Walter Van Tilburg Clark
Fatal dawn
Minimum fax, 308 pages, 17 euros
The author (1909-1971) gave the scorned secondary western genre two great novels, this one and The track of the cat, which will return for the same publisher. Two books that gave birth in turn to two great films, both directed by William A. Wellman: Fatal dawn (1943) and the quasi-experimental and in color and “Melvillian” The beast (1954), innovative examples of “western of age” (Bazin). A third Wellman western is memorable, Yellow sky, who said he was inspired by The storm, like Clark’s book The city of trembling leaves (Einaudi), who spoke of the provinces – always his Nevada – and of the choices that are a prelude to adult life. A minor writer? Have it!
The strength and tension of the narrative also derives from the author’s aim: to face head on one of the repeated horrors of American society, the practice of lynching, not only in the “wild west”. Three tramps are accused of stealing cattle and murder, and lynched by good citizens, uselessly defended by some cowboys. It will be known too late of their innocence. In the cinema, Fatal dawn kicked off the big season of a new western; in literature a genre entrusted to (good) cheap writers found its dignity and its consecration. Even the complex epic of the west has had those who have been able to narrate it, inside and outside its myth.
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