou Prophet books. And I said: “Well, why don't you think about, you know, we'll make him older? And you can put him in your Daisy Gumm mysteries.”
And she liked the idea a lot, and I, but I gave him a back story for her. He's only got one leg in the Daisy Gumm mysteries because he was, he went to Hollywood to work in the movies and, as a, I, I think, as a as a stuntman. And of course he's a big drinker, so he ends up driving off a cliff with a case of corn liquor and 6 starlets.
He loses his leg in the process. I don't even want to think about what happened to the star . . . to the starlets.
[Craig and Eric laugh.]
But I don't, I don't, I don't touch on that. [Peter laughs.] It's Lou Prophet’s story.
Eric: Right. It’s really cool that you gave her that, that back story to run with.
Peter: Well, I actually put it in the, the front of my, one of the Lou Prophet books that Signet published for me. Stagecoach to Purgatory. Stagecoach to Purgatory. Gary Goldstein wanted me to write an intro for it that would kind of bookend it, you know. A bookend to each of those books. So, I, I introduced Lou as this old guy in a, in a rooming house, raising hell because he won't stop drinking and smoking cigarettes. But, of course, he's a legend. So an ink-stained newspaper man – I can't remember his name – comes calling on him one day and asks him to tell us, tell the story of his life.
So I, I was going to continue to do that in all the rest of the little Prophet books. And I just forgot. And I guess Gary forgot, too. But anyway, it does kind of send him off, though, I mean it, it does kind of . . . And my, that, you know, 2-page introduction does kind of end . . . it kind of, it punctuates Lou’s story, as far as I wrote it.
Yeah, he ends up in Pasadena solving mysteries with Daisy Gumm, hobbling around on one leg, solving mysteries with Daisy Gumm, riding horseback and, you know, roping, roping the, the bad guys. And he, of course, kind of, you know, he's a little bit startling to everyone. They are cozy mysteries. So, Lou Prophet has to kind of, you know, chew his tongue. But I thought that was, that, I thought that was a lot of fun to do that – for Alice to take him and see what she would do with him. And she's, she makes him very colorful.
Eric: What's your dream project? Like, if you had the time and money was no object, what would you . . . What project would you devote yourself to?
Peter: I'd like to write a memoir about my colorful family from North Dakota. I would like to. I've always wanted to do that. I've written a lot of essays, personal essays about my dogs and my life in, you know, rural America. And I, I'd like to write about my relatives. I had some very colorful ones out there in the country and I'd like to, I'd like to do that someday. I don't think it's going to sell, because, you know, I'm not Robert B. Parker. And you got to have, you got to have a big name. And I'm not a movie star, you know. Those are the people who sell books, sell memoirs –
Eric: Yeah, these days.
Peter: – but I'd still like to do it. You know, maybe for North Dakota Quarterly Press or something like that, small press.
Eric: You also mentioned you're a big dog guy. I know that on social media you, you always have photos of dogs. And, and your, your dog, Buddy, plays a significant role in your social media. Did I hear that you're working on a nonfiction book about dogs?
Peter: Yeah. Well, I'm about 30 pages into that, too. I was kind of doing it between books for Wolfpack and . . . But, you know, I just, I was getting spread too thin.
Eric: Sure.
Peter: Yeah, I would like to. I would love to, to finish that, because I've written a lot of essays about dogs. Most of them were published on my blog. But that's where my heart is, I think. In the nonfiction, nonfiction wise. like the, I like the books of Roger Welsh, too. He's kind of model a nonfiction model for me.
Eric: I don't know him.
Peter: He was, he was the big guy in the coveralls on CBS Sunday Morning.
Eric: Oh, really?
Peter: Yeah. He's from Nebraska. And he saw, he was writing very funny memoirs about trying to rebuild a tractor, and his neighbors are having to help him. And he also wrote a lot about prairie legend and lore.
Yeah. He was on CBS Sunday Morning with Charles Kuralt for many years. Brilliant writer! He, yeah, I used to find his essays in the Smithsonian Magazine. And he wrote one about how – because the prairie was so lacking in in color – the settlers got into the habit of bringing canaries out there in a cage. So, they would, every settler practically would have a caged canary in their house to peep, and, you know, fill the house with the sounds of nature and color.
Eric: You've read far and wide. Like, even among the you know other readers that I know, and other authors that I've talked about, or talked with, I mean just the, the number of authors you've read on a number of different subjects is fascinating.
Peter: Yeah, I'm pretty voracious. I used to be more than I am now. When I was younger, I was very, very voracious. I read everything, and I would . . . And I, you know, back then I wanted to be a nonfiction writer, so I would, I would look for non . . . really good nonfiction writers to, to kind of emulate.
Eric: Not to put you on the spot but you're one of – at least in my experience of walking into a bricks and mortar bookstore – you're still one of the, like, you're one of the most prominent western authors out there now.
What do you think is the state of the, the current western? And here's why I ask –
Peter: Um . . .
Eric: — because, you know, right now the westerners are relegated to a special section of most bookstores. And I suspect a lot of people don't remember that there have been several westerns and several western authors that have won the Pulitzer Prize. You know . . .
Peter: Right.
Eric: Obviously, Larry McMurtry with Lonesome Dove. But A. B. Guthrie received a Pulitzer for The Way West. Edna Ferber won a Pulitzer and she went on to write Giant and Show Boat and Cimarron.
Peter: Yeah.
