Oakley Hall, 1920–2008

We learned today that Oakley Hall, author of Warlock, has died. Warlock was among Oakley Hall's most famous books, it was a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize, became a film starring Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn, and struck the fancy of a young Thomas Pynchon. Warlock''s dark vision of the wild west and its allusions to the paranoia and strife surrounding the McCarthy hearings led us to describe it as a postmodern Western—though Oakley didn't warm to the designation.

Like Elaine Dundy, Oakley Hall was active and vibrant up until the end. Last September he appeared on a double bill with his namesake, the band Oakley Hall, and only last month he wrote in to ask for some copies of his book and to request a copy of Rex Warner's Men and Gods. We hear that he was working on another book when he died.

There's no point in giving all the details of Hall's life here, when he does it himself at his own website, housed by the Squaw Valley Community of Writers, which Oakley Hall founded nearly forty years ago.