Frontier’s End by Robert F. Gish (review)

Reviews 169 As with his novels, Steinbeck’sshort fictions generally make use of western locales; indeed, the landscape of the Californian West can be said to be the organizing principle behind such collections as The Long Valley—particularly The Red Pony, frequently encountered separately—and the sequence-in-novelform The Pastures of Heaven. Hughes’s knowledge of this literal turf is matched by his solid grounding in prior criticism; and while he contributes the results of his study of primary texts and manuscripts to the critical hopper, his judgments of the merits and meanings of individual works do not constitute radical departures from the assessments of most readers. One can readily imagine the delight of the undergraduate finding his or her way to this volume in the primary stages of research. This is a series title, of course, and Twayne’s format demands the inclu­ sion of previously printed materials, in this case a letter from Steinbeck to his former teacher Edith Mirrielees on the mysteries of the cult of story writing, along with a sampling of Steinbeck’s statements on the craft of fiction assem­ bled by Tetsumaro Hayashi. Unfortunately, there has been room for only four critical pieces—by Marilyn H. Mitchell,Charles E. May, M.R. Satyanarayana, and Arnold L. Goldsmith—but these are good ones and adumbrate the range of possible approaches to Steinbeck’s art. Readers with a taste for the best of the West in short stories will be happy to have this book. JOHN DITSKY University of Windsor Frontier’s End. By Robert F. Gish. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1988. 363 pages, $35.00.) Robert F. Gish says that Harvey Fergusson “wrote one book and wrote it over and over again” (xii) which in turn led Gish to write an analysis of Fergusson and write it over and over again. But I see no other way he could have proven his thesis, and Gish is determined to prove his thesis. From Fergusson book to Fergusson book, Gish moves relentlessly on, informing us of books few of us are likely to know, for few have read Hot Saturday Night, The Life of Riley, Footloose McGarnigal, or any of the many other novels written by Fergusson from 1922 to 1954. Most of us know Fergusson for his The Conquest of Don Pedro and Wolf Song. Gish demonstrates again and again that Fergusson’sfiction is highly auto­ biographical, drawing on his and his family’s experiences directly. He also shows Fergusson’s interest in sex, particularly in his last unpublished novel, Lonely Women, which some readers called pornographic. But above all Gish insists that Fergusson was concerned with change, with the end of the frontier, but that he was not consistent in his view of it, sometimes welcoming the 170 Western American Literature frontier’s end, sometimes regretting it. Gish concludes by saying that some readers consider Fergusson “‘progressive,’ iconoclastic, liberal” but now “he seems somehow conservative if not reactionary.” But Gish believes that simple either/or answers will not do, for Fergusson “passed through phases,” attempt­ ing to adjust to changing times. He says that Fergusson was part optimist and part pessimist, but “ultimately perhaps more a meliