South by Southwest by Johnny D. Boggs
On a mission to avenge his mentor's grisly death in a Confederate prison, 15-year old Zeb Hogan tracks a turncoat through the war-ravaged South to booming West Texas guided by Ebenezer Chase, a young runaway slave who is searching for his family. Along the way they encounter an assortment of God-fearing folk and scoundrels from both North and South. A shoot-out at the end resolves conflicting loyalties and allows our hardscrabble heroes to adjust to post-war realities and get on with their lives.
The book is YA short (230 pages) and accessible (simple language, stereotypical characters, conventional themes, tidy resolution). What sets this novel apart is the suspense generated by random attacks on the road, the surprise which triggers the denouement, the wealth of regional military and geographical detail, and the insights into Southern and Western attitudes towards big government, personal freedoms, and military vs. civilian justice.
Read-alikes:
Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham
The Buckskin Line by Elmer Kelton
Fort Pillow by Harry Turtledove
The Owl Hunt by Richard S. Wheeler
Jackie Malone, North Bellmore Public Library
The Sisters Brothers by Patrick deWitt
The Sisters Brothers is a black comic tale centering on the titular pair of brothers, Charlie and Eli Sisters. The two Sisters brothers are famed guns for hire in the Old West, circa 1851, during the heart of the Gold Rush. They work for a shadowy boss, known only as the Commodore. Charlie and Eli are sent by the Commodore to San Francisco to find and kill one Hermann Kermit Warm, a chemist who it seems has found an innovative new way to prospect for gold, and who has somehow betrayed the Commodore.
Eli narrates the work in a flat, deadpan style. Some might call the book dull in spots. Charlie is the less-feeling brother. He knows his job is to kill people, and he generally does it with gusto. Eli on the other hand is more contemplative. He seems to be having some regret over the his lot in life, and seems to wish he could leave it behind and just settle down with a nice girl. We get hints of the brothers’ early life, and the author seems to suggest that they are less killers than boys who miss their mom. In their quest to find Warm, the brothers have several adventures, including confrontations with witches, a red-pelted bear, a crying cowboy, and a gang of murderous trappers. Particularly funny is the section on dental hygiene!
The Sisters Brothers is a revisionist fiction of the Old West, quite different from most people’s impressions of the West as handed down through Hollywood movies and popular fiction. The book explores many of the old clichés and stereotypes in a new light. The book does seem to start as a traditional western, but it does turn more philosophical as the narrative proceeds. Those looking for a traditional western should probably be steered away from this book, but those who appreciate a literate take on an often misinterpreted era in American history will appreciate it.
Read-alikes could include:
Charles Portis, All novels, but especially True Grit.
Cormac McCarthy, All the Pretty Horses
Sherman Alexie, The Toughest Indian in the World
Perceval Everett, God’s Country
James Lee Burke, the Dave Robicheaux novels.
Bruce Silverstein, Patchogue-Medford Library
The Old Gray Wolf by James D. Doss
Police Chief Scott Parris and his friend, Charlie Moon, a part-time tribal investigator and rancher, reprise their roles as protagonists in James Doss’ Western mystery series. Set in South Central Colorado, the reader is introduced quickly to the characters, and I do mean characters: Danny Bignight, Daisy Perika, Hester “Toadie” Tillman, Big Bad Bertha Bronkowski, or “B-to-the-Fourth-Power, and places: Durango, Granite Creek , the Ute reservation, Bertha’s Saloon & Pool Room, Fat Jack’s Tack and Leather, and Polecat Joe’s 1950’s Pawnshop.
The plot turns on the unsolved murder of a policeman in Chicago, responsible for the shooting of Hooten’s gangster father, and the death of LeRoy Hooten in Granite Creek. These seemingly unrelated events will involve the FBI, a hit man hired to take out Parris and Moon, a bounty-hunter-in-training and a brutal mobster’s widow.
The pace is fast and the action whirls in Texas, Illinois, and Indiana. The resolution will come about in Granite Creek, where the story began.
Read-alikes:
Tony Hillerman
Lawrence Block
Elizabeth Adler
Grace O’Connor, West Islip Public Library
The White by Deborah Larsen
Deborah Larsen uses the true story of Mary Jemison as the basis for this novel. In 1758 Mary Jemison, a sixteen year old Irish immigrant, was living with her family in what would later be known as the Gettysburg area of Pennsylvania. She was taken from her home by a Shawnee raiding party. Her family was killed and she given to a Seneca family as payback for the killing of one of their children by the white man. Renamed Two Falling Voices, she falls into a state of apathy, but is eventually drawn out by her two Seneca sisters. They take her under their wing and teach her the Seneca way of life.
