The Ballad of Midnight and McRae

Ill-fated lovers team up to bring a measure of justice to the Wild West in Lederman’s historical novel.

Caleb McRae, born in 1876, is the son of a banker in Greenwich, Connecticut. Handsome, hale, and wealthy, his future seemed secure. But at 18, disturbed by desires he knew were unholy and inspired by dime-store Westerns, he left home for Texas, content to have been disinherited and left to make his own way in the world. He is a man bent on bringing God and justice to the unwieldy West. Caleb joins the Texas Rangers and acquires a stellar reputation, and then, in 1900, his life is forever changed. An outlaw named Henry Midnight is reported to be running roughshod over the territory, stealing cattle and jewels from the wealthy white ranchers. After days of tracking him, Caleb finds Henry weeping next to his beloved Arabian horse, now dead. During the long journey back to El Paso, Caleb learns Henry is the son of a British Peer; like Caleb, Henry found himself entranced by the West, and he has found a home among the Hopi and the Apache (“He’d attended lectures in ethnology at Oxford before coming to the States to study the aboriginal Americans and learn their ways”). He too is seeking justice—for those who were displaced and discarded by the wealthy white invaders. So begins Lederman’s beguiling five-decade-long queer love story about two men committed to their own versions of righteousness and salvation—and, especially, to one another, through both heartbreak and reconciliation. Articulately and sensitively composed, with vivid primary and secondary characters, the narrative contains a satisfying amount of action, including gunfights, brawls, and close calls with the law. But what engages the two avengers (and likely readers as well) most are the bracing intellectual, philosophical, and theological debates they enjoy so thoroughly—Henry counters Caleb’s evangelistic sermons with compelling Hopi mysticism and creation stories. The heavy doses of Christian doctrine that permeate the narrative begin to weigh it down, but the delightfully witty dialogue shared by the two lovers brings refreshing lightness to a complex tale.

A poignant, intriguing, and soulful Western with memorable protagonists.