Historical "westerns"

[AuntiePam]

I've always loved westerns, especially western movies. Not the white hat/black hat movies from the 40's and 50's, but the "real" westerns like Shane and The Searchers. I lump these together with "pioneer" fiction.

Some good historical fiction set in the American West:

The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout. A homesman is the man who escorts women back East after living on the plains has broken them. Needless to say, this one's a bit dark.

Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews
Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West by Kathleen Winsor
Tie My Bones to Her Back by Robert F. Jones
Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Antonia and O Pioneers by Willa Cather
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Desperadoes and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen
The Mourning Bench and Mamaw by Susan Dodd

And anything by Howard Fast and Larry McMurtry.

[Hunter]

I really enjoyed Al Sarrantonio's novels about a retired Buffalo soldier turned detective, West Texas and Kitt Peak.

I also enjoyed Robert B. Parker's Apaloosa and Gunman's Rhapsody.

If you like a little sci-fi thrown in with your Western, Bruce Boxleitner's Frontier Earth was fun. I have the sequel, but haven't read it yet.

Those and Lonesome Dove are about the only Westerns I've read.

Hunter

[Rowan]

I love Louis L'amour, personally.

[Misfit]

I haven't read too many westerns, yet but I intend to. I did read The Virginian by Owen Wister about a year ago and just loved it. Very different from the old TV series.

[wendallpauls]

I've always loved westerns, especially western movies. Not the white hat/black hat movies from the 40's and 50's, but the "real" westerns like Shane and The Searchers. I lump these together with "pioneer" fiction.

Some good historical fiction set in the American West:

The Homesman by Glendon Swarthout. A homesman is the man who escorts women back East after living on the plains has broken them. Needless to say, this one's a bit dark.

Heart of the Country by Greg Matthews
Wanderers Eastward, Wanderers West by Kathleen Winsor
Tie My Bones to Her Back by Robert F. Jones
Death Comes for the Archbishop, My Antonia and O Pioneers by Willa Cather
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Desperadoes and The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen
The Mourning Bench and Mamaw by Susan Dodd

And anything by Howard Fast and Larry McMurtry.

Just a quick question about the Willa Cather selections here. Being that I've only read "My Antonia", which I thought was wonderful, I've never viewed any of her writings as being part of the 'Western' genre. 'Pioneering', yes; I could see that very well, as her writing seemed to take place after the turn of the century. Or is there anything I am missing here?

[AuntiePam]

Nope, you're not missing anything. There's no pioneer genre (or if there is I never see it mentioned), so I put Cather with westerns, which for me includes HF set in the American West (which includes the Great Plains), up to about 1920. I'd put Laura Ingalls Wilder's books there too.

It's my own personal categorization and probably doesn't make much sense to anyone else. :)

I'd consider Death Comes for the Archbishop to be a western.

[lindymc]

Auntie Pam

I noticed you mentioned Shane by Jack Schaefer. Have you read Schaefer's Monte Walsh - another great western. My husband read lots of westerns and one of his favorite authors was Elmer Kelton, lots of good stories with likeable characters.

[Volgadon]

Flashman and the Redskins, about as far removed from PC as possible, but the descriptions of the Apaches are amazing.

[Divia]

I have never read a western book. I guess I'm always the assumption that is wild men running around with guns. Although women had a lot more freedoms in the west. hmm. Anyone know a good Western focused on women's struggles or daily life etc. etc.

[Ariadne]

Westerns have changed a lot in the past decade and more. The traditional shoot-em-up type is on the decline, while there are some good, recent examples of frontier/pioneer fiction out there. I usually call them "Historical Westerns" or "Western Historical Novels" and would include Cather in that subgrouping, too.

Some of my favorite novels about women's lives in the West are Janice Woods Windle's True Women, Jane Candia Coleman's Silver Queen and Tumbleweed (these are the paperback titles) and Jeanne Williams' Arizona saga beginning with The Valiant Women. Despite Amazon's characterization, Williams' novel isn't a genre romance.

[Caveowl]

subject heading to try used to be "Frontier and Pioneer Life" and add a fiction to your google. That should lead to a lotta-library recommended lists.

Do any of you recommend Sandra Dallas, "Diary of Mattie Spencer" - possibly Cecelia Holland's "Lily Nevada."?

[AuntiePam]

Auntie Pam

I noticed you mentioned Shane by Jack Schaefer. Have you read Schaefer's Monte Walsh - another great western. My husband read lots of westerns and one of his favorite authors was Elmer Kelton, lots of good stories with likeable characters.

I haven't. Thanks for the recommendations -- I'll check them out.

[Misfit]

Do any of you recommend Sandra Dallas, "Diary of Mattie Spencer" - possibly Cecelia Holland's "Lily Nevada."?

I've read the two Lily Nevada books by Holland. They are good, but not great and very very short novels.

While not quite considered "westerns" try Calico Palace by Gwen Bristow and The Proud Breed by Celeste de Blasis. CP is set in San Fran and the California Gold Country. TPB is a big fat family saga starting in Old California and finishes at the end of 1899.

Cathy Cash Spellman wrote a great one set in Leadville, Colorado, although some might consider that a romance (although there's not that much sex).

