New & Novel: Western Fiction

Four Mile Old West Town, Custer, Black Hills, South Dakota, United States of America, North America. Photography. Britannica ImageQuest, Encyclopædia Britannica, 25 May 2016.
quest.eb.com/search/151_2582682/1/151_2582682/cite. Accessed 17 Jun 2017.

The discovery of the Americas and the mysterious, unexplored West fired the imagination of Spanish conquistadors, English pilgrims, French fur traders, and the legions that have followed over the centuries. In spurts, awestruck and hypnotized by the power and beauty of the land, we pushed the boundaries of the known Western Hemisphere to the edge of dense forests, over endless grassy prairies, through towering barrier mountains, and finally across scorched deserts to the shores of the Pacific Ocean. Explorers, naturalists, soldiers, cowboys, poets, adventurers, treasure hunters, army wives, artists, gold miners, traders, stockmen, European noblemen, and just about anyone else you can think of who traveled by foot, horse, or wagon under the vast western sky and could put pen to paper felt compelled to write about the American West. And it hasn’t stopped yet.
~Michael McGarrity, "Top Ten Essential Western Novels You Have to Read"

Did you know that the Western was the most popular Hollywood film genre until the 1960s? That's probably why when we think of Westerns, we think of Shane, The Virginian, True Grit, and The Ox-Bow Incident, though we're familiar with authors as well - Louis L'Amour, Elmer Kelton, William W. Johnstone, Johnny D. Boggs, Zane Grey, and Cormac McCarthy. But though the genre has a rich canon of classics to choose from, there are new Westerns being published all the time! Additionally, there are subgenres, such as Western romance, horror Westerns, space Westerns, and Western graphic novels, though much current Western fiction adheres to the familiar 1860 - 1900 setting and a recognizably Old West cast of characters.

We hope you will enjoy some of these new and novel Western titles from the library catalog:

Huck Out West by Robert Coover

World, Chase Me Down by Andrew Hilleman  [large print]

Centennial by James Michener [eBook, eAudio]

The Son by Philipp Meyer 

The Assassination of Jesse James By the Coward, Robert Ford by Ron Hansen 

American Meteor by Norman Lock [eAudio] 

Barkskins by Annie Proulx [eAudio] 

El Paso by Winston Groom [book on CD] 

Crossing Purgatory by Gary Schanbacher

The Collected Works of Billy the Kid by Michael Ondaatje [eAudio] 

News of the World by Paulette Jiles

Kind of Kin by Rilla Askew 

Winter In the Blood by James Welch 

Matchless: A Western Story by Jane Candia Coleman

The Brave Cowboy: An Old Tale In a New Time by Edward Abbey  

The Sisters Brothers by  Patrick deWitt     

Doc by Mary Doria Russell 

Wake of Vultures by Lila Bowen

Legends of the Fall by Jim Harrison [eBook, eAudio] 

Vengeance Road by Erin Bowman [YA]

Silver On the Road by Laura Anne Gilman

Paradise Sky by Joe R. Lansdale

Glorious: A Novel of the American West by Jeff Guinn

Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks

 

Links 

12 Best Darn Western Books of All Time [Early Bird Books] 

Yee haw! 10 Western novels that show how wild the West really was [Ink Tank]  

Top 10 Western books [American Cowboy]  

Spur Awards winners [Western Writers of America] 

Made in New Mexico: Western Roundup

Around this time of year, when the State Fair rolls around and all the livestock are on display, we here at abcreads are reminded that we live in the West, and that we can get closer to New Mexico in Westerns than True Grit and Longmire (although New Mexico stands in for various locations in the movie and Wyoming in this series). To celebrate our Western heritage, here are some of the newest Westerns and Western-related items from the library catalog that have ties to New Mexico.

Westerns

The Killing Trail by Johnny D. Boggs

Shawn O'Brien, Town Tamer by William W. Johnstone with J.A. Johnstone

Here By the Bloods by Brandon Boyce

She Returns From War by Lee Collins

Cantrell: A Western Duo by by T.T. Flynn

Between Hell and Texas by Dusty Richards


Not strictly Western fiction

The Witches of Ruidoso by John Sandoval [YA]"In the last years of the 19th century in the western territory that would become New Mexico, young Elijah falls in love with a girl who has strange insights and abilities with animals. Together, they come of age in a land of mountains and ravens, where witches terrorized both white men and Apache Indians."

