Thomas Savage (novelist)

Thomas Savage (April 25, 1915 – July 25, 2003) was an American author of 13 novels published between 1944 and 1988. He is best known for his Western novels, which drew on early experiences in the American West.[1]

Thomas Savage
Savage, c. 1976
BornThomas Savage
(1915-04-25)April 25, 1915
Salt Lake City, Utah, United States
DiedJuly 25, 2003(2003-07-25) (aged 88)
Virginia Beach, Virginia, United States
Occupationnovelist
GenreWestern
Notable worksPower of the Dog (1967), A Strange God (1974), I Heard My Sister Speak My Name (1977), The Corner of Rife and Pacific (1988)
SpouseElizabeth Savage (writer)
ChildrenRobert Brassil Savage

Russell Yearian Savage, sons

Elizabeth St. Mark Main, daughter

Life

Early life

Savage was born in Salt Lake City, Utah, in 1915 to Elizabeth (Yearian) and Benjamin Savage. His parents divorced when he was two years old, and he moved with his mother to a ranch near Lemhi, Idaho.[2] When his mother remarried to Charles Brenner in 1920, Savage moved with her and his new stepfather to the Brenner cattle ranch in Beaverhead County, Montana. Charles Brenner adopted young Savage, who took the Brenner name. However, Savage felt like a misfit on the ranch, where he witnessed the unhappiness of his alcoholic mother. Savage was home schooled in the early grades and in the tenth grade, but the Brenners sent him away to Dillon, the nearest town of any size, to attend high school. He was even more unhappy at school than he was on the ranch. These early experiences influenced Savage's writing, and the settings of many of his novels are thinly veiled versions of the ranch and the town of Dillon.[3]

In 1932, Savage graduated from Beaverhead County High School. Still only seventeen years old, he studied writing at Montana State College (today the University of Montana). Believing himself to be too young for college, he took a two-year break, during which he worked at a riding academy in Portland, Oregon and on a dude ranch in British Columbia. Savage returned to Montana State College in 1935. He published his first story, "The Bronc Stomper," in Coronet in 1937. That fall, he transferred to Colby College in Waterville, Maine, where he courted Montana native Elizabeth Fitzgerald (later to become Elizabeth Savage (writer). They married in 1939 and received B.A. degrees in 1940.[4][5]

Family life

After their marriage, the Savages lived briefly in Chicago before moving back to Montana in 1942 to work on the Brenner ranch. World War II made it hard to find ranch hands, and Charles Brenner needed help. But Savage still felt out of place on the ranch, and he dropped the Brenner surname and returned to using his birth father's name. After just a year, the couple moved away from the ranch, settling in Massachusetts.[3]

By the time he was twenty-nine, Savage had worked as a wrangler, ranch hand, welder, and railroad brakeman.[6] In 1944, Doubleday published Savage's first novel (The Pass). In spite of encouraging sales, revenue from the book was not enough to support the Savage family, which now included two boys, Robert and Russell. Savage secured a teaching position at Suffolk University in Boston, Massachusetts, where he taught from 1947–1948. His daughter Elizabeth was born in 1949, the same year he left Suffolk for an assistant professorship at Brandeis University in Waltham, Massachusetts. In 1953, he published his third book, A Bargain with God. By 1955, Savage was able to stop teaching and focus on his writing full-time.[7]

In 1955, the Savages purchased a home in Georgetown, Maine, where they would remain for nearly thirty years. Elizabeth began to focus on her own writing career. Her novels include The Last Night at the Ritz. Savage himself wrote ten more novels. One of these was inspired by his reunion with his older sister. Their mother had given Patricia Savage up for adoption before Savage's birth. The siblings finally met in 1969 after Patricia's attorney contacted Savage. This reunion forced Savage to reevaluate his mother's life, and as a result, he published I Heard My Sister Speak My Name in 1977.

In 1982, the Savages built a home on Whidbey Island in Puget Sound, on property given to him by his sister.[2] Savage published the last of his 13 novels in 1988. Set in Montana, The Corner of Rife and Pacific follows the founders of a tiny Montana town over several generations.

