Hello again, dear
reader.
With summer vacations,
just around the corner, it would be fitting to have a conversation on easy ways
to relieve boredom. On those long car trips, bus rides, train rides, or simply
when you're phone or tablet runs out of battery power. So today's conversation
dear reader is concerned with five of the best games to play with nothing more
than a piece of paper and pencil or any other writing implement, you can find,
whether it's a pen, pencil marker or even a good old-fashioned Crayola. As long
as it makes a distinguishable mark on the paper and is non-toxic or extremely
messy, then you should be good to go. You don't even really need a standard
sized piece of paper. Most of these games can be played on the backs of
envelopes, paper bags, napkins or any other surface. It is okay to write on. So
hopefully dear reader, you can share these analog games that use nothing more
than a piece of paper. A writing implement, a little bit of artistic skill, and
some imagination to drive away the summer vacation doldrums...
In a time before people
could cure their boredom by looking down at their phone and immediately
retreating into an individual silo of entertainment, slaying its specter was
often a cooperative exercise, requiring nothing more than a pencil and paper.
Even though pen and
paper games have been supplanted by phone toggling when it comes to passing the
time, it’s still handy to keep a few of them in the back pocket of your brain.
These “analog” games come in handy for times when your phone’s out of charge,
or when you want to entertain a kid without resorting to handing them a device.
Their discreet-ness also makes them useful for work or church meetings where
you’re bored out of your skull, but not supposed to be on your phone. Pencil
and paper games are an all-around great source of impromptu entertainment, as
you’ll almost always have all the supplies needed for their play on hand.
When it comes to such
games, you surely already know tic-tac-toe (which once you learn how to win,
becomes super boring). So here are 5 more pencil and paper games that will help
you, and a compatriot, while away the time.
Hangman
This classic boredom
killer is an oldie but a goodie.
Hangman can be played
with two or more players.
Start off by drawing a
basic looking gallows. This is where you’ll keep track of incorrect guesses in
this game.
One person thinks of a
word (without telling the other players) and marks out the number of letters in
dashes on the paper.
The other players take
turns guessing letters one at a time. Whenever a player guesses a letter in the
word correctly, you write that letter above the corresponding dash.
If they guess incorrectly,
draw a body part of the hangman on the gallows. Typical order is head, body,
right leg, left leg, right arm, left arm, noose. So basically, players have
seven chances to guess the correct letters. If a complete hangman is made
before the correct word is guessed, the game ends. You can increase the number
of chances players get to guess by increasing the number of body parts that are
added before the hapless stick victim gets the noose — left eye, right eye,
nose, mouth, ears, etc. Just make sure everyone is on the same page as to what
constitutes a complete hangman before you start.
A player wins the game
when they guess the correct word. They can guess the entire word at any point
in the game. A wrong word guess also results in a body part added to the
hangman.
You can write incorrect
letter guesses next to the gallows so players can see which letters they’ve
already guessed. To make the game harder, don’t list missed letter guesses, and
count duplicate wrong guesses against them.
Battleship
The classic board game
(turned terrible movie) actually got its start as a pencil and paper game. The
old-school version has the advantage of not needing those annoying little pegs
or a manufactured game board, making starting a spontaneous showdown, or
playing in the car on a long road trip, much easier.
This is a two-player
game.
Each player creates two
10×10 grids on their piece of paper. Label one grid “My Ships” and the other
grid “Enemy Ships.” Label each square on the x-axis 1-10, and each square on
the y-axis A-G.
Make sure neither
player can see the other’s grids.
On the “My Ships” grid,
each player outlines the five ships that represents their fleet.
A fleet consists of the
following:
- 1 Aircraft Carrier = 5 squares
- 1 Battleship = 4 squares
- 1 Cruiser = 3 squares
- 1 Submarine = 3 squares
- 2 Destroyers = 2 squares each
Each ship occupies
adjacent squares on the grid, horizontally or vertically. No diagonal ships.
Here’s an example of a
fleet layout you might have:
Once each player has
drawn out their fleet, the play begins. Players take turns taking shots at
their opponent by calling out coordinates of a square. For example, B-10, G-5,
D-3.
His opponent responds
with “Hit!” if a coordinate hits his ship or “Miss!” if it misses. Each player
should record their opponent’s shots on the grid labeled “My Ships” and their
own shots on the grid labeled “Enemy Ships.” Use “X” to mark misses, and “O” to
mark hits.
If an opponent hits all
the squares in a ship, you must call out the name of the ship (e.g., “You sunk
my battleship!”)
First player to lose
all his ships loses the game.
