Land Fever: Dispossession and the Frontier Myth by James M. Marshall (review)

72 Western American Literature Classics of Texas Fiction. By James Ward Lee. (Dallas: E-Heart Press, 1987. 182 pages, $15.95.) The Texas Sesquicentennial celebration provided an opportunity to acquaint Texans and others with a richness in Texas life that may have been overlooked. As part of the effort, James Ward Lee wrote a review column of major Texas novels from early days to the present. These reviews, first run in several Texas newspapers, have been gathered in an interesting and attractive book dubbed Classics of Texas Fiction. The book has a number of strengths. Most important are the reviews of forty-seven carefully chosen novels along with biographical sketches of the authors, many of whom are not well known. The volume is also a useful finding list, since most people, largely unfamiliar with Texas letters, are not sure what constitutes the best of Texas literature. Also interesting is what is left out. Lee apologizes for not including such works as Elithe Hamilton Kirkland’s Love is a Wild Assault, for example. His major justification for his choices is simply a matter of taste. Since no collection of this scope can include all of the worthwhile books, we must be content with that rationale. Writers whose works are included range from Andy Adams and the little known Edward Anderson to Elizabeth Forsythe Hailey, Leon Hale, Shelby Hearon, William Humphrey, Elmer Kelton, Laura Krey, Edwin Lanham, Larry McMurtry, Jane Gilmore Rushing, Edwin Shrake, Ben Capps, C. W. Smith, and many others. In addition, there is an annotated bibliography of other important pieces of Texas fiction and lists of novels honored by the Texas Institute of Letters. The Afterword by A. C. Greene is a fitting tribute to Lee and to the work, especially since Greene is the author of The Fifty Best Books on Texas. Lee, Director of the Center for Texas Studies at North Texas State Uni­ versity, is also founding editor of the Southwest Writers Series and a prolific author of articles and reviews as well as books in this field. Anyone interested in Texas letters needs to pay attention to this important work. LAWRENCE CLAYTON Hardin-Simmons University Land Fever: Dispossession and the Frontier Myth. By James M. Marshall. (Lexington: University of Kentucky Press, 1986. 239 pages, $21.00.) The first ninety pages or so of Land Fever are taken up by the annotated “Autobiography of Omar H. Morse (1824-1901)” which was composed in Morse’s later years and preserved by his granddaughter, Evelyn Morse Peter­ son. James Marshall, professor of English at the University of Rhode Island, tells us that this is one of the more truthful accounts of a westward-moving Reviews 73 homesteader of this period. The autobiography is a chronicle of economic failure, failure caused by unrealistic expectations of what western lands could produce, lack ofavailable markets, disreputable land speculators, and absurdly high interest rates. Omar Morse expresses anger toward the system on occasion, which we are told is a rare expression for the times, in which stoicism and acceptance of fate before God are more common. The rest of the book discusses at length the various myths surrounding the Westward Movement as put forth by Frederick Jackson Turner, Edwin Markham, Henry Nash Smith and others, carrying forth the theme of “dis­ possession”—being moved off the land by economic disaster and dreams of a “garden” just over the next hill. This is a study of agrarian disillusionment focusing more on forces working on the pocketbook than on the spirit. PENELOPE REEDY The Redneck Review of Literature Stories from the Country of Lost Borders. By Mary Austin. Edited by Marjorie Pryse. (New Brunswick and London: Rutgers University Press, 1987. 267 pages, $30.00 cloth, $10.00 paper.) This volume is a reprint of two of Mary Austin’sbest books, The Land of Little Rain (1903) and Lost Borders (1909), each consisting of fourteen sketches and tales about the California desert, a region where Austin spent important years of her life. Marjorie Pryse’s introduction is informative and perceptive, with commentary on individual stories along with an overall critical view placing Austin in a tradition of American nature writers, especi­ ally Thoreau and Muir...