Decline and death

After the death of his wife in 1989, Savage lived briefly in Seattle and San Francisco, before moving to Virginia Beach, Virginia, in order to be near his daughter. His son, the writer Robert Brassil Savage, died in 2001 in a "freak accident."[8] In 2001, the Montana Book Festival featured a panel on Savage and his work, but Savage—then eighty-six years old—did not attend.

Savage died in Virginia, July 25, 2003, at the age of eighty-eight.

Writing career

Savage published his first story, "The Bronc Stomper," in 1937 in Coronet under the name Tom Brenner. Annie Proulx has noted that the story was "unremarkable except for its unusual subject matter, " breaking a horse.[2] However, the seventy-five dollar payment he received encouraged him to begin work on his first novel. The Pass was released in 1944. He dedicated the book, set in the Lemhi Valley, Idaho, to his mother. His second novel, Lona Hanson, came out in 1948. These early novels introduce the theme of a dysfunctional ranch dynasty that appears throughout Savage's western novels.

In 1967, The Power of the Dog was released. The plot focuses on two brothers, simple but honest George and malicious, homophobic Phil. Phil works to destroy his brother and sister-in-law, goading them with insults to suicide and alcoholism. His nephew, Peter, plots revenge but finally makes an uneasy truce. Critics considered the novel Savage's best. In spite of favorable reviews—including one from The New York Times comparing it to a Greek tragedy—sales of the book remained modest.

Savage received a Guggenheim Fellowship in 1979. He used it to write Her Side of It, which he considered his best work. His last novel, The Corner of Rife and Pacific, was nominated for the PEN/Faulkner Award[9] and received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award in 1989.

In his writing, Savage dealt with themes of fatal provincialism and the claustrophobia of sexual boundaries. He used his novels to denounce the bigotry he considered entrenched in the western towns and ranches of his upbringing. Savage loosely modeled several character types on his own family. His beloved mother inspired the character of a culturally refined young mother, driven by isolation to alcohol. His grandmother Emma Russell Yearian inspired the character of an iron-fisted matriarch. His stepfather Charles Brenner inspired the character of an honest but slow-witted rancher. His uncle William Brenner inspired the character of a manipulative, calculating ranch hand. Savage wrote himself into many of his novels in the character of an outsider, unsuited to ranch life. These characters appear in many of his novels under different names and different circumstances.[3]

When asked to speak of his influences, Savage stated "Mrs. Bridge, by Evan S. Connell, is one of the best novels I ever read. I was influenced by John Steinbeck, Robert Benchley, and Dorothy Parker. I was a history major, read little fiction, chiefly biography and history. I read S.J. Perelman."[10]

Awards

Bibliography

Novels
  • The Pass (1944)
  • Lona Hanson (1948)
  • A Bargain with God (1953)
  • Trust in Chariots (1961)
  • The Power of the Dog (1967)
  • The Liar (1969)
  • Daddy's Girl (1970)
  • A Strange God (1974)
  • Midnight Line (1976)
  • I Heard My Sister Speak My Name (1977) (now published as The Sheep Queen)
  • Her Side of It (1981)
  • For Mary with Love (1983)
  • The Corner of Rife and Pacific (1988)

References
  1. Colby University Magazine
  2. Annie Proulx (2001). "Afterword" in Thomas Savage, The Power of the Dog. Warner Trade.
  3. Weltzien, O. Alan (Winter 2008). "Thomas Savage: Forgotten Novelist". Montana The Magazine of Western History. 58 (4): 25. Retrieved 11 January 2021.
  4. "Obituaries". Colby Magazine. Colby College. Winter 2004. Retrieved July 14, 2013.
  5. "Thomas Savage, 88; Writer Best-Known for Western Novels Set in Montana". Los Angeles Times. 2003-08-30. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
  6. "Thomas Savage, 88, Novelist Drawn to the American West". The New York Times. 2003-08-25. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
  7. "Thomas Savage Biography-Thomas Savage Comments". Brief Biographies. Retrieved November 8, 2010.
  8. "Obituaries". Colby Magazine. Colby College. Fall 2003. Retrieved July 14, 2013.
  9. "5 Nominated for PEN Fiction Awards". 1989-03-03.
  10. "Thomas Savage". Gale Biography in Context. 2001. Missing or empty |url= (help)
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