Squares
This was a game my
brother and I played quite a bit on the back of the paper program at church
services.
Draw a grid of dots –
it can be as large or as small as you want. The larger the grid, the longer the
game lasts. 10×10 is good-sized “field of play.”
Each player takes a
turn drawing a line between two dots. You can connect dots horizontally or
vertically. The goal is to create a box. If a player completes the fourth side
of a box, he writes his initial in the box. When a player completes a box, he
gets another immediate turn to connect the dots.
The game is over when
the grid has been completely filled with boxes. The player with the most boxes
wins.
Obstruction
This is a two-player
game created by Romanian mathematician László Kozma.
One player is “O”; the
other player is “X.”
Create a grid of
squares at least 6×6. The larger the grid, the longer the game will go.
Each player takes turns
writing their mark in one of the squares on the grid. But here’s the catch: You
can only mark a square if all of its neighbors (including the diagonal
neighbors) are empty.
The first player unable
to move loses.
Here’s an example of a
game so you can see play in action:
Sprouts
Sprouts is another
pencil and paper game invented by a math whiz. Actually two: John Horton Conway
and Michael Paterson.
This is a two-player
game. Start off by drawing two or more spots on a sheet of paper.
Players take turns
according to the following rules:
- Draw a line connecting two spots, or loop a line to
and from a single spot. The line may be straight or curved, but must not
touch or cross itself or any other line.
- Add a new spot somewhere along that new line.
- No spot may have more than three lines attached to it.
The
player who makes the last move wins the game, or you could play so that the
player who makes the last play loses.
Hello again, dear
reader.
Today's conversation is
going to be slightly different from most of our recent endeavors, as it is not
either a conversation about a skill or an obscure bit of knowledge. Neither is
it one of those meditational or thought-provoking excerpts from a classic piece
of literature. I like so much rather today's conversation is a bit of
summertime nostalgia, everyone on the North American continent has at one time
or another come into contact with the iconic image of the cowboy as they are
synonymous with the North American ideals of honesty, bravery, and even
exploration. The cowboy and his image stretches all the way from Canada to
Mexico, and even as far away as Australia and Argentina (although I'm sure
there are some places. I'm leaving out. I have been told that there are even
cowboys in France, although I have never personally met any French cowboys.)
And because this image of the cowboy is so iconic, dear reader, I was of course
fascinated with it when I was younger I loved reading stories by Louis l'Amour
and Zane Grey (even though they were way before my time). It was his love of
summertime reading, and the cowboy that inspired today's conversation, dear
reader. I have made up a list of the 21 greatest Western stories that I think
everyone should read at least once. Some of them are very old, first being
published in the early 1900s and some of them are rather new. Being published
in the early to mid 2000’s, but they all do their part to add to the cowboy
nostalgia and mystique in one way or another. So hopefully by the end of
today's conversation, dear reader you too will be inspired to read some of
these classic stories about a classic icon of bravery and exploration. The
cowboy!
“The western story, in
its most usual forms, represents the American version of the ever appealing
oldest of man’s legends about himself, that of the sun-god hero, the
all-conquering valiant who strides through dangers undaunted, righting wrongs,
defeating villains, rescuing the fair and the weak and the helpless — and the
western story does this in terms of the common man, in simple symbols close to
natural experience . . . depicting ordinary everyday men, not armored knights
or plumed fancy-sword gentlemen, the products of aristocratic systems, but
ordinary men who might be you and me or our next-door neighbors gone
a-pioneering, doing with shovel or axe or gun in hand their feats of courage
and hardihood.” —Jack Schaefer
The West has always
held a strong place in the American psyche. From the earliest days, west
represented the frontier of this nation. Whether it was Kentucky and Ohio or
Colorado and Montana or Oregon and Alaska, as a people we’ve always moved westward.
And once we crossed the Mississippi, we found a harsh environment unlike any
other. Deserts and oases, flatlands and mountains; it was a land of
environmental and climatic extremes.
It was in this land
that the legend of the cowboy was born, particularly in the mid-to-late 1800s.
As Western writer Jack Schaefer notes above, the cowboy embodied strains of the
ancient chivalric code, but he wasn’t the aristocratic knight-in-shining-armor
of England or even the pious, settled farmer of early America; rather, he was a
kind of everyman hero: a regular man who yet was more autonomous, independent,
and free than an ordinary fellow. Riding atop his trusty steed, he knew both
how to protect others and how to survive himself, and evinced a taciturn, brass
tacks, self-made nobility.
