As Good as Gone (Watson)

As Good as Gone 
Larry Watson, 2016
Algonquin Books
352 pp.
ISBN-13: 9781616205713


Summary
Calvin Sidey is always ready to run, and it doesn’t take much to set him in motion. As a young man, he ran from this block, from Gladstone, from Montana, from this country. From his family and the family business. He ran from sadness, and he ran from responsibility. If the gossip was true, he ran from the law.

It’s 1963, and Calvin Sidey, one of the last of the old cowboys, has long ago left his family to live a life of self-reliance out on the prairie.

He’s been a mostly absentee father and grandfather until his estranged son asks him to stay with his grandchildren, Ann and Will, for a week while he and his wife are away. So Calvin agrees to return to the small town where he once was a mythic figure, to the very home he once abandoned.  
But trouble soon comes to the door when a boy’s attentions to seventeen-year-old Ann become increasingly aggressive and a group of reckless kids portend danger for eleven-year-old Will.

Calvin knows only one way to solve problems: the Old West way, in which scores are settled and ultimatums are issued and your gun is always loaded.

And though he has a powerful effect on those around him—from the widowed neighbor who has fallen under his spell to Ann and Will, who see him as the man who brings a sudden and violent order to their lives—in the changing culture of the 1960s, Calvin isn’t just a relic; he’s a wild card, a danger to himself and those who love him. (From the publisher.)

Author Bio 
• Birth—1947
• Raised—Bismark, North Dakota, USA 
• Education—B.A., M.F.A., Unversity of North Dakota; Ph.D., University of Utah
• Awards—(see below)
• Currently—lives in Milwaukee, Wisoconsin

Larry Watson was born in 1947 in Rugby, North Dakota. He grew up in Bismarck, North Dakota, and married his high school sweetheart. He received his BA and MFA from the University of North Dakota, his Ph.D. from the creative writing program at the University of Utah, and an honorary Doctor of Letters degree from Ripon College. Watson has received grants and fellowships from the National Endowment for the Arts (1987, 2004) and the Wisconsin Arts Board.

Watson is the author of several novels and a chapbook of poetry. His fiction has been published in more than ten foreign editions, and has received numerous prizes and awards. Montana 1948, published in 1993, was nominated for the first IMPAC Dublin International Literary Prize. The movie rights to Montana 1948 and Justice have been sold to Echo Lake Productions and White Crosses has been optioned for film. His most recent novel, As Good as Gone was released in 2016.

He has published short stories and poems in Gettysburg Review, New England Review, North American Review, Mississippi Review, and other journals and quarterlies. His essays and book reviews have appeared in the Los Angeles Times, Washington Post, Chicago Sun-Times, Milwaukee Journal-Sentinel, and other periodicals. His work has also been anthologized in Essays for Contemporary Culture, Imagining Home, Off the Beaten Path, Baseball and the Game of Life, The Most Wonderful Books, These United States, and Writing America.

Watson taught writing and literature at the University of Wisconsin-Stevens Point for 25 years before joining the faculty at Marquette University in 2003.

Awards
Milkweed National Fiction Prize,
Mountains and Plains Bookseller Award,
Friends of American Writers Award,
Banta Award,
Critics Choice Award,
ALA/YALSA Best Books for Young Adults Winner
(Author bio from the publisher.)

Book Reviews
There’s a plainspoken toughness to this writer...that has led to him be overlooked in the large herd of fine Montana novelists. As Good As Gone is the latest of his books to forge satisfying drama from the intersection of Western mystique and middle-class reality. Mr. Watson points up some grubby truths behind the archetypal Western tale of the loner who comes to town and dispenses rough justice.... As Good As Gone is nuanced rather than explosive, and its traces of heroism are found not in violence but in a show of restraint.
Sam Sacks - Wall Street Journal
 

Watson is a naturally gifted storyteller, plainspoken and unpretentious...excellent at building suspense, and As Good as Gone is frequently exciting in a cinematic sense.... And even though the novel isn't perfect, Watson is a generous writer, and his love of the West and the people who live there shines through.”
Michael Schaub - NPR.org
 

