esandberg:

“The crickets and the rust-beetles scuttled among the nettles of the sage thicket. ‘Vámonos, amigos,’ he whispered, and threw the busted leather flintcraw over the loose weave of the saddlecock. And they rode on in the friscalating dusklight.”

I discovered Eli Cash during my sophomore year in high school. Back then, maybe even still, our school set aside 12 minutes a day for silent reading. My Pacific Northwest History teacher would toss out some obscure collection of short stories or the odd magazine which he either received for free or stole from his barber shop and provide them to kids who “forgot” to bring a book. I forgot because I was always reading books written in obscure vernaculars and the other kids would tease me. I always forgot…

Anyway, Instead of the usual issue of Yuppies Outside in a Canoe or a Jeep Magazine, I scored. Teach tossed me an issue of Vanity Fair which, as we all know, features much side boob, ass cleavage and camel toe. In the middle of saving for my wank bank a headline caught my attention.

“Pronounced Pussy”

It was a review of Eli Cash’s first book Wildcat. It wasn’t a great review but it intrigued me. In it, Cash said that Wildcat was different in that it was “written in a kind of obselete vernacular.” I KNOW. Hardcore, right?

I checked it out from the city library that afternoon and devoured it. From what I could gather there were oil fires, knife fights, a burlesque show on glaciers, helicopter chases, Native Americans and a secret affair with a tortured heiress. The book vibrated with imagination. You could just tell. You really could. And if you can’t, you’re pretty dumb and should get your co-worker’s wife drunk and try to fingerbang her again.

Wildcat is still my favorite Cash novel. What’s yours?