Odes to the American
cowboy, in the form of the Western novel, started taking shape in the early
1900s, a decade after the U.S. Census Bureau declared that the frontier was
closed; the books captured nostalgia and romantic yearning for an era and way
of life that was on its way out (and in some ways, never really was). Western
novels mixed real-life detail with larger-than-life drama, as all great
mythologies do.
The genre was easy to
mass produce, and until the 1940s or so, the Western dime novel led the way.
Quality writing and quality stories were hard to come by (though as you’ll find
below, a few gems did make their way out into the public sphere). It was in the
late ‘40s, and on into about the mid-’70s, where Western literature really came
into its own. Louis L’Amour, Jack Schaefer, Edward Abbey — this was the era in
which legends were born.
In the ‘80s and ‘90s,
there was a bit of a downturn in the genre, though a couple lone outstanding
works were produced. The ‘90s especially were a black hole, but then the 2000s
and even through today have seen a bit of a resurgence in the genre. The old
tropes of cattle drives and small town shootouts were played out, so writers
started taking some more risks with storylines that have really paid off. I
would say that we’ve actually entered another golden era of the Western in the
last 20 years or so. Even though the sheer volume of works put out isn’t as
great, the quality has tended to be superb. Mainstream publishers are leery of
Westerns, so what ends up getting printed is rather good.
Over the last year or
so, I’ve read through the canon of what’s considered to be the cream of the
crop for Western literature. I consumed dozens of books, and have here narrowed
them down to the best 21 that everyone should read. I gave each author just a
single book on the list (though I do mention other titles I enjoyed for certain
authors) because I’m of the opinion that it’s better to read broadly in the
genre than to dive whole hog into the works of just one fella. If you’ve read a
couple L’Amour titles, you’ve read them all, and the same can be said for a
number of other authors.
The list below
encompasses all manner of styles, book lengths, storylines, etc. Before
getting into it, though, we need to define the genre.
Defining the Western
Genre
Simply being set in the
West does not a Western make; if so, novels like East of
Eden or Angle
of Repose would be found here. While not every novel will
satisfy every marker, each book listed here includes most of the following
elements:
Geographically set
west of the Mississippi River. While some very early Westerns are set in the likes of Kentucky
and Ohio, the geography that really captured readers’ attention and defined the
legend of the cowboy lies west of the Mississippi: Texas, New Mexico, Colorado,
Montana, etc. Also, Westerns don’t generally reach the West Coast.
Schaefer said this
about the geographic setting of his genre:
“The bigness beyond the
Mississippi was primarily open bigness, beckoning bigness — and also a violent,
raw, capricious bigness: extremes of topography and climate beyond those of the
east, the highest and lowest areas of the entire nation, the hottest and the
coldest, the flattest and the ruggedest, the driest and the wettest.”
Takes place during
the 19th century.
The 1800s, and particularly the mid-to-late 1800s, was really the period of the
Western frontiersman and cowboy. While the Machine Age was coming in the East,
the West remained wild and untamed. Plenty of Westerns are set in the 20th
century, but most on this list take place during the 1800s.
Characters are
cowboys, ranchers, homesteaders, gunfighters/sheriffs/rangers, and/or
frontiersmen.
The career of a Western character is pretty limited, and centers on the
aforementioned roles. To come West in the mid-to-late 1800s was generally to be
one of those things. Horses also tend to play a large role and often, although
not always, faithfully accompany a Western novel’s human characters.
Focus is often given
to the harsh, but beautiful landscape. The land itself often plays a role as a main
character in Westerns. Long descriptions of the environment are common, and
nature’s obstacles — drought, storms, mountains, wild animals — frequently play
a role in the main conflict or storyline. Main characters also tend to deeply
care for and respect the wilderness and what it represents; even when hunting
or ranching on the land, the men fight to preserve what’s natural and spurn the
advances of modernity.
Contains characters
who show skillfulness, toughness, resilience, and vitality. Whether cowboys or ranchers, the
characters who populate Western novels typically share a common constellation
of traits and qualities.
One is the possession
of a broad, hard-nosed skillfulness. Cowboys and other Western types are adept
at everything from roping and riding to hunting and cooking. They’re at home in
a wild environment, and what they don’t have at hand, they can improvise.
Western characters also
possess a notably flinty character. Schaefer again:
“If there is any one
distinctive quality of the western story in its many variations, that quality
is a pervasive vitality — a vitality not of action alone but of spirit behind
the action . . . a healthy, forward facing attitude towards life.”
Westerns that contain
the elements listed above invariably tend to have this less definable element
present as well. It’s almost a byproduct of writing strong characters in a
harsh landscape. Great Western novels are permeated with a sheer masculinity
and spiritedness that’s hard to find in other genres.
