Reading The Virginian in the New West (review)
much to argue with where Schwarz places one story or another and even with some of the genre determinations themselves, and Schwarz invites such argument. As he puts it, "Runyon not only resisted the categorizing sensibility but also had something of a postmodernist sensibility in understanding that absurdity and nonsense help make sense of things" (168–69). The categories that Schwarz proposes, contingent as they themselves may be, provide a terminology and approach for new readings of individual stories that otherwise run the risk of being overshadowed by the effect of the stories as a whole. In addition to his groundbreaking work with the Broadway stories, Schwarz also proposes relationships between Runyon's career as a whole and his columns, reporting, and other story series. He is less original along such lines, but he does a good job of synthesizing much of the substantial but dated work by writers such as Edwin Hoyt who, having known Runyon personally, offer rich anecdotes that benefit from Schwarz's critical context. As a result, Schwarz makes the effort to keep all of Runyon's writing relevant even though he, like most readers, finds the Broadway stories more perpetually interesting. All in all, Schwarz takes Runyon's world apart with real acumen, showing that exploring the differences in the stories and in the person(s) of the narrator allows us to see each story in a new light. While he puts that world together again a bit less successfully, his thorough catalogue of the stories is unrivalled, and he offers a provocative place to begin another generation of critical debate on Runyon. There are other good places to turn for ideas about Runyon's work, but none is more essential than Schwarz's new book, and none offers the same opportunities for asking new questions about a writer who is overdue for new appreciation.