[T]he virile, enigmatic character of Calvin, Watson...[and the] wistful territory covered here will be familiar to Watson’s fans.... A master of spare, economical storytelling, Watson sweeps us up in a captivating family drama that departs as quickly as it came, leaving us gratified yet hungry for more.
Seattle Times


Whether Watson is describing the inside of a 1952 Ford Tudor, a homey tree-lined street in Missoula, an afternoon branding a herd of cattle...he writes evocatively and with great persuasion. This book is vintage Watson: laconic, dramatic and tough as a dry Montana stream bed.
Minneapolis Star Tribune


[A] remarkable novel. It is like watching the sunrises over the prairies of Montana about which Watson writes so eloquently. But as with the reward of the lavender-and golden-hued sky to come, the ultimate effect of this novel is well worth the time spent watching.
New York Journal of Books


Fans of Larry Watsonwill recognize his mastery of foreshadowing.... And when [all] erupts, readers are in for a heart-pounding read. Watson keeps readers speculating until the end of this tense, fast-paced story of family drama as modern times clash with Old West mores.
Shelf Awareness


[An] excellent family drama from Watson....a very well done novel in which every character faces an individual conflict, resulting in a rich, suspenseful read.
Publishers Weekly


(Starred review.) [S]tunning.... Having received numerous awards for his fiction, Watson is sure to win more praise for his powerful characterizations in the manner of Kent Haruf and Ivan Doig. Readers won't get a novel any better than this.  —Donna Bettencourt, Mesa Cty. P.L., Grand Junction, CO
Library Journal


(Starred review.) Watson has written rich, sometimes heartbreaking novels...featuring resolute men and women whose very strength of character...has left them ill-equipped to deal with emotional turmoil. So it is for Calvin Sidey.... Fine writing in the grand western tradition of William Kittredge and Mark Spragg.
Booklist


Calvin's "capacity for ferocity," deserves a Clint Eastwood performance. Watson's powerful characterizations frame large and connected themes: family loyalty, the conflicting capacities of love, and the tenuous connections between humans.
Kirkus Reviews

Discussion Questions
We'll add the publisher's questions if and when they're available; in the meantime, use these LitLovers talking points to help start a discussion for As Good as Gone...then take off on your own:

1. What kind of man is Calvin Sidey? In what way does he adhere to—and break with—the archetypal cowboy hero of classic Western novels and films?

2. Why does Calvin agree to return to Gladstone and care for his grandchildren? He himself doesn't understand why:

Hadn't he banished long ago any feelings of obligation to others? Did he say yes simply because of blood? Could he have said no to anyone but his son? Or is his solitary life less endurable than he believes?

What do you think? Does Cal come to realize why by the end of the novel?

3. Early in the book, Bill recalls a remark Beverly Lodge once made: "Men—once they have an excuse to go, they're liable to stay gone." While he doesn't think the remark applies to him, he considers other men he knows who delay going home at the end of the day by heading for drinks to the Elks Club or VFW. Does the observation about men have any truth to it (the novel, don't forget, takes place in the 1960s)? Have men changed?

4. Why did Calvin abandon his family? What does it say that he has been on the run for so many years? Even Beverly understands that he "is always ready to run, and it doesn’t take much to set him in motion.” How might Cal be ill-equipped to cope with the mid-20th century?

5. Calvin is an enigmatic character who has a powerful effect on those in Gladstone. What accounts for his reputation?

6. Cal says to his grandson, "Believe me when I say I've sunk a hell of a lot more fence posts than I've roped cattle." What does this comment suggest about the romantic myth of the old west?

7. As Good as Gone follows a mythic plotline: a stranger arrives in town to dispense justice and set things right. If you are familiar with other books or films in the Western genre—or especially with classical Greek mythology—how does this novel follow the mythical outline?

8. Enumerate the various troubles in the Sidey household, which Cal unwittingly walks into. Consider Will's problems with his friends, Anne's ex-boyfriend, and Bill's unfinished business with Lonnie Black Pipe.

9. Why is Marjorie so distrustful of Calvin?

10. Then there's Beverly Lodge: how does her rush to soften Cal help her discover something hidden within herself?

11. Talk about the novel's ending. How do the characters change, or grow, and what do they come to understand about themselves and the obligations of family?

(Questions by LitLovers. Please feel free to use them, online or off, with attribution. Thanks.)

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