One Must Live By a Code
When the area that is left of the 100th meridian on the map is looked at, the first response is, "THE WEST". Along with that goes, "the code of the West". School teacher Mary Stockwell is joined out west in the Tonto Basin of Arizona by her sister, Georgianna, sent there by her parents because of her outrageous behavior which has caused a "bad" lung. And her doctor, Dr. Jones, agreed: "Georgie had danced and gadded herself into a rundown condition." Code of the West is another Zane Grey novel which speaks to the riotous and unrestrained times in the country. To say Zane Grey was a moralist might be going too far since certain things concerning his life have been revealed in recent years; but he did not smoke nor drink, and he saw such behavior as was exhibited by the younger generation, especially as bad, and as injurious to the country, so he wrote against these social problems whenever he could. Laying all that aside, Code of the West, is an entertaining story with characters you will long remember,especially Tuck Merry,and with fond thoughts as you go back in time to the early years of the 20th century. For most today this is nostalgic, and romantic to think about, yet when this was published it was contemporary. It is indeed surprising when one examines the body of Zane Grey's work just how many of his novels were set in the time and day in which he wrote them, and not in the "Old West" of the 19th century. This is a most delightful book, I would advise anyone to read.
