I checked out Pale Horse, Pale Rider because someone in a newspaper comments section said it was the only significant work of literature to emerge from the Spanish Flu epidemic. I have no idea if that’s true, but the titular story is excellent and does seem to nicely encapsulate the convergence of tragedies that struck the world in 1918, as a horrific war ended just as an equally horrific—in terms of body count, at least— plague raged along its murderous crescendo. I say titular story because Pale Horse, Pale Rider is not one novel but rather three short ones, two of which may or may not be connected (the protagonist of Old Mortality has the same name as the woman in Pale Horse, Miranda, so I assume they could be the same person, though I didn’t pore back over the first novel to find clues to confirm or deny this.)
Of the three novels, the middle one, Noon Wine, may actually be the strongest. It concerns a farmer swimming exhausted against a riptide of insolvency until a stoic Swedish immigrant arrives from seemingly nowhere and drags him from the depths and into quiet prosperity. All seems well, despite an undercurrent of unease, until a stranger arrives in the third act and forces the farmer to make a snap and costly decision. I can see why Pale Horse got the title, as it’s a great story and carries the most symbolic heft, but I would say I enjoyed Noon Wine most of the three. Old Mortality was good as well, though it was one of those family history stories, in which young characters glean the failings of their elders, and while the details were smart and well-rendered, it didn’t pull me along as strongly as Noon Wine did.
Porter’s prose is exeptional, rich and lyrical, with a tendency to roam that I admire when it goes right, as it does in all three novels. I’m surprised I’d never heard of her before, considering she was apparently a prominent short story writer from an era I often read. I’ll be certain to pick up more from her in the future.