THE DEADENING

Traumatized by the fighting in France—increasing doses of laudanum and whiskey help only a little—Doughboy Harrell Hickman is a ticking time bomb back on U.S. soil after World War I.

A veteran’s hospital in Baltimore got him started on the drug—the only treatment it can devise for his “unscathed but unraveled” condition. Riding the rails to Nebraska, he encounters in the small town of Wisdom a fellow veteran, Willem Redd, who is visibly damaged by the war—he has an amputated arm and disfigured eye—but lives a productive life as sheriff and shopkeeper. Redd anticipates trouble when Hickman tells him he’s pursuing a job on a big ranch up near the Wyoming border. The ranch owner, Conover, is a solid sort but employs a “rough bunch” of Texans. Sure enough, after he’s hired, Hickman incurs the mockery of the Texans with his shaking hands and refusal to go near guns or horses (both trauma triggers). When one of the Texans keeps riding him, Hickman loses it and beats him to a pulp. It won’t be the last outpouring of violence from the veteran, whose grip on sanity weakens as the laudanum, or lack of it, takes its toll. This short novel is a seamless blend of modern Western and classic noir. Though we’re not prepared for the suddenness of Hickman’s final descent into madness, there’s little doubt where things are headed. But the book’s muscular, straightforward style and deepening nightmarish tone keep you in its grip.

A powerful depiction of the psychological ravages of war.