RAYE'S LIST OF THE BEST WESTERN NOVELS

"Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear." If those words are familiar to you, you reveal yourself to be from the generation who grew up in the heyday of the Western, the 1940s and '50s, when radio programs such as The Lone Ranger and Gunsmoke thrilled listeners, and cowboy movies starring the likes of Roy Rogers and Gene Autrey, and later John Wayne, drew audiences to the theaters. When television came along, Western series too numerous to count filled the network schedules. Novels by Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour dominated drugstore book racks. The conquering of the Western frontier had inspired the creation of the American equivalent to England's Knights of the Round Table. Lawmen, cowboys, and horse soldiers fought for the right and protected the weak and innocent. Their adversaries were not Black Knights, but rustlers, outlaws, and Indians on the warpath.

Fascination with the Western has waned. When I was a kid, my brothers and cousins and I pretended to be cowboys. Now my grandson pretends to be a Jedi knight or a zombie hunter. It's still good versus bad, but sadly the Western, that uniquely American mythology, has slipped into relative unpopularity.

After reading ten Westerns selected from "Best of..." lists on the internet and from the recommendations of friends, I have selected my own list of Best Westerns, many being books I had already read in the past. What did I look for? An interesting story that transcends formula, with complex characters and originality in the writing--just what I would look for in any novel. In addition, the dialogue is particularly important in Westerns, because not all writers are successful in reproducing the vernacular of a specific region and of a time gone by. High quality description of the setting also frequently becomes important, because often the Western landscape helps to determine the action.

Here are my favorites.

THE OX-BOW INCIDENT by WALTER VAN TILBURG CLARK (1940)
The story of a lynching. Clark utilizes many of the stereotypes of the Western genre to examine the dynamics of mob violence. This book tells a suspenseful character-driven story with implications for any time, any place. It is my favorite Western novel.

TRUE GRIT by CHARLES PORTIS (1968)
A plucky girl enlists the help of a cantankerous aging lawman and an ambitious Texas Ranger in a quest to track down her father's murderer. Most people are familiar with the story from one or the other of the two True Grit movies, but the book is, of course, much better.

LONESOME DOVE by LARRY McMURTRY (1985)
Two ex-Texas Rangers undertake a cattle drive from Texas to Montana and have plenty of adventures along the way. McMurtry proves himself to be right up there with Dickens when it comes to telling a long, engrossing story with memorable characters.

THE BIG SKY by A.B. GUTHRIE, JR. (1947)
Mountain men confront nature and Indians in the high country of the Northwest in the years before the western migration. This book is beautifully written, with outstanding dialogue and meticulous setting descriptions.

THE WIND by DOROTHY SCARBOROUGH (1925)
A pampered girl from Virginia ends up in a loveless marriage to a cowboy from the Texas plains, where she tries to survive drought and "winds from Hell." This novel is the only Western I know of that is written from a woman's point of view. It is melodramatic and probably only believable to someone who has lived "where the wind comes sweeping down the plain." I believed it, totally.

THE SHOOTIST by GLENDON SWARTHOUT (1973)
The last gunman of the Old West finds a way to die with dignity. Swarthout transcends stereotypes and delivers the unexpected in a short and quietly powerful novel about the ending of the lawless days. Don't imagine you already know the story just because you've seen the John Wayne movie.

THE DAY THE COWBOYS QUIT by ELMER KELTON (1971)
Small-time cattlemen confront big-time ranchers in this realistic story set in the Panhandle of Texas, from the author voted by the Western Writers of America as the Greatest Western Writer of All Time. Kelton's dialogue is, as always, particularly outstanding.

DEADWOOD by PETE DEXTER (1986)
Wild Bill Hickock, Calamity Jane, and the dastardly assassin Jack McCall live (and die) again in this often darkly comic novel of the Old West in Dakota Territory. Dexter combines historical fact and popular legend and spices it with a keen sense of the ridiculous to tell a one-of-a-kind story.

VALDEZ IS COMING by ELMORE LEONARD (1970)
An affable and seemingly mild-mannered town constable confronts gross injustice by reverting to his violent, army tracker past. Leonard's writing is immediate and suspenseful, and he is especially adept at characterization.

THE ASSASSINATION OF JESSE JAMES BY THE COWARD ROBERT FORD by RON HANSEN (1983)
Back when outlaws were as famous as movie stars are today, an obsessed fan shoots the (retired) robber Jesse James in the back while he is hanging a picture. This is more a character study than a chronicle of events. Also excellent is Hansen's Desperadoes, about the Dalton Gang.

Some might wonder why I have not included the extraordinary revisionist Westerns of Cormac McCarthy: All the Pretty Horses, The Crossing, and Blood Meridian. While I recognize that they are outstanding, perhaps works of genius, they are bloody and brutal and not books that I would choose to read more than once. I also have not included Little Big Man by Thomas Berger, a book I love, because it is probably a bit too fanciful to be classified as a true Western.

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For readers who did not recognize the quotation at the beginning of this blog entry, here is the full quotation as made by the announcer at the beginning of a popular radio program and later a television series: "In the early days of the western United States, a masked man and an Indian rode the plains, searching for truth and justice. Return with us now to those thrilling days of yesteryear, when from out of the past come the thundering hoofbeats of the great horse Silver! The Lone Ranger rides again!"

I'm hearing the William Tell Overture in my head right now.