21 Western Novels
Every Man Should Read
Given the above set of
criteria for inclusion, and selected for overall excellence in plot,
characterization, readability, and so on, here are my picks for the best
Western novels ever written, arranged chronologically by their date of
publication:
Among the short list of
very early Westerns (pre-1910 or so), you’ll often see Owen Wister’s The
Virginian (1902) at the top. I didn’t find that title very
readable though, and in fact gave up about halfway through. The Log of a
Cowboy, on the other hand, was remarkably readable and easily held my
attention the whole way.
Pulling together
various real-life stories and anecdotes (including from his own experience of
being a cowboy for over a decade), Adams chronicles a fictional
Texas-to-Montana cattle drive through the eyes of young Tom Quirk. There isn’t
much in the way of overarching plot or a central conflict, but it’s enjoyable
nonetheless. From cattle runs, to brutal dry spells, to dangerous river
crossings, to hostile Indians and outlaws, the reader really experiences all
that an Old West cattle trail had to offer. And that includes the minutiae of
paperwork, hours of boredom, how guard duties were divvied up, etc. Adams’
narrative is often considered the most realistic depiction of a cattle drive
there ever was, and he in fact wrote the novel out of disgust for the
unrealistic cowboy fiction being written at the time.
A hair dry, but
recommended reading for any fan of Western novels. If you have any doubt about
its place in the canon, you’ll quickly see how much Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome
Dove was inspired by Adams’ early novel; the outline of the plot
is basically the same.
Grey was the early king
of the Western dime novel. His output was prolific, but the more he wrote, the
more negative reviews he received from critics. (Critics are always skeptical
of folks who seemingly write too much!) I don’t think those criticisms have
merit, as I find much of Grey’s work to be eminently readable and entertaining
today, especially given that most of his work was published over 100 years ago.
Riders of the Purple
Sage, published
in 1912, is definitely the best of the bunch, and is universally found on “Best
Western Novels” lists for a reason.
A more complex plot
than is often found in Westerns, the story follows Jane Withersteen, and her
harassment at the hands of a group of Mormon fundamentalists. Elder Tull wants
to marry Jane, but she refuses. As you can imagine, that’s when the trouble starts
up, and she needs help from friends Bern Venters and a mysterious gunman named
Lassiter who’s searching for a long-lost sister. There are a number of threads
here, and some excellent plot twists. Again, it’s more complex — in a good
way — than what you’d normally see in the genre.
Required reading for
the fan of Western novels. Grey’s short stories/novellas are also very good
(“Avalanche” being my favorite — though it’s a little hard to find).
Cowboys Art Croft and
Gil Carter have ridden into Bridger’s Wells, Nevada to find a charged
atmosphere. Cattle have been disappearing (likely stolen) and a man named
Kinkaid has just been murdered. The townsfolk are mad as heck and looking for
justice. Factions form almost immediately; one group wants to capture the
suspected culprits on the up and up — to get the judge and sheriff involved and
make sure no untoward behavior happens. Another group wants to form a posse to
go after the rustlers — vigilante-style — and take care of business with Wild
West justice: a hanging at sunrise. They argue that using the legal system
takes too darn long and that too often men get off scot-free.
A posse indeed forms
and eventually catches up to the alleged rustlers. Are the men lynched? Are
they given a chance at a fair trial back in the town of Bridger’s Wells? Are
they set free?
While not as fast-paced
as many Westerns on this list, the morality tale encased within its 80-year-old
pages remains remarkably relevant. It’s an ethics discussion about mob
mentality clothed in cowboy flannel and leather holsters. While other Western
writers of the era — like L’Amour and Grey — could be said to romanticize the
West and its heroes, Clark is more comparable to Dashiell Hammett. All the
characters, protagonists and antagonists alike, have deep flaws, and the reader
can’t quite decide who he’s siding with, if it’s anyone at all.
Shane
by Jack Schaefer (1949)
Shane is considered by many the best
Western novel of all-time. It’s compact, but that just means every page is
stocked with virile energy — much like Shane himself, the book’s main character.
Narrated by young Bob
Starrett, the story follows his version of events in a small outpost in the
Wyoming Territory. Seemingly out of nowhere, the mysterious Shane (Is it his
first name? Last name? Made-up name?) rides into town on the back of a horse
and takes up temporary residence at the Starrett home. Shane becomes close to
the family, and Bob especially comes to see the rider as a mythical, godlike
figure. Meanwhile, cattle driver and all-around bad dude Luke Fletcher is
trying to take land from a group of homesteaders (the Starretts included). I
won’t give away anything else other than to say that Shane is involved in the
bad guys’ dispersal.
