Glen Larum, whose lengthy resume includes a stint as managing editor of The Fort Stockton Pioneer during the George and Frank Baker era, has written his first novel, “Waltz Against the Sky,” published by Walking Three Bar T Publishing, Inc.
A Montanan who often said he “came to Texas (in general) and Fort Stockton (in particular) as soon as he could,” Larum and his wife, Pat, currently reside in Midland after a brief sojourn in Austin following his retirement as public information officer for the TxDOT Odessa District.
“Waltz Against the Sky,” a 400-page novel, is described by reviewers as western realism in a style reminiscent of Tony Hillerman — or perhaps Elmore Leonard. Closer to home, previewers have noted that while Waltz will appeal to a wide range of fiction readers who enjoy solid, down-home writing, longtime residents of several West Texas towns will not fail to recognize elements of their communities and the people who called them home in the decades of the 1970s and ‘80s.
“As characters in Glen Larum’s ‘Waltz Against the Sky’ drift toward a small town in Texas,” writes Timothy Pilgrim, a retired associate professor of journalism at Western Washington University, “their stories are braided into a lariat that cinches their fates together…(and) puts the sere, flat landscape back into moral order by following a bloody crime, violent chase and courtroom drama that entangle the lives of ordinary people. Evan Blaine, a young newspaper editor, must search beyond appearances for the truth — and how he can anchor his life’s work, and his heart, within the community.”
The story is told using a flashback layering technique in which the paths of four young men converge in West Texas at a place called Indian Springs, where they bump up against each other and the people whom strangers are most likely to encounter in a strange place — people in the professional hospitality business and law enforcement officials who administer justice in their own way.
“‘Waltz,’” writes Larum’s longtime coworker Teddye Stephan, “is the perfect depiction of how people and our times shape our lives, especially in small towns that truly are the center of the universe for a childhood or a decade or even a lifetime. To (those) who know all the roads in and out of Indian Springs, Sunlight and Rio Seco, and the era that spawned them, this is a story that often seems more fact than fiction, but the issues are ageless and without geographic significance. People everywhere have to determine right from wrong, and they will learn much on the journey. This is such a story…”
The book is available from Walking3BarTpublishing.com.