PrintLive From Houston: C.J. Box
EnlargeCowboys & Indians: You've written 10 crime novels about Joe Pickett, a Wyoming game warden whos tangled with everything from environmental terrorists to crazed cowboy assassins. Do you think of Joe as a modern-day western hero?
C.J. Box: Absolutely. I also consider every single book Ive ever written--either Joe Pickett novels or stand-alones--[to be] westerns. I dont know if I could write something thats not a western. No matter what era it takes place, no matter whos in it, no matter what the characters are. But I have to say, I never really thought about the western hero element until I finished the third Pickett book.
C&I: What called it to your attention?
C.J.: Well, just after [Winterkill] came out, I was in New York at the time, and I got an e-mail from this woman telling me, Every time I read about Joe Pickett, I think of my father. I feel like youre channeling him. He's got the right qualities, he doesnt talk much--he's such a typical Western man. And it was signed by Maria Cooper Janis--Gary Cooper's only daughter. She lives in New York, and since I happened to be there, I was able to visit with her. We had, like, a four-hour lunch, where she told me all about her dad. And thats when I really began to think of Joe as a western hero.
C&I: Youve said that because of where Pickett lives and works in the wilds of Wyoming, he has to assume everyone he encounters is likely armed and must behave accordingly. But early on, did you have any resistance to having a game warden as your hero? I mean, with all due respect to game wardens...
C.J.: [Laughs] Yeah, I know what you mean. But you see, for me, the first book [Open Season] was more about the issue of endangered species--and, to me, more a contemporary novel about the West--than it was a story about a game warden. And it wasn't intended as the first in a series. It was just that, because it was about those issues, it seemed logical to have a game warden as the protagonist. But when [G.P.] Putnam offered me a contract stipulating they wanted two more Joe Pickett books, suddenly I was writing a series about a game warden. It wasnt planned that way.
C&I: But as it's turned out...
C.J.: I'm very glad I did it that way. Because what I'm interested in are natural resource issues and controversies. And a game warden is in the middle of things like that. At least in Wyoming. It's not the case with game wardens and conservation officers in every single state. They're not all the same animal. But in the Mountain West, they certainly are. It's like I describe them: Theyre heavily armed, they're on their own, they have huge territories to cover, they don't have backup--that's the way they operate.
C&I: Your books are very balanced in their depiction of developers and environmentalists, two groups often at odds with each other.
C.J.: I'm very conscious of that. I think that, my views aside, if I can write a book for someone and, no matter what side their views may be on to start with, they at least get a glimpse of the other side and consider it, then I think its a success. And I do hear that from people. No matter what preconceived notions they might have when they went into the book, they'll tell me, I never thought about the other side of the issue. It's not unreasonable. And I think that's a good thing, because both sides of issues usually aren't presented in most novels. Usually, it's pretty rote: All environmentalists good, all developers bad. When a guy is introduced as a developer, he'll turn out in the end to be the guy who killed everybody. I kind of like to mix that up.
THE TAB
REAL TIME: Many novelists avoid being too precise about the ages of characters as they write new books in a long-running series. Not C.J. Box. "Each book is one year after the previous book, he says, and each member of Pickett's family is aging in real time. Because with these kinds of books, you have to suspend disbelief anyway. But to suspend it to the point where no one ever ages or changes or is scarred by something that happened in a previous book, for me as a reader thats too much."
THE DOWNSIDE OF REALISM: Despite the continued popularity of his literary creation, C.J. can foresee the end of the trail. "When Joe Pickett gets too old", he says, "that will be the end of the books. Im not going to continue to a point where hes drawing his gun and trying to beat up people when hes 70."
Click here to watch a video of CJ Box discuss Nowhere to Run, a Joe Pickett novel.
Issue: September 2010