The pure masculinity of
the novel, and of Shane himself, is unrivaled in Western literature. If you aren’t
stirred by this novel, you don’t have blood running through your veins. Shane
is absolutely a top 3 Western novel. Schaefer’s Monte
Walsh is also superb.
Hondo
by Louis L’Amour (1953)
No mention of Western novels is
complete without a nod to L’Amour. His books alone could keep you
reading for about a decade at a pace of one a month. I read a handful, and have
to agree with most others that Hondo is his best. Interestingly, the John
Wayne film came first, and L’Amour then novelized that (although the
movie was inspired by a L’Amour short story — it’s a bit circular).
Hondo Lane is a
quintessential man of the Southwest, shaped as much by the desert landscape as
anything else. A former cavalry officer, Lane has had to learn the Apache ways
in order to survive in the harsh environment. After escaping an ambush, he
comes upon the homestead of Angie Lowe and her young son, with the husband and
father nowhere to be found. Throw the warrior Vittoro into the mix, and you get
a dramatic story of love, war, and honor that is as representative of the
Western genre as a story can be.
Now, with the sheer
number of titles he produced, L’Amour’s stories admittedly tend to run together
a bit. They’re also slightly formulaic, and you wouldn’t really classify his
writing as lyrical or Pulitzer-worthy. But, his books are just really
entertaining. It’s like how the Fast and Furious movies aren’t going to
win any awards, but I’ll be damned if I’m not watching every one of ‘em for
their sheer entertainment value.
Kilkenny
and The
Tall Stranger were a couple other L’Amour favorites for me.
If there’s a Moby Dick
story to be had in this list, it’s Le May’s The Searchers. While the movie
is often seen as one of the greatest Western films of
all-time, the book deserves its place of recognition as well.
With one of the most
devastating openings on this list, a Comanche raid destroys the entire Edwards
family, killing the men folk and kidnapping the women. What follows is a
years-long quest by Marty (a virtually-adopted young man who’s part of the
Edwards family) and Amos (the Edwards’ patriarch’s brother) to find the missing
women. If you’ve seen the movie, you know roughly how the rest of the tale
goes, and if you haven’t, I won’t give away anything else.
The book deserves a
place on this list because of its sprightly and realistic writing, but also
because it portrays the difficulties early homesteaders had in trying to make a
life on the oft-dangerous frontier. While indeed some Native Americans were
harshly portrayed as violent savages, the reality is that many were indeed
incredibly violent and didn’t take kindly to new people settling in their
territories.
Edward Abbey is a
legend of environmental, anarchist, and Western writing. He penned essays,
novels, and non-fiction works, including Desert
Solitaire, which makes an appearance on a number of Best Non-Fic
Books of All-Time lists.
The Brave Cowboy indeed falls into the Western
novel category, but it’s also more than that. Particularly, it’s a lament of
how the modern world — which was the 1950s at the time of the book’s writing —
is taking something away from our lives and perhaps more importantly, from our
lands. The era of jet planes and city streets was taking over.
Cowboy Jack Burns is a
roaming ranch hand in 1950s New Mexico who refuses to join modern society. (The
scenes of his horse — named Whisky — crossing highways and tentatively walking
on pavement are rather memorable.) This alone makes it stand out from other
cowboy stories, which are almost always set in the 1800s. Burns tries to break
his pal Paul Bondi out of prison, but things don’t go quite as planned, and
Burns ends up on the run with nothing but his guitar and his trusty steed.
From there, it’s a
gripping cat-and-mouse story set in the desert. Abbey’s descriptions of the
landscape are breathtaking and unmatched in Western literature.
In my opinion, Butcher’s
Crossing is the most underrated book of the Western genre. You’ve
probably never heard of it, but it should be on your reading list ASAP.
Considered one of the
first to de-romanticize life on the frontier, the story is set in the 1870s and
follows young Will Andrews, who has ditched Harvard, and been inspired by Ralph
Waldo Emerson to come West in order to find . . . something. Meaning? Purpose?
Himself? All the above, most likely.
Butcher’s Crossing is
the small Kansas town he lands in before shortly thereafter joining a buffalo
hunting expedition that heads into the mountains of Colorado. They deal with
everything the Old West has to offer: extreme dehydration and thirst, early
snowfalls, feisty animals (both domestic and wild), and raging spring-time
rivers — all set within a merciless buffalo hunt (slaughter, really). Andrews
learns some hard truths not only about the land, but about his own make up.
