The Wild, Wild West – westerns
January 14, 2021
 | Butcher’s Crossing by John Williams William Andrews, a young fresh-faced Harvard student with stars in his eyes and Emerson in his pocket, joins a bison-hunting expedition in his quest to explore the American West. What could possibly go wrong, right? The transcendental experience hoped for is instead replaced by a grueling journey into an unforgiving wilderness marked by violence, brutality, cabin fever, cold and hunger. In this intelligent, beautifully written western, Williams dismantles the myths of modern America. Book Audio eBook |
 | The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt Forget the movie. Just forget it. The book is much, much better. It’s 1851, and Charlie and Eli Sisters are both brothers and assassins, boys grown to men in a savage and hostile world. You’ll come to appreciate the advent of modern dental hygiene and the efficacy of tooth powder in mid-19th century America. You’ll also escape with a deeper understanding of the deadly family ties that sometimes bind us. Book eBook Audio eBook |
 | The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford by Ron Hansen A poetic, carefully researched meditation on early cult-celebrity, this historical novel details the final days of Jesse James. Robert Ford was a young upstart torn between dedicated worship and murderous jealousy, the “dirty little coward” who coveted Jesse’s legend. The powerful, strange, and unforgettable story of their interweaving paths—and twin destinies that would collide in a rain of blood and betrayal—is a story of America in all her rough, conflicted glory and the myths that made her. Oh, and like the book, the movie is excellent. Book eBook Audio eBook |
 | The Revenant: A Novel of Revenge by Michael Punke Brrrr….if you saw the movie, you likely stumbled out of a pre-COVID theater (ah, remember those days?) in a frigid adrenaline rush with a taste for raw bison liver. Not. Like the movie, the book is the true story (with modest embellishments) of fur trapper Hugh Glass and his near supernatural powers of physical endurance in an epic battle first for his life and then for justice. Book Audio eBook |
 | Doc: A Novel by Mary Doria Russell Born to the life of a Southern gentleman, Dr. John Henry Holliday arrives on the Texas frontier hoping that the dry air and sunshine of the West will restore him to health. Soon, with few job prospects, Doc Holliday is gambling professionally with his partner, Mária Katarina Harony. In search of high-stakes poker, the couple hits the saloons of Dodge City. And that is where the unlikely friendship of Doc Holliday and a fearless lawman named Wyatt Earp begins. A great follow-up to this title is Russell’s Epitaph: A Novel of the O.K. Corral. Book eBook |
 | Deadwood by Pete Dexter Did the American TV producer David Milch read Pete Dexter’s Deadwood before creating the 2004 HBO drama of the same name? Milch claims he didn’t, but readers of Dexter’s 1986 novel might find that hard to believe. Legendary gunman Wild Bill Hickcock and his friend Charlie Utter have come to the Black Hills town of Deadwood fresh from Cheyenne, fleeing an ungrateful populace. Fueled by liquor, sex, and violence, this is the real wild west, unlike anything portrayed in the dime novels that first told its story. eBook |
 | The Son by Phillip Meyer Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Book eBook Audio eBook |
 | Horseman, Pass By by Larry McMurtry What Western booklist would be complete without a title by Larry McMurtry? This novel became the basis for the film Hud, starring Paul Newman. In classic Western style McMurtry illustrates the timeless conflict between modernity and the Old West through the eyes of Texas cattlemen. When first published in 1961, Horseman, Pass By caused a sensation in Texas literary circles for its stark, realistic portrayal of the struggles of a changing West in the years following World War II. Never before had a writer managed to encapsulate its environment with such unsentimental realism. Book Audio eBook |
 | The Ox-Bow Incident by Walter van Tilburg Clark Set in 1885, The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940, it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful, vivid, and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel, which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil, individual and community, justice and human nature. Book |
 | Blood Meridian by Cormac McCarthy An epic novel of the violence and depravity that attended America’s westward expansion, Blood Meridian brilliantly subverts the conventions of the Western novel and the mythology of the “wild west.” Based on historical events that took place on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, it traces the fortunes of the Kid, a fourteen-year-old Tennessean who stumbles into the nightmarish world where Indians are being murdered and the market for their scalps is thriving. Not for the squeamish, but it remains an unparalleled classic—you won’t soon forget the character of The Judge. Book eBook Audio eBook |