Essays

Moseying: Living La Vida Llanero

Jane Gilmore Rushing – Novelist of the breaks
July 4, 2004

At Larry McMurtry's "Booked Up" in Archer City, I bought Jane Gilmore Rushing's "Starting from Pyron." Rushing had been raised in Pyron, and her book is a recounting of the history of the small town whose population is mostly in the cemetery today. Most of the structures of the town are gone. Its afterword, by Daryl Jones, discusses Rushing's six novels set in west Texas. The novels present a fictionalized version of Pyron's history. After I read Jones' essay, I went to the Midland County Public Library, where I found four of the books.

I have a new "favorite West Texas novel." I rank Rushing's "The Raincrow" with Kelton's "The Time it Never Rained" and Anaya's "Bless me, Ultima" as the best-fictionalized accounts of life in west Texas. Searching on the Internet I found almost no discussion of Rushing's work. At least three of her books were published by Doubleday, and two more by Texas Tech. Despite the "validification" of being published by one of the largest publishing houses in the nation, it seems that she has not received the public awareness that I believe she deserves.

I hope that people who have read Rushing will contact me and tell me what they think of her work. I personally respond to several important factors in her writings. The central issue of "The Raincrow" is the ostracizing of Laura Messenger by her church. Despite her banishment for adultery, she remained committed to the philosophies and dogma of her church. Her family became recluses. The narrator, Laura's daughter Gail, returns for a summer visit as a middle-aged divorcee, and the plot of the book hinges on her discoveries as the past is explained to her by her mother and uncle. The sensitive and respectful handling of the churchly characters by Rushing is what elevates the book to a unique value, in my opinion.

As a west Texas chauvinist, I also strongly respond to her descriptions of the landscape. Not only does she express love for mesquite trees and wildflowers, she uses the yellow-billed cuckoo (also known as a raincrow) as a symbol of Gail's adjustments to the truths revealed to her. The use of the cuckoo included an awareness of the story of the landscape -- raincrows moved up out of the wooded and watered draws of presettlement west Texas to live around the houses of the settlers. Such intimate knowledge of her home landscape thrills me!

Regionalist literature, such as Sherwood Anderson's "Winesburg," Sinclair Lewis's "Main Street," and William Faulkner's "The Hamlet," is a genre of American literature that is not often included in public education. I believe the teenagers should be required to read the literature of their home bioregion as a requirement for graduation. (I also believe they should have knowledge about the history and the natural history of their region, as well.) For those young adults that will remain near their birthplace, such knowledge would encourage more active participation in the future development of the society that includes them. For those that leave to seek their futures elsewhere, such knowledge helps them understand the reasons for their leaving.

Rushing's plot lines (at least in the four novels I have read) are hinged on social issues. "Mary Dove" is driven along by the racism common in the 1880s. "Walnut Grove" revisits the issue, but the plot is powered by protagonist John Carlile's response to the limited and provincial attitudes prevalent in rural west Texas in the early 1900s -- to fully develop to his capabilities, he has to leave to go to college and further. Rushing skillfully reveals his gradual realization of his need to leave, as he rejects the temptations that encourage staying. "Winds of Blame" chronicles the results of incest, not only in the family affected, but also in the families of friends and neighbors.

"Mary Dove" ends with Mary Dove and her husband leaving a community seeking a place "where people's laws are the same as God's." She is mulatto, and her husband is white, and the religious and racial bigotry and anti-miscegenation laws of civilization condemn their natural love developed in isolation beyond the encroaching frontier. As the area is settled "people's law" condemns them. Mary Dove and Red Jones are sure that God approves of their love.

Another reason for my appreciation of Rushing's work is her use of the sayings and speech patterns of rural west Texas. From the regional use of the word dinner for lunch, and "after dinner" to mean the afternoon, to the use of digression in orally recounted stories, a reader can recognize what they themselves have heard. One phrase, "the weaning house," is a wonderful description of the house a family often built for the newly married son who planned on continuing the family farm. The son (and sometimes a daughter) would help with the work of the farm, and receive the profit generated "on the halves" with his parents.

Folk customs, such as the "shivaree" (practical jokes played on the bride and bridegroom on their wedding night), are also related. "Kodaking" is also mentioned. After the Brownie camera became available, many people had group excursions or picnics where photography became an integral part of the activity. For a period in the 1930s, Kodaking formed the basis to group activities for young adults. In Rushing's books, the role of senior citizens of a small community as respected elders is illustrated. Not only are the elders consulted for their knowledge of local history, but also as arbiters and mentors of matters of morality and judgment.

Reading the corpus of Rushing's novels is an excellent adjunct to the experience of visiting much of the west Texas landscape. When the traveler sees an abandoned farm house, or stops and reads a historical marker about a vanished community, Rushing's recreation of similar places comes to mind, and in the imagination, the traveler steps back into time and gains understanding. An emotional connection to time and place becomes possible for the traveler because the story has become "personal."