Eric: Now I think that most of the, the western publishing sector is probably filled with the more of the adventure-type like you write.
Peter: Yeah, it is.
Eric: Where do you see the Western going from here?
Peter: Mike seems to think they're going to die out in 8 to 10 years, but I, I don't know. People have been saying that forever. I think they'll continue. I think they'll, they'll continue. Yeah. Probably in the same vein.
Eric: Well, what's next for you?
Peter: What's next for me?
Eric: Yeah.
Peter: Well, I'm going to finish this Bloody Joe book, if I can and not shoot myself first. [Craig laughs.] And if I can get that all tied together, you know, I'm going to start, I'm going to start a new series about a deputy marshal, deputy town marshal. That's going to be kind of light and colorful again, too. And then I think I'm going to write a, a Viking series for Mike at Wolfpack.
Eric: Oh, really?
Peter: Yeah. I really want to do a Viking series. And I, I said that in a article in the Roundup Magazine, and he called me up and said: “Do it!”
So I think I'm going to do it. I'm just going to, I'm going to spend the winter researching it. I've got quite a few Viking books. And I'm going to spend the winter researching it. And I love the Viking series on TV these days.
Eric: Yeah, they're definitely having a golden age.
Peter: I’d like to do write it . . . I don't know if you've ready any Barry Sadler?
Eric: I have not.
Peter: I’d like to do it the kind, kind of the way that he wrote his Casca series.
Eric: How so?
Peter: Which is very, very pulpy, and humorous, violent. But really fast-moving, you know.
Eric: Gotcha.
Peter: And sex and violence. You know. They're not going to take the books, they're not going to take the books too seriously. I'm not going to take the books too seriously. I'm just going to have a lot of good, old-fashioned, pulpy fun the way, the way Robert E. Howard would do it.
Eric: Sure.
Peter: Or Fritz Lieber. You know.
Eric: I'm a big, I'm a big Fritz Lieber fan, too.
Peter: Yeah, I am too.
Eric: Well, you know, I seem to . . . I think it was Don Coldsmith who wrote a novel about the Runestone.
Peter: Yeah! That’s up here near me!
Eric: Yeah! Well, I was going to ask that cause I know you're from that, from that area. Would you ever, like, is there a way to tie a Viking series into your, you know, your westerns or American setting?
Peter: Oh, definitely, yeah. Coming down the Red River from Lake Manitoba.
Eric: Well, I would definitely read that series.
Peter: Yeah, I would love to. I would love to set a series in this area. You know, a good, a good old-fashioned series set in this area, because very few have been done.
Eric: Well, Pete, how's that bread coming?
Peter: Well, it's on the rise. It's kind of cool in here. So, it's, it's happening kind of fast happening, happening kind of slow. But it is rising. So, I didn't kill the yeast, anyway.
Eric: Good job. [Craig and Eric laugh.] What kind of bread are you making?
Peter: I usually make a whole wheat loaf. Very simple.
Eric: Nice.
Peter: Just you know, just the simplest ingredients.
Eric: Well, Pete, I really appreciate your talking to us today. Thank you for taking the time out of your, your schedule, and your cooking.
Peter: Oh, no problem! Yeah, I really appreciate you guys calling. That was fun.
Craig: I need a, I need a couple of recommendations before you go, though.
Peter: Oh . . . read . . . if you can find it, these are kind of, kind of old, but .44 by H. A. DeRosso is really good.
Craig: Okay.
Peter: .44. And Jason Kilkenny's Gun by Kit Prate.
Craig: Okay. Alright. So that's where I’ll start.
Peter: Yeah, those are. Those are two, two good ones to start with.
Eric: Cool. Well, there you go, Craig. There's your starting place. We'll pick up there.
Craig: Alright. Sounds good.
[Eric laughs.]
Peter: I’ll be expecting your report in the mail!
Craig: Right! You’ll, you’ll get it, yes. [Laughs.]
Peter: Okay, okay. Thanks, you guys. Take care.
Eric: Thanks, Pete. Have a great day.
And that’s our show. Two pieces of business to wrap things up. First, Pete did finish the novel that was giving him some trouble. So, Bloody Joe’s Last Dance, the final book in the Bloody Joe Mannion series, is out now from Wolfpack Publishing. Also, since I conducted this interview, I confirmed that Peter Brandvold has actually published 175 novels since 1998, under his own name, Frank Leslie, Max O’Hara, and others. And also 15 books under a pseudonym that he can’t reveal. I can only guess what that pseudonym is. But, if I was going to guess, I might further guess that Pete recently had a book on the New York Times bestseller list. So, make of that what you will.
In the meantime, support your local used bookstore, buy books, and buy Peter Brandvold’s books. Thanks, guys.
[Music: gentle violin music.]
Narrator: Neighborhood Bookstore was created and hosted by Eric Harper. Visit us at EricHarperPresents.substack.com for free episodes, transcripts, and all the latest news.
You can also find us on YouTube and wherever fine audio podcasts are published.
Today’s guest host was Craig Duster, Owner and Head Ne’er-Do-Well at Pop! Art Books Culture.
When in Boardman, Ohio, please visit:
Pop! Art Books Culture
6949 Market Street
Boardman Ohio 44512
This episode was produced by Eliza Osborn and Eric Harper.
Executive Producer: Julie Cancio Harper.
Narration by Adam Federman.
Thank you for listening. We’re glad you’re here.
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