Western Trails: A Collection of Short Stories by Mary Austin ed. by Melody Graulich (review)

Reviews 159 sense of the nostrum which man’s acceptance of his own folly allows. For Fray Chavez, God through Christ usually helps mankind triumph over mistakes and muddledom, over “sin”—whether it be a hunchback Madonna who after a lifetime of servitude is finally honored, or a newly-found decision to live which allows a defiant and silent bell to ring forth the songs of joy again. This is not to suggest that Fray Chavez’s stories are merely New Mexican or southwestern fictions. It is not to suggest that they are only his tellings. He has accomplished that kind of miracle of his own which only a truly inspired writer is allowed: to have the words speak beyond the individual and the local so that the writer as a kind of priest (in this instance priest as writer) might bless us all. ROBERT GISH University of Northern Iowa Western Trails: A Collection of Short Stories by Mary Austin. Edited by Melody Graulich. (Reno:University ofNevada Press, 1987. 309 pages,$22.50.) With the rise of feminism, environmentalism, mysticism, and liberal social outlooks generally, the stock of Mary Austin, who died in 1934, has soared. Furthermore, the author of the early desert paean, The Land of Little Rain, claims a sure place in western letters. At century’s turn, she shied from the popular ziff-boom-bam scenarios of thundering herds and high-noon shootouts. Instead, this lone, in some ways eccentric, woman chose the noble risk of trying to capture the subtleties of man’s spiritual relationships with the western land­ scape. And lastly, what should be uppermost in our minds, Mary Austin pro­ duced fine-spun prose, regardless of the subject at hand or the various political causes she sometimes vehemently espoused. Drawing on stories from seven Austin books and including both hitherto uncollected and unpublished material, Western Trails illustrates all of the above. Attuned to the rhythms of the earth, an ancient Piute woman fashions roots and grasses into art in “The Basket Maker.” In “The Return of Mr. Wills,” a husband abandons his family to pursue will-’o-the-wisp dreams of gold, only to find on his return that his family has done quite well without him and his immature notions of success. For all the book’s virtues, however, one should approach the bibliographical front matter and the brief introductions to each selection with some caution, for the editor tends to highlight Austin’s life and work in terms of her own feminist polemic. PETER WILD University of Arizona ...