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A Hackamore Saga — W.L. Heath
“It might surprise you what goes on in a little town the size of Hackamore. Driving through, it looks like the quietest little place under the sun. But give it fifty years and see what happens. Scandals, murders, you name it.”
The narrator of this novel is Robert H. Horton, a barbershop proprietor in Hackamore, Alabama, who has a keen eye, a loving heart, and a big window on Main Street. What he doesn't know about his hometown isn't worth knowing, and at the outset he warns of turbulence to come. And yet it's unlikely that he intended this effect or worked toward it in any conscious sense while sharing his stories. Whatever suspicions he may have had about his uncle's disappearance, or Tiny Warbuck's death, or even the murder of Horace Hobson, were probably subliminal. He simply told his stories of Hackamore as they came to mind and as he remembered them. He was like a man putting together a big, complicated jigsaw puzzle. Each piece, large or small, contributes to the total picture.
W. L. Heath has written a novel that has the resonance of truth and the richness of folklore. It is a history, a poem, an encyclopedia of intimate knowledge about a place and it's people.
About the Author:
William L. Heath was born in 1924, in Lake Village, Arkansas, and grew up in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1942 he entered the University of Virginia, but his attendance there was interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, in which he served for three years as an aerial radio operator during WWII. He served overseas for seventeen months in the CBI theatre, flying the Hump, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mr. Heath returned to the University of Virginia after his discharge and completed a B.A. degree in English Literature. During his senior year there, he published several short stories in the school magazine, won the Virginia Spectator Literary Award, and sold his first story to Collier's. He went on to publish three dozen short stories, which were published in Argosy, Esquire, Collier's, Cosmopolitan, and other publications of smaller circulation.
His first novel, Violent Saturday, was published in 1955. Later that same year 20th Century Fox made a movie based on the novel with an all-star cast including Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine.
Mr. Heath's second novel, Ill Wind, received literary acclaim and established him as a writer with exceptional talents. He followed Ill Wind with eight more novels over the course of his career.
Mr. Heath lived in Scottsboro, Alabama, with his wife of more than 30 years, Mary Ann Heath. After her death he moved to Guntersville, Alabama, where he lived until his death in 2007.
The narrator of this novel is Robert H. Horton, a barbershop proprietor in Hackamore, Alabama, who has a keen eye, a loving heart, and a big window on Main Street. What he doesn't know about his hometown isn't worth knowing, and at the outset he warns of turbulence to come. And yet it's unlikely that he intended this effect or worked toward it in any conscious sense while sharing his stories. Whatever suspicions he may have had about his uncle's disappearance, or Tiny Warbuck's death, or even the murder of Horace Hobson, were probably subliminal. He simply told his stories of Hackamore as they came to mind and as he remembered them. He was like a man putting together a big, complicated jigsaw puzzle. Each piece, large or small, contributes to the total picture.
W. L. Heath has written a novel that has the resonance of truth and the richness of folklore. It is a history, a poem, an encyclopedia of intimate knowledge about a place and it's people.
About the Author:
William L. Heath was born in 1924, in Lake Village, Arkansas, and grew up in Scottsboro, Alabama. In 1942 he entered the University of Virginia, but his attendance there was interrupted when he enlisted in the Army Air Corps, in which he served for three years as an aerial radio operator during WWII. He served overseas for seventeen months in the CBI theatre, flying the Hump, for which he was awarded the Distinguished Flying Cross.
Mr. Heath returned to the University of Virginia after his discharge and completed a B.A. degree in English Literature. During his senior year there, he published several short stories in the school magazine, won the Virginia Spectator Literary Award, and sold his first story to Collier's. He went on to publish three dozen short stories, which were published in Argosy, Esquire, Collier's, Cosmopolitan, and other publications of smaller circulation.
His first novel, Violent Saturday, was published in 1955. Later that same year 20th Century Fox made a movie based on the novel with an all-star cast including Victor Mature, Richard Egan, Stephen McNally, Lee Marvin and Ernest Borgnine.
Mr. Heath's second novel, Ill Wind, received literary acclaim and established him as a writer with exceptional talents. He followed Ill Wind with eight more novels over the course of his career.
Mr. Heath lived in Scottsboro, Alabama, with his wife of more than 30 years, Mary Ann Heath. After her death he moved to Guntersville, Alabama, where he lived until his death in 2007.
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