Call of the Wilde

Call of the Wilde is another “wilde” ride back to the Wild West with H.H. Lomax as our literary tour guide. Author Preston Lewis continues to tickle my funny bone as he relates this Lomax adventure.

After being caught in the wrong place at the wrong time—as per usual with this character—Lomax has to skedaddle out of Texas to avoid entanglement with a local sheriff. After some reflection, he decides his life would be simpler if he were to go to Utah, become a Mormon, and marry a number of Mormon women so he could, “just sit back and enjoy life while they did all the work.” Along the way he meets up with his oldest sister, who he hasn’t seen since leaving his Arkansas home after the War Between the States. In another unlikely—and probably unwitting—event, Lomax ends up being the bodyguard for Irish poet Oscar Wilde as he tours that region.

One of the things I just adore in these Lomax novels is how he meets up with someone historically famous (or infamous), and then he goes on to trash the common perceptions we have of that person. In this story, that person is Oscar Wilde. Admittedly, I don’t know much about Wilde, although I do know the name. However, even if I did know more about Wilde, I doubt that his known legacy includes the sordid details that Lomax provides. As Lomax puts it, Wilde “was about one drip away from insanity.”

A trait that I greatly admire in Lomax is his keen sense of observation and inability to mince words. For example, this is how he describes a local politician who came to visit him: “One of my visitors was older and frail, a puny fellow in his sixties with thinning gray hair in disarray, wire-rimmed spectacles that made his green eyes look too big and narrow shoulders that made his coat look too large.” In another instance, his eyes fell upon one of the prettiest girls he’d ever seen—until she opened her mouth: “She had the crookedest teeth I had ever seen on man, animal, or rock.”

These Lomax stories came into existence because the author (allegedly) happened upon Lomax’s handwritten memoirs in a university library several decades ago. After reading several of these stories, this is how my mind perceives them: author Preston Lewis lets Lomax do most or the talking, but fills in some blanks here and there, and more importantly he keeps Lomax going in the right direction without getting sidetracked. This partnership between Lomax and Lewis results in some highly entertaining stories.

I’ve enjoyed each of these Lomax stories that I’ve read, including this one. I really can’t compare this story to the others because they are all so fun to read! Thank you Preston Lewis (and H.H. Lomax) for awarding me with some unique humor whenever I share some of my time amongst your words!