Dime Novel
2016
This project is an exercise in directly subverting the archetypes and tropes of the Western, using the dime novel as source material.
Much of our cultural misunderstanding of the American West comes from the portrayals depicted in this format. The "cool, detached hero," the "fragile heroine," the "despicable outlaw," the "savage Native American," and glorified violence leading to noble justice all stem from this pulpy genre.
For this piece, I used Bradford Scott's 1969 novel, Mountain Raiders, as my source material. What interested me initially is that this work was written far past the "heyday" of the genre. It seemed out of step with the times, a relic venerating a discarded myth.
In the work, I cut and pasted sentences and phrases from the original text, rearranging them to create a new context and understanding. The rollicking "white hat/black hat" narrative is replaced by one that is decidedly gray. There is no resolution. In fact, there was nothing to resolve in the first place. The characters of "my dime novel" exist in a state of inertia. There is no good versus evil. There is nothing noble. And the violence is just violent.
