![]() ![]() ![]() ![]() A Canadian who now lives in Oregon, he rides parallel to the trails of Jack Schaefer, James Carlos Blake and Cormac McCarthy, but he frequently crosses into comic territory to produce a story that’s weirdly funny, startlingly violent and steeped in sadness. DeWitt’s approach in “ The Sisters Brothers” is less corrective. Russell’s “Doc” is an intricately researched and deeply sympathetic portrayal that mocks the dime novels that immortalized the shootout at the OK Corral. We can’t fit all this in a Corrections box, but let me summarize it here: I may have exaggerated the death of the western. And already I’m back, shooting my mouth off about Patrick deWitt’s tale of two hired guns during the Gold Rush. Two weeks ago, I jumped on my horse and rode off in all directions to sing the praises of Mary Doria Russell’s “ Doc,” a fantastic novel about Doc Holiday and Wyatt Earp. ![]() The brilliance of that cultural insight was somewhat undercut by the fact that my review ran in The Post beneath a huge story about a movie called “ True Grit.” Maybe you’ve heard of it. . . . A few months ago, in a review of Susan Froderberg’s “ Old Border Road,” I lamented that the once mighty western had faded away from American consciousness. ![]()
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