Lacking your courage, I avoid disagreements with the company that buys my bread and butter, and possibly a Philco. I am getting on fine, with no complaints at all about my new country except that it has no olives worth eating and no peppers fit for adults. This package holds the proof of my incomprehensible good fortune. Use it at the bottom of your door to stop a draft, and know that I am—

Your grateful friend,

H. W. SHEPHERD, author

December 5

The first snow of the season fell today on two hundred women standing in a queue on Haywood Street, after an announcement that nylon stockings would be available one-per-customer at Raye’s Department Store.

One block down at the bookshop, a single copy of Vassals of Majesty was handled by several different customers in the course of the morning. Each conducted a close inspection of the Indian maids fleeing through flames on the dust jacket. No lines formed on the sidewalk, no Philco this year.

Kingsport News, January 12, 1946

Book Review

by United Press

The modern reader complains that theatrics have all gone to the movies. Where is the old-fashioned barnburner to carry us away? Here is one to fit the bill. Harrison Shepherd’s Vassals of Majesty (Stratford and Sons, $2.39) tells of a golden age when Spanish Conquistadors fought for the New World. Cortez plays out as a winning villain, lining his pockets in the name of Church and Queen while paying no heed to the trials endured by his men. The weak-minded Emperor Montezuma makes hardly a better impression, doting on his captive birds while his bloodthirsty chiefs do their worst.

The princes in this story are the common soldiers, pushed to the limits but revealing true humanity. The story’s droll assertion: heroes may be less than heroic, while the common man saves the day.

The Evening Post, January 18, 1946

“Books for Thought,” by Sam Hall Mitchell

Gee, but I Want to Go Home

If you’re weary of the military tribunals of Goering and Hess, their grisly details dragging on, try this one on for size: chieftains who cut out the hearts of war-prisoners while still beating! The year is 1520. The place, a glittering city on a lake where the last Aztec emperor meets his mortal enemy Cortés. The book is Vassals of Majesty, a plush first effort from author Harrison Shepherd. Swords clash on every page in this clever retelling of the conquest of Mexico’s richest empire.

Greed and vengeance drive the action, but the novel’s tender theme is a longing for home. The Spanish Royalty cry out for gold, but the young men forced into battle only wish for better shoes in a prickling desert, and something better to cook than cactus pads on a campfire. These soldiers might as well be singing the song every GI knows by heart: The coffee that they give us, they say is mighty fine, it’s good for cuts and bruises and it tastes like iodine! While leaders plot the fate of golden cities, these soldiers worry they’ll lose the wife to another fellow while they’re far from home. In a nation of returning soldiers and war-weary civilians, this book will make a huge emotional mark.

The Asheville Trumpet, February 3, 1946

Asheville Writer Is Story of the Year

by Carl Nicholas

“Vassals of Majesty” by local wordsmith Harrison Shepherd proves nothing short of sheer fascination. It might seem only stuffed shirts and long-haired professors would clamor to read of men living hundreds of years ago. Not so! Every heart will pound as conqueror Cortez pitches battle against his foe. This book has it all: blood-curdling treachery, and even heart interest. The female pulse will race for handsome Indian prince Cuautla. With the speed of a locomotive the story hurtles to its epic conclusion. Mrs. Jack Cates, owner of Cates Bookshop, confirms she cannot keep it on the shelves.

Asheville’s very own Harrison Shepherd is a young man of only thirty holding the secrets of the ages in his pen. Calls to the home confirmed he resides in Montford Hills. Young ladies take note, our sources say he’s a bachelor.

The New York Weekly Review, February 2, 1946

Vassals of Majesty, BY HARRISON W. SHEPHERD
Stratford and Sons, New York

Never Far from Home

by Michael Reed

In the literary season of Anna’s beleaguered King of Siam and Teddy Roosevelt’s “Unterrified” grab of Panama, a nation at peace seems keen for tales of exotic foreign conflict. Readers will find rich fodder in this novel of shrewd ambition in the bloody Spanish conquest of Mexico.

Narrating the tale are Cuautla, an heir to the Aztec empire, and Lieutenant Remedios, who must execute the commands of notorious empire-builder Hernando Cortés. History buffs are warned, scarcely a hero in this tale survives with reputation intact. Cortés shows a weakness for Mexican liquor, and cares more about his page in history than for the men who give their lives to write it for him. And the sweet-natured, delusional Emperor Mucteczuma leaves most of the decisions to a ruthless cadre whose protocol for handling war prisoners may cause the reader a night of lost sleep.

From its snappy title onward, this is a potboiler with no real aspirations to literary importance. The exaggerated setting of blood-stained temples and battlements seems to flutter with the tags of a Hollywood film set. But the characters threaten to burst from their archetypes. The humblest have a winning way of striving for honor in duty, while the powerful fall prey to familiar political failures, revealing themselves as ordinary men all, not so different from the modern-day elected official or office clerk. The author suggests no disagreement among men is ever entirely foreign, after all.

(A sample of reviews sent by the publisher’s clipping service, twelve in all, Jan.–Feb. 1946)

March 10, 1946

Dear Frida,

Thank you for the box of chiles, a spectacular surprise. I’ve strung them in a red ristra for the kitchen alongside the onions I plait and hang near the stove. The neighbor boy suspects me of “harboring spells,” but Perpetua would approve of my kitchen. I will ration these pasillas de Oaxaca like anything, dearer than gasoline.

Our Carolina shows signs of spring: crocuses appear in front lawns, long wool underwear vanishes from clotheslines in the back. Yesterday I bought a frozen lamb shank from the butcher’s and set it in the flowerbox outside the window to keep it chilled overnight. This morning it had completely thawed. Today I will rub it with garlic for an impromptu feast. The cat Chispa spreads the word of my erratic cooking extravagances around the neighborhood, and now another scoundrel has followed her home. I call him Chisme, for the gossip that brought him. Black as the devil and fond of lamb.