A Trio of Western Fiction
The Golden West is an apt title. The three authors make it so. These three have done more for the "western" than perhaps any other, excepting for Ernest Haycox who raised the bar, the level of writing, and made "westerns" more acceptable to the "elite" and the critic. But what one must understand about Zane Grey particularly is: He wrote at the exact right time in the exact right way; and that is why he became the most popular and well paid writer of all time. The "WEST" had just closed; the frontier was considered settled about 1890 or so, and by the early 1900's a nostalgia for the "old west" had come into fashion, and Zane Grey wrote to that public. Tappan's Burro is his entry in this book, and it was another of his stories to be published in the Ladies Home Journal, 1923. For many it seems amazing that so much of his work was published in the "ladies" magazines of the time; but if one takes the time to read a Zane Grey novel objectively, one would see how strong and independent many of his heroines really were; and that appealed to women then, and should yet today. His novels are NOT all blood and gore; they are not fist fights and saloon brawls on every other page, but well crafted historically accurate vignettes of life on the western border, whether in the 1870's or the 19 teens or twenties. The Max Brand story, Jargan, is typical Brand with lots of action, some psycho drama, and set in an imaginary west which came only from his mind. Trail to Crazy Man, the Louis L'Amour novella in this book he lengthened a few years later and it became Crossfire Trail, an excellent, excellent book. This version is just as good. Buy this book, it's well worth it. By the way, this is the first in a series of books edited by Jon Tuska featuring Zane Grey, Max Brand, and Louis L'Amour. Look for all of them.