But, he also does find something meaningful, and ultimately has to choose
between going back East, or venturing even further West. I legitimately didn’t
know what he’d choose to do until the very end (and I won’t tell you, of
course), which is a sign of a superbly-written character.
Robert Olmstead’s
recent Savage
Country also takes on the buffalo hunt plot line, and while it’s
rather good, Butcher’s Crossing was far better.
Berger writes the
fictional life story of Jack Crabb, who is our 111-year-old narrator. Crabb is
thrust into Cheyenne Indian life as a young boy in the mid-1800s after his
family is massacred while traveling west. From there, the story jumps back and
forth between Crabb’s various forays in and out of the worlds of Indians and
white men. Along the way, we run into numerous famed real-life characters of
the West, including Wild Bill Hickok, Calamity Jane, and in particular, General
Custer (Crabb claims to be the sole white survivor of the Battle of Little
Bighorn).
It’s partially satire,
but also rather accurately portrays both the unfortunate stereotypes ascribed
to American Indians as well as the reality of their lives on the plains. There
are plenty of hard-to-believe plot twists, but that’s part of the book’s
semi-outlandish and epic nature.
It’s largely written as
a narrative, with little in the way of dialogue, so it’s not a quick read. It’s
extremely well written though, and in a more authentic voice than many Westerns
are. It actually reminded me of Lonesome
Dove in terms of its writing style — which is about as high a
compliment as can be given.
True
Grit by Charles Portis (1968)
Though the story has
twice been turned into a feature film, it was Portis’ short 1968 novel which
first introduced the public to two of the most memorable, and naturally,
grittiest, characters in Western history: 14-year-old Mattie Ross and one-eyed
US Marshal Rooster Cogburn.
An older Ross narrates
the story of the time she sought revenge for the murder of her father. Young
Mattie ventures to Fort Smith, Arkansas to find a man who would help her on
this quest. She decides on Cogburn — who has a penchant for violence and a
quick trigger finger — because she believes he has the “grit” to get the job
done (which means, of course, the disposal of the murderer). Cogburn agrees,
but is incensed when Mattie insists on coming along; he tries to lose her a
number of times, but Ross displays her own tenacity and keeps right up.
The language and
dialogue is almost over-the-top old-timey — and therefore comes across a little
unrealistically (it does work especially well with this story for some reason,
though!). Despite that, Portis writes some of the most memorable scenes of the
entire genre. If you’re afraid of snakes, there’s one in particular that might
haunt your dreams.
Voted by his peers in
the Western Writers Association as the greatest Western writer of all time, and
recipient of a record 7 Spur Awards,
Kelton authored a number of books that could appear on this kind of list. I
read a handful, and thoroughly enjoyed each and every one; the best of
the bunch, though, in my opinion, is The Time It Never Rained.
West Texas had suffered
through droughts before, but nothing like the real-life destructive dry spell
of the 1950s. Kelton tells the story of this drought through fictional aging
rancher Charlie Flagg. As the drought gets worse with every passing season,
nobody — from the Flores family (the loyal ranch hands), to twenty-something
aspiring rodeo cowboy Tom Flagg (Charlie’s son), to local bankers and
landowners, to the numerous Mexican migrants coming across the border looking
for food and work — remains unscathed.
Ultimately, the
townsfolk start either drifting away, or turning to the government for
provisions. Flagg, though, a bit of a stubborn curmudgeon, spurns federal help
and tries to stick to his self-reliance through it all. Will he make it through
the drought, or will the harsh conditions force him to leave behind the only
life he’s ever known? Not only does Kelton create relatable, memorable
characters that you’ll find yourself rooting for, but he paints a vivid picture
of the hold Mother Nature had on Western towns and families.
There are few writers
whose entire canon ends up on my to-read list, but Kelton is one.
Centennial
by James Michener (1974)
If you’re looking for a
single book that encapsulates all of Western lit’s sub-genres, Michener’s epic,
900-page Centennial is the way to go. Although set in and named for a
fictional northeastern Colorado town, the book actually begins well before any
town is established. In fact, Michener begins with a chapter of the geological
beginnings and even the dinosaurs of America’s western landscape. From there,
each chapter covers an aspect of typical Western lit, all set in or around the
town of Centennial: Indian life, hunters and trappers moving from east to west,
battles between whites and natives, buffalo hunts, cattle drives, and more.
Where Centennial goes further is its depiction of western life after
the 1800s, when farming and small-town crime and Mexican immigration all come
to play a part in daily life.
