The Daybreakers by Louis L'Amour
"The Daybreakers" is a Western novel by Louis L'Amour and the first in the Sackett series, introducing readers to the adventures of Tyrel "Tye" Sackett. Set in 1866, the story begins in Tennessee, where Tye kills a man who threatens his brother, Orrin. The brothers flee westward, embarking on a journey through Abilene, Kansas, and into the New Mexico Territory, where they face a series of challenges including dangerous cattle drives and complex relationships. Tye falls in love with Drusilla Alvarado, while Orrin becomes enamored with Laura, daughter of a corrupt land-swindler. As the narrative unfolds, Tye's character develops through various experiences, including a stint as a lawman in Mora, New Mexico, where he ultimately confronts threats against Drusilla's family. The novel features a diverse cast of over sixty characters, each contributing to the rich tapestry of the narrative, ranging from heroic figures to villainous adversaries. While it reflects L'Amour's characteristic brisk writing style, "The Daybreakers" also sets the stage for future stories in the Sackett saga, establishing themes of adventure, loyalty, and the quest for belonging in a rapidly changing West.
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The Daybreakers by Louis L'Amour
Excerpted from an article in Magill’s Survey of American Literature, Revised Edition
First published: 1960
Type of work: Novel
The Work
The Daybreakers was the first of the seventeen Sackett novels L’Amour published, and it remains one of the best. In it he allows Tyrel Sackett, age eighteen in 1866 when the story begins, to narrate his own adventures in his own, intermittently folksy way. In Tennessee, Tye kills a man who was trying to shoot his unarmed brother Orrin, and the two Sacketts evade the law (typically thickheaded here) by heading west—for Abilene, Kansas, and then Santa Fe (in the New Mexico Territory).
Between dangerous cattle drives and much derring-do, the brothers fall in love—Orrin unfortunately, with Laura, the selfish daughter of a Yankee land-swindler named Jonathan Pritts; Tye blessedly, with Drusilla Alvarado, the beautiful granddaughter of an endangered Spanish land-grant holder. L’Amour loves to send his heroes far and wide, even as they long for homes to call their own. So Tye must go through experiences in the Idaho goldfields before becoming a lawman in Mora, a little town northeast of Santa Fe. Orrin is already the marshal there and quickly becomes a disaffected husband and a budding politician. Tye remains the heroic central character of The Daybreakers when, in the last chapters, he helps to rout several gunmen hired by Pritts to destroy the Alvarados, saves his brother Orrin’s life, and marries Drusilla.
It is not the plot but the assembly of more than sixty characters that makes this novel a valuable Western fictional document. They run the gamut from admirable to villainous, from heroic to pusillanimous, from beautiful to evil-eyed. Several of the dramatis personae are especially memorable. Wily old cattleman Cap Rountree is a father figure, and he will reappear in many later novels. Former Army officer and former lawyer Tom Sunday teaches Tye to read but later turns alcoholic, jealous, and grimly disloyal. Professional gunslingers, hailing from both sides of the border, display colorful degrees of viciousness and courage. Drusilla and Laura are starkly contrasted. Widowed old Ma Sackett follows Tye and Orrin to New Mexico to make a new home; she brings along a couple of younger sons, Bob and Joe, but still misses her oldest son, Tell, who is up North fighting the Sioux.
Though betraying L’Amour’s typical haste of composition, The Daybreakers is both exciting on its own and allusive and open-ended. This permitted the publication of more adventures of Sacketts young and old. The earliest events occur in Sackett’s Land (1974), featuring Barnabas Sackett, founder of the Sackett dynasty in seventeenth century England and the Carolinas. His sons include Kin Ring, Yance, and Jubal, who rate prime time in several later novels. In his turn, Tell Sackett, Ring’s descendant, is himself the narrator of six novels, one taking him into Western Canada in 1870 (Lonely on the Mountain, 1980), another into Mexico about 1878 (The Lonely Men, 1969). Tye would also reappear in a few later novels but not as narrator. Bob Sackett’s murder is the plot trigger in Borden Chantry.
Bibliography
Bold, Christine. Selling the Wild West: Popular Western Fiction, 1860 to 1960. Bloomington: Indiana University Press, 1987.
Gale, Robert L. Louis L’Amour: Revised Edition. New York: Twayne, 1992.
Hall, Halbert W. Louis L’Amour: An Annotated Bibliography and Guide. Jefferson, N.C.: McFarland, 2003.
Hinds, Harold E., Jr. “Mexican and Mexican-American Images in the Western Novels of Louis L’Amour.” Southwestern American Literature 10 (Spring, 1985): 129-141.
Marsden, Michael T. “Louis L’Amour.” In Fifty Western Writers: A Bio-Bibliographical Sourcebook, edited by Fred Erisman and Richard W. Etulain. Westport, Conn.: Greenwood Press, 1982.
Weinberg, Robert, ed. The Louis L’Amour Companion. Kansas City, Mo.: Andrews and McMeel, 1992.