Handful of Sky by Tory Cates"Shallie Larkin has chosen to make her way in the rough and tumble world of the rodeo, where women are seen as trophies to be won and discarded, not as serious competition. But just as Shallie can see the hidden beauty in the stark landscape of New Mexico, she is determined to find the inner strength to fight for her dream of being a rodeo contractor."  Western-themed non-fiction 

Red Ryder & Little Beaver: Painted Valley Troubleshooters - Fred Harman's Newspaper Comic Strip Heroes in Comic Books, Novels, Radio Shows & Motion Pictures by Bernard A. Drew  
"Harman worked in a studio on his small ranch in Colorado. In his later years he turned to fine art and co-founded the Cowboy Artists of America. He helped create the Little Beaver Town theme park near Albuquerque, New Mexico."

The Wrath of Cochise: The Bascom Affair and the Origins of the Apache Wars by Terry Mort"In a gripping narrative that often reads like an old-fashioned Western novel, Terry Mort explores the collision of these two radically different cultures in a masterful account of one of the bloodiest conflicts in our frontier history."
  

Wild Wild Westerns

Gunslingers, lawmen and outlaws, oh my! The western genre stands out as a favorite among many adventure readers today. Like fantasy novels, westerns create or re-create a world that none of us will every truly know. Unlike fantasy novels, many of the stories are based on actual historical events or people and take place in a world that did exist at one time.

The genre originated in the late 1800’s and many of the traditional authors are known to portray a more romanticized view of the wild, wild, west. This view served to perpetuate many stereotypes involving cowboys, Indians, nobles and savages. Aside from this outdated mindset, many still enjoy these stories as classic western literature.

On the other hand, many modern day western novels are characterized by presenting a more realistic and/or modern view of the days on the frontier. Some of the main differences include the treatment of women, perceptions of Native Americans, sexuality and morality overall.

Westerns also have their own literary awards presented by the Western Writers of America each year. Since 1953, the Spur Awards have been given to recognize exceptional western writing in various categories.

Check out these Spur Award winners:

Snowbound by Richard S. Wheeler – 2011 Best Western Short Novel

Moon Over Manifest by Clare Vanderpool -2011 Best Western Juvenile Fiction

The Secret War in El Paso: Mexican Revolutionary Intrigue, 1906-1920 - by Charles H. Harris III and Louis R. Sadler- 2010 Best Western Nonfiction Contemporary

Shavetail:A Novel by Thomas Cobb- 2009 Best Western Long Novel

Blood and Thunder: An Epic of the American West by Hampton Sides- 2007 Best Western Nonfiction Historical

Featured Author: Steve Hockensmith

(Cowboys + Mystery Fiction) x (Zombies + Romance Fiction) = What Next?


Author Steve Hockensmith is making a name for himself with entertaining, genre-blending fiction series.

First in the saddle is the Holmes on the Range series, cowboy mysteries set in the 1890s. Cowboy brothers Otto “Big Red” Amlingmeyer and Gustav “Old Red” Amlingmeyer are just two more cowhands drifting between jobs, until the fateful night when they read something new around the campfire: a Sherlock Holmes story. Old Red finds a purpose in life, starts "detectiving" (with Big Red as his Watson), and their lives will never be the same as they pursue mysteries amid stampedes, rustlers, Holmes-hating English aristocrats and a cannibal named “Hungry Bob.”

The series follows their adventures as they seek to mix cowboy wisdom with Holmes's methods in a time and place where justice was often swift, sometimes arbitrary, and most folks just didn't have a clue what a clue was.

Holmes on the Range (2006)

On the Wrong Track (2007)

The Black Dove (2008)

The Crack in the Lens (2009)

World's Greatest Sleuth (2011)

To see how other authors are working with Arthur Conan Doyle's legacy, visit the Sherlock Holmes Universe LibGuide.

Hockensmith went another direction in 2010, proving himself a master of the mashup (a current term for pastiches that blend several genres) with the release of Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dawn of the Dreadfuls, the followup prequel to 2009's Pride and Prejudice and Zombies by "Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith." Both titles were New York Times bestsellers.



His next installment in these monstrous adaptations of a classic is Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: Dreadfully Ever After, wherein the new Mrs. Darcy is faced with the problem of having to deal with husband Fitzwilliam being bitten by an "unmentionable." This third book promises to be as popular as the first two. Visit Steve Hockensmith's website for information on these works and what mashups he might be tackling next.

See what other (non-monstrous) authors are doing in the Jane Austen Universe.

More monstrous Jane Austen mashups:

Pride and Prejudice and Zombies: The Classic Regency Romance -- now with ultraviolent zombie mayhem! by "Jane Austen and Seth Grahame-Smith"

Sense and Sensibility and Sea Monsters by "Jane Austen and Ben H. Winters"

Mr. Darcy, Vampyre by Amanda Grange

Jane Bites Back by Michael Thomas Ford -- featuring Jane Austen herself as a deathless bookstore owner!