At 900 pages, it’s not
a quick or necessarily easy read. (You might think that’d be obvious, but a
tome like Lonesome Dove is in fact both quick and easy.) The nice thing,
though, is that each chapter, although long, is only loosely connected to each
other chapter. The novel roughly follows a family tree over the course of
centuries, but the plot points differ and the chapters can in fact almost be
read as short stories.
Indeed, Michener’s
lyrical writing is magnificent, and it’s a joy to read a chapter of it every
now and then (at least that’s how I did it).
The
Shootist by Glendon Swarthout (1975)
How many different ways
can the story of a Western gunman really be told? Glendon Swarthout took that
challenge and created the exceptional tale of dying gunman J.B. Books.
Having been diagnosed
with terminal prostate cancer, the nefarious gunfighter decides that he’ll
spend his dying days in El Paso. The town is none-too-happy about his being
there and tries to convince him to leave, but he stubbornly stays. Being an
infamous man, various folks come out of the woodwork when word gets around that
he’s dying in El Paso, including journalists hoping for a story and other
gunmen looking to bolster their reputation by killing Books.
You’d think the story
would perhaps be more about Books recounting his life stories, but it’s really
just about those last few months and an older man trying to somewhat redeem his
sordid reputation. And the way Books chooses to go out on his own terms at the
end is as memorable a scene as you’ll ever come across.
Hansen’s 1983 novel
verges on true-to-life biography of the (in)famous bank robber Jesse James, and
his assassin, young Bob Ford. Somewhat lacking in the way of action — the James
Gang robberies are only briefly covered — it’s mostly a character study of the
eccentric James, and his obsessive, devoted minion, Bob Ford.
It was only when Ford
was convinced that James would kill him (and when the reward money became too
high to ignore) that the 20-year-old killed James in his own home, while his
back was turned and his gun holsters removed. Ford figured he’d be a hero, but
while he was pardoned by the Missouri governor, he became a bit of an outcast.
He was a terribly interesting figure himself, and in fact the final quarter or
so of the book covers Ford’s life after the murder.
Hansen noted that he
didn’t stray from any known facts or even dialogue; he just imagined some of
the scenes and added more detail than was perhaps known. It’s not a quick read,
but sure a good one.
There’s a reason I’ve
often compared the other books on this list to Larry McMurtry’s Pulitzer
Prize-winning Lonesome Dove: it can readily be considered the Western
against which all others are judged. Of the many dozens of books I read in
compiling this list, Lonesome Dove was, without a doubt, the best.
The story is a
seemingly simple one: two long-time friends — Augustus (Gus) McCrae and Woodrow
Call, along with a ragtag group of ranch hands — embark on a cattle drive from
the Rio Grande to Montana. Along the way they encounter outlaws, Indians, old
flames, and plenty more. McMurtry takes 800+ pages to tell this story, but it’s
so good that you’ll be rather sad when it comes to an end (which it will do far
too quickly).
There are three other
books in the series as well. While Lonesome Dove was the first and best
of the bunch, the others are also great: Streets
of Laredo (1993), Dead
Man’s Walk (1995), and Comanche
Moon (1997). Read them by internal chronological order if you’d
like (in which case LD is third), but you don’t have to. I read ‘em in
the order they were published, and I didn’t feel like I was missing anything.
If you read one Western
in your life, make it Lonesome Dove.
More survival story
than true Western, but the setting — 1820s Wyoming and Montana
— merits its place on this list. If you’ve seen the
award-winning movie you know the broad outlines of the plot: After
being savagely attacked by a bear, frontiersman Hugh Glass is barely alive. His
comrades carry him along for a couple days, but he slows the group’s pace too
much. They decide that Glass will die any day now, and leave him behind with
two men who are tasked with caring for him until that time comes, and then
burying him. The two men leave early however, taking all of Glass’s supplies.
Against all odds, Glass regains consciousness, sets his own broken leg, and
crawls/hobbles his way over 200 miles to the nearest outpost, even allowing
maggots to eat his dead flesh in order to prevent gangrene.
While elements have
certainly been embellished over the years, it’s based on an unbelievable true
story. Unlike the movie version, which is largely fictionalized and diverts
quite a bit from original historical accounts, the novel on which that movie is
based stuck to them as much as possible, with just conversations and thoughts
being imagined.
The scenes of primitive
self-surgery, belly-crawling miles through hard terrain, and hunting and
foraging with no tools whatsoever are the stuff of survival legend. It’s like Hatchet
on steroids and for adults. While you’ll certainly read it quickly, the story
won’t soon leave your mind.
McCarthy has a number
of Western novels that could qualify for this list, but my own favorite by far
was 2005’s No Country for Old Men.