She is eventually taken as a bride by a man from the Delaware tribe. She first resists the idea of marriage, but her husband is a patient, kind, good person and she eventually not only warms up to the idea, but falls in love with him. Living through the devastation of her first child being still-born, Two Falling Voices has another child who is healthy and then once again lives through another devastating event – the death of her beloved husband. She eventually goes on to marry once again and bares five more children, to whom she devoted her life to. Two Falling Voices eventually becomes a landowner and a well-respected member of the tribe. She has several chances to return to white society but takes none of them.
The story is told in a series of abbreviated accounts with short chapters, often just two or three pages. The author alternates between Mary’s own voice and the third person. The writing is poetic, but very readable and overall provides a fascinating fictional account of Mary Jemison. An enjoyable read, I didn’t want this book to end.
Read-alikes
An Ordinary Woman by Cecelia Holland
One Thousand White Women: The Journals of May Dodd by Jim Fergus
Caleb’s Crossing by Geraldine Brooks
Donna Brown, East Hampton Library
All the Pretty Horses by Cormac McCarthy
John Grady Cole is an old soul. At the age of sixteen he knows what he wants to do the rest of his life. His life changes when major things happen to the people around him. His father hasn’t been the same since he returns from the war, his parents are getting divorced and his grandfather whom he looks up to has passed away. John Grady feels his only option is to run away with his friend Rawlins. The boys get on their horses and go. While on their way to Mexico from Texas they run into different situations. John doesn’t act like a typical sixteen year old boy. Even when he falls in love with the hacendiado’s daughter for whom he works he doesn’t act like a love struck teen. The boy is thrown into jail and he is able to handle even that horrible situation. This story was a western in the fact that the boys rode their horses and one loses count at the number of pastures and rivers referred to in the story, but really it is a coming of age story. The author’s writing style is flawless. McCarthy gives a small challenge in figuring out who is speaking at times, but the story flows in such a way that the reader gets used to it a few pages in. All the Pretty Horses is the first book in the Border Trilogy.
Lissetty Thomas, Brentwood Public Library
Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry
Lonesome Dove, Larry McMurtry’s Pultizer Prize winning epic Western chronicles an arduous cattle drive from Texas to the lush grazing lands of Montana. The journey centers around two retired Rangers: remote, taciturn W. F. Call, the leader of the drive, and sensitive, charming Augustus “Gus” McCrae. The journey takes the reader across snake-filled rivers, drought parched land and hostile Indian territory. The Old West is in transition in the late 19th Century where Indians have been almost wiped out and is a harsh place especially for women.
McMurtry makes us laugh, cry and reflect; he introduces us to some unforgettable characters along the way: Blue Duck, an Indian sociopath who terrorizes his own people and white men alike; handsome Jake Spoon, neer-do-well gambler and womanizer; and Deets, ex-slave, expert tracker and cowboy. The TV miniseries did an admirable job of recreating the climate of the time and Tommy Lee Jones as Call and Robert Duvall as Gus McCrae capture the personalities and the relationship between the strange bedfellows.
Peggy McCarthy, Smithtown and West Islip Libraries
The Ordinary Truth by Jana Richman
Thirty six years after the accidental shooting of Henry Jorgensen, his family still can’t cope or move forward. Nell and Kate, Henry’s wife and daughter, do not speak, and his 21-year-old granddaughter Cassie, is trying to save the family.
Kate works for the Nevada Water Authority which has just announced plans to divert water from the ranches in the valley (where Kate’s family lives) to the city of Las Vegas, as it is becoming more populous. This adds to the stress between mother and daughter, as the diversion will destroy the farms and ranches and hinder her family’s livelihood.
Told through four points of view at a leisurely pace, a family secret is finally uncovered; but is it too late to heal this fractured family?
Read-alikes:
Winter Garden by Kristin Hannah
Porch Lights by Dorothea Benton Frank
The Water's Lovely by Ruth Rendell
Lori Ludlow, Babylon Public Library
Bohemian Girl by Terese Svoboda
Harriet is irresistible, and part of her “spell” is created by Svoboda’s amazing writing talent. All reviewers note the poetic quality of the writing: it is imaginative, dreamy, and suggestive. The reader has to pay close attention because the story unfolds quickly, and Harriet’s interiority is quick and subtly projected. Bill Ott asserted, in a recent American Libraries column, that well done Westerns have the power, nearly, of myth as they distill larger themes and images into pictures the reader may never forget. This is certainly a strength of “Bohemian Girl”.
