After the recent ‘discovery’ of John Williams’s Stoner and the enthusiasm for it in this household, among many other places, I decided to try another of Williams’s novels. I have just read Butcher’s Crossing. The first thing to say about it is that it disproves the claim sometimes heard that every writer keeps re-writing the one book they have in them. Butcher’s Crossing is nothing like Stoner. Where the former’s setting is a university department, the latter’s is the American west. It’s ostensibly about hunting buffalo in the mountains of Colorado; and it confirms that Williams was a superb writer. The setting may be very different, but the book is visibly by the same hand, displaying the same economy and clarity of expression. I can’t understand why Williams isn’t better known.
Because of how different the two books are in subject matter, I can’t confidently recommend Butcher’s Crossing to those who enjoyed Stoner. I will only say that it’s a lot more than a ‘western’. It’s about a young man’s quest to escape from the limitations of his life back on the east coast, and to find, by going west, the spaces of America. And it’s about his hope that nature may still hold meanings that have been cramped and distorted by civilization. And it’s about just finding a purpose for one’s own life. And about the myths exposed and disappointments met in the realities of that buffalo hunt – not only for the main protagonist. As it strikes me, Butcher’s Crossing is a powerful precursor to the best of Cormac McCarthy; that might tell you whether or not you want to give it a try.