[Celia Hayes]

Alas, if you have a story set on the American frontier, it is casually lumped in as a 'western' - by everyone from agents, publishers, reviewers and readers - no matter how reasonably you keep repeating "well, no, it's a historical novel which is set on the 19th century American frontier..."

I finally said the heck with that and embraced it, with the trilogy (http://www.amazon.com/s/ref=nb_ss_ys?url=search-alias%3Dstripbooks&field-keywords=adelsverein+trilogy&x=12&y=18) that I wrote about the German settlers in Texas. Yes, I cheerfully threw in a lot of classic western elements - cattle drives, deadly feuds, Indian raids and Texas Rangers - but I put in lashings about women's lives on the frontier.

I wish the general public would embrace some other category ... but alas, I'm afraid we are stuck with the one that we have.

[Celia Hayes]

Did you ever check out "The Travels of Jaimie McPheeters (http://www.amazon.com/Travels-McPheeters-Library-Contemporary-Americana/dp/0385422229/ref=sr_1_1?ie=UTF8&s=books&qid=1244905547&sr=1-1)" by Robert Lewis Taylor? It is this hysterically funny account of a boy and his father, hitting the Gold Rush Trail as '49ers. It won a Pulitzer for literature in 1959 and then about vanished from public awareness.

And one of the things that I liked about it, was the bibliography in the back. I always like it when authors put books lists and notes in the back, to let you know where they did their research....

[Misfit]

I've read The Travels of Jamie Macpheeters and loved it. I know MLE on this board has a very different opinion than I.

I'd forgotten this thread. I've got about 100 pages left on The Cowboy and the Cossack by Clair Huffaker (sp?). Although not in a Western setting, it is about a group of Montana Cowboys who bring cattle over to Siberia and their experiences driving them to their new home with their Cossack escorts. I think Chuck will like this one. Review coming soon.

[Anna Elliott]

Has anyone read Shane by Jack Schaefer? The characters, especially that of Shane himself, are wonderful, and the story is interesting in that it is filtered exclusively through the POV of a ten year old boy. Reading the book I continually hold a silent debate with myself (although the book is such a classic that I know in some ways this counts as sacrilege!) as to whether the book would have been better or only different had the author allowed us to see through the eyes of the other characters, as well.

[annis]

One I really enjoyed is an epic, rip-roaring Western send-up, "Wild Times" (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/g/brian-garfield/wild-times.htm), by Brian Garfield. I believe that the book was made into a TV mini-series, which I haven't seen.

James Lee Burke's "Two For Texas" (http://www.fantasticfiction.co.uk/b/james-lee-burke/two-for-texas.htm) is well worth a read- of course James Lee is a favourite of mine- that combination of lyricism and violence makes such a stunning impact.

[Chris Little]

The following list of the 21 "Best Westerns" was voted by the Western Writers Association. Having been a collection development librarian in cowboy country, I've heard a lot of commentary over the circulation counter about westerns. When it came to cataloging them and selecting spine labels, I didn't consider then that some were westerns. ...?

http://www.westernwriters.org/best_westerns.htm

Shane (Schaefer)
Lonesome Dove (McMurtry)
The Big Sky (Guthrie)
The Time It Never Rained (Kelton)
The Virginian (Wister)
The Shootist (Swarthout)
Death Comes for the Archbishop (Cather)
Riders of the Purple Sage (Grey)
Monte Walsh (Schaefer)
The Ox-Bow Incident (Clark)
Hondo (L’Amour)
All the Pretty Horses (McCarthy)
Centennial (Michener)
The Sea of Grass (Richter)
Riders to Cibola (Zollinger)
The Homesman (Swarthout)
True Grit (Portis)
The Searchers (LeMay)
The Rounders (Evans)
The Day the Cowboys Quit (Kelton)
Call of the Wild (London)

[Margaret]

Finished reading The Trees and have posted my review (http://www.HistoricalNovels.info/Trees.html). I enjoyed this very much. It totally immersed me in the world of the early settlers who moved west into the wooded country across the Ohio River. Kind of a "Little House in the Big Woods" for grown-ups. It's part of a trilogy and although The Trees closes on a note of completion, there is enough left to be curious about that I'm eager to read the sequels, The Fields and The Town. The Town won a Pulitzer Prize in 1951.

And speaking of the primeval American woodland - does anyone here know the original source of the quote about a squirrel being able to cross (fill in the blank) without ever touching the ground? A web search turned up options ranging from "the East Coast to the Mississippi River," the U.S. from coast to coast, and various U.S. states, to Britain and Spain, but nothing on who said it first.

[wendy]

Just a quick question about the Willa Cather selections here. Being that I've only read "My Antonia", which I thought was wonderful, I've never viewed any of her writings as being part of the 'Western' genre. 'Pioneering', yes; I could see that very well, as her writing seemed to take place after the turn of the century. Or is there anything I am missing here?

Cather scholars (of which I am one) do not generally catagorize her writings as part of the Western genre. We consider her to be one of the earliest American Modernists and a writer of Pioneer Literature. The three books mentioned do, however, fit into the general Western category because they are set in frontier locations, but ony Death Comes for the Archbishop mentions any famous Wild West-type figures (Kit Carson). There are no gun fights, and only a few references to Native Americans outside of DCFTA. Cather was more interested in the creation process - how do you found a French colony in Canada - or convert pagans to Christianity - or become a world-class opera star? She was constantly exploring "The Idea" of things.