Read-alikes, for setting and theme, would include Willa Cather, Charles Portis’ “True Grit”, and perhaps “The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn”. For its dreamy, mythic quality, and powerful heroine, I would liken this work to Kingsolver’s “Animal Dreams” and to “Bone People” by Keri Hulme. The quirky writing style of Annie Proulx, especially in her “The Shipping News”, is reminiscent of Svoboda’s.
A self –described “writer, poet and educator”, the author was born in Ogallala, Nebraska, in 1950, and received a B.F.A. from the University of British Columbia, and an M.F.A., in Poetry, from Columbia University. She has traveled widely, serving as a visiting professor at many colleges, and published extensively: three novels, three works of non-fiction, and four volumes of poetry. She was the co-producer of PBS’s very influential poetry series, “Voices and Visions”.
Suzanne McGuire, Commack Public Library
The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout
The Shootist, by Glendon Swarthout, won the Spur Award for Best Novel in 1975. It’s the story of John Bernard Books, a dying “shootist” who wants to die his own way. He rents a room from widowed matron Bond Rogers and her gunfighter idolizing son Gillom. Struggling to cope with increasing pain and disability, Books is approached by an endless string of visitors wanting revenge or to profit from his impending death.
Expecting a shallow shoot ‘em up story, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of character and felt sympathy for the seemingly heartless Books; his kindness toward Mrs. Rogers is poignant and sincere. The novel reads quickly, but nevertheless effectively.
Read-alikes include:
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Deadwood by Pete Dexter
Welcome to Hard Times by E.L. Doctorow
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Jeannette Walls, author of the memoir, “The Glass Castle,” revisits her family, this time in the disguise of a real life novel. The narrator of “Half Broke Horses” is Jeannette’s maternal grandmother Lily Casey Smith Walls one of the most unforgettable characters you’ll ever meet. Helping her father break horses at six, teaching at fifteen and learning to fly a plane at 39, Lily tackles life head-on in this heartwarming and funny novel. The Shootist, by Glendon Swarthout, won the Spur Award for Best Novel in 1975. It’s the story of John Bernard Books, a dying “shootist” who wants to die his own way. He rents a room from widowed matron Bond Rogers and her gunfighter idolizing son Gillom. Struggling to cope with increasing pain and disability, Books is approached by an endless string of visitors wanting revenge or to profit from his impending death.
Expecting a shallow shoot ‘em up story, I was pleasantly surprised at the depth of character and felt sympathy for the seemingly heartless Books; his kindness toward Mrs. Rogers is poignant and sincere. The novel reads quickly, but nevertheless effectively.
Read-alikes include:
Shane by Jack Schaefer
Deadwood by Pete Dexter
Welcome to Hard Times by E.L. Doctorow
Cathi Nashak, Deer Park Public Library
Half Broke Horses by Jeannette Walls
Read-alikes:
The Whistling Season by Ivan Doig
My Antonia by Willa Cather
1000 White Women by Jim Fergus
True Grit by Charles Portis
The Living by Annie Dillard
Kathleen Carter, Mastics-Moriches-Shirley Community Library, retired
Snowbound by Richard S. Wheeler
A work of historical fiction, Snowbound focuses on an expedition taken by a real figure in American history and explorer of the West, John Charles Fremont. In an attempt to carve out a railway route to the west coast, Fremont enlists an assortment of men and sets out on a journey that will ultimately subject all on the expedition to the most deplorable of conditions—conditions that include not only frostbite, but also being put in a position of having to decide whether or not to resort to cannibalism in order to survive. Even as conditions worsen, the men cannot bring themselves to challenge Fremont’s directives.
Wheeler’s descriptive narrative puts you right on the snow-covered mountains with the men of the expedition. The vivid descriptions of blackened limbs and the need to boil shoe leather for sustenance may turn some readers off, but others will find it to be a spell-binding read. Fans of the Old West or historical fiction will be engrossed by the atmosphere Wheeler creates. Each chapter features the perspective of a different member of the traveling party. An emotionally-intense adventure set in the West, and an easy-to-read storytelling style comprise the appeal of this work.
Similar books with similar settings and themes that may appeal to readers that enjoy Snowbound include Canyon of Bones, another story of an expedition that endangers the lives of its men, also by Richard S. Wheeler; Colter’s Path by Cameron Judd—the story of a ruthless expedition in pursuit of the gold in California; and The Branch and The Scaffold by Loren D. Estleman—a character-driven, biographical novel based on the life of a true figure from the American West.
Deborah Formosa, Northport-East Northport Public Library