Unlike many Westerns on
this list, it’s set in the relatively modern 1980s, on the border of Texas and
Mexico. While hunting in the desert, Llewelyn Moss stumbles upon a drug deal
gone bad, and claims for himself two million bucks he finds amongst the
carnage. Of course, that missing cash isn’t going to go unnoticed, and almost
immediately Moss is hunted by some really bad dudes, including one of the most
terrifying villains in Western history, Anton Chigurh.
The best parts of the
story, in my opinion, center around the aging Sheriff Ed Tom Bell, who investigates
the crime and sets out to protect Moss and his young wife Carla Jean. As is a
staple of the genre, Bell laments how things are changing in the West. He can’t
keep up with the increasing, senseless violence. Can he manage to protect the
Mosses? You’ll have to read to find out (or watch the excellent movie).
Perhaps surprisingly, I
didn’t care for McCarthy’s near-universally-praised Blood
Meridian, and although the Border
Trilogy was enjoyable, I see No Country for Old Men as
McCarthy’s can’t-miss Western.
Eli and Charles Sisters
— the Sisters brothers — are assassins who’ve been hired to kill a prospector
in 1850s California. They’ve been told by their employer — the Commodore — that
this prospector is a thief. Of course, the truth is a little more complex than
that.
As with many Westerns,
the Sisters’ sibling relationship is also complex. There’s jealousy, disdain,
even anger. But ultimately, there’s a deep-seated familial love for each other.
For a modern novel, the language deWitt uses — in the form of brother Eli’s
narration — is surprisingly believable as coming from the place and time
period. There’s also plenty of humor and misadventure to go along with the
seriousness of the plot. It’s a good balance, and one that many of the best
Western novels tend to find.
The Son
by Philipp Meyer (2013)
Spanning a handful of
generations of the McCullough family, the story is told largely through the
lives of three main characters: Colonel Eli, his son Peter, and his
great-granddaughter Jeanna.
The Colonel survived a
Comanche raid as a kid and lived with the tribe for 3 years. When he returned,
he eventually became a Texas Ranger, and then a rancher, and often feuded with
the neighboring Garcia family. The son, Peter, is a disgrace to the Colonel
because he’s soft and falls in love with a Garcia daughter. Jeanne spends many
formative years with the Colonel, and she’s been the one to acquire his drive
for business and empire. In her later years though, she contemplates who will
take over the family business in a world that’s quickly abandoning its uses for
cattle and oil.
It’s a history of the
West, within a family epic set in Texas. It chronicles both the cowboy and
rancher ways of the Old West, along with how that culture largely disappeared
as the world modernized.
El Paso
by Winston Groom (2016)
Winston Groom is most
well-known for penning 1986’s Forrest Gump, as
well as a treasure trove of masterful and wide-ranging history books. In 2016,
for the first time in about 20 years, Groom published a new novel — a
fantastic Western called El Paso.
It’s the story of a
kidnapping in the midst of Pancho Villa’s Mexican Revolution. Villa takes
hostage the grandkids of a wealthy railroad magnate, and what follows is a
rollicking tale of an eclectic cast of characters trying to get them back.
What’s great about the book is how many real life characters Groom peppers in: Ambrose Bierce (who
has a fascinating story of his own), Woodrow Wilson, George S. Patton (whose
auspicious start came in the Mexican Revolution), and a few other railroad
tycoons.
The book really has
everything: gunfights, romantic drama, an epic bull fight, a cross-country race
between a train and an airplane, and some history lessons about America’s first
armed conflict of the 20th century. It’s nearly 500 pages, but reads very
quickly, and deserves a spot among the best Westerns of this new era of the
genre.
Dragon
Teeth by Michael Crichton (2017)
Taking on a forgotten
aspect of Western exploration, legendary techno-thriller author Michael
Crichton originally wrote Dragon Teeth in 1974, but it wasn’t published
until just last year, almost a decade after his death. Set in the 1870s, the
fictional story follows the real-life “Bone Wars” between dinosaur hunters
Othniel Marsh and Edward Cope.
Back then, there was a
lot of glory (and of course money) to be had in discovering dinosaur bones,
particularly out West. This led to some ruthless rivalries, most notably
between Marsh and Cope. In Dragon Teeth, William Johnson is a fictional
Yale student who takes a summer to work for the two dino hunters (how he comes
to work for not just one but both of them is for you to find out).
It’s a super fun,
entertaining, swashbuckling story about a little-known aspect of the West.
Beyond just cattle drives and buffalo hunts, the Bone Wars really captured
America’s imagination and spirit of adventure.
