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88 Western American Literature Arizona novelist Jeanne Williams writes on “Weaving the Historical Novel” (the emphasis is on research) ;Gordon D. Shirreffs has contributed a chapter on the “Series Western” ; Texas historian Don Worcester (author of The Apaches: Eagles of the Southwest, The Spanish Mustang and other books) has some pithy comments on “The Perils of Writing Western History” ; Leon C. Metz (Pat Garrett, Fort Bliss) writes on “How to Write Western Biog­ raphy.” Collins has contributors writing on the TV Western, the western short story and article, local history, the young adult novel—even on the “Adult Western” (a laughable New York publishing term for the pornographic West­ ern) , and on dealing with literary agents. This “Handbook” ought to be of considerable assistance to writers of western books—it is filled with anecdotes and warnings of avoidable pitfalls— and for the serious student of western literature it is an interesting insider’s view of how some of that literature is being produced today. DALE L. WALKER The University of Texas at El Paso Pieces of Map, Pieces of Music. By Robert Bringhurst. (Port Townsend, WA: Copper Canyon Press, 1987. 127 pages, $9.00.) The Nootka Rose. By Sam Hamill. (Portland: Breitenbush Books, 1987. 84 pages, $9.00.) Even in an age of multi-media presentations, it is difficult to imagine a work with more dimensions than Robert Bringhurst’sPieces of Map, Pieces of Music, a thin, seemingly conventional paperbound book of poems and essays. It shouldn’t work. Imagine a shotgun blast of ideas and characters: Zen masters, Josef Mengele, poems with superscriptions in French, German, Span­ ish, and Polish, an origin tale, a jazz duet, an autobiographical essay, and an interview. Yet Bringhurst ties these disparate elements together in a display of dimensional virtuosity. Zen paradox sets the tone of what follows. A large portion of the book is devoted to teachings of Zen and Taoist masters, spiritual training and breath­ ing exercises in the shape of poems. The strength of this section is the visual dimension added by Yim Tse’s Chinese calligraphy. A key explains the char­ acters, but their impact is aesthetic; the bold strokes and delicate loops are illustrative as abstract art. Bringhurst’s more conventional poems carry the same sense of history as well as a dimension of rhythmic breathing. Sound is as important as sight; a Zen-like balance is a dominant feature, particularly in the least conventional poems, the jazz score for two voices, in which a male voice is to read the left page while a female voice reads the right side. The combined text is printed Reviews 89 on each page, with the male or female voice dominant in bold or faded ink. The resulting rhythm and counterpoint are breathtaking, truly an impressive work. Sam Hamill has much in common with Robert Bringhurst, both as a translator of poetry from ancient and modern languages and as a voice calling for more than a cursory glance at man’s past. His Nootka Rose has a feeling of historicity. It is peopled by Herakleitos and the pagan gods of Greece and Spanish saints and dictators. Yet, there is a very different feel and rhythm to the Nootka Rose; it is more personal, more feminine than Bringhurst’s work. In a sense, it is a good companion piece to Pieces of Map, intuitive rather than intellectual, emotional rather than detached. Especially powerful are “Count­ ing the Bodies in Peacetime,” an epitaph for the victims of a modern urban landscape, and “Historical Romance,” an encounter with ghosts from Spain’s long past. STEVEN PUGMIRE Seattle, Washington Little Lucy’s Papa: A Story of Silverland. By Dan DeQuille/William Wright. (Sparks, Nevada: Falcon Hill Press, 1987. 30 pages, $49.) Forty-nine dollars may seem like a lot for 30 pages. But if you could see this small book, with its heavy sable pages, its flawless printing, its multi­ colored embellishments on each page, and its creamy blue hard cover, you would understand the care that publisher Dave Basso gave each step of the publishing process, and thus the necessity for the price. This is one of the loveliest limited edition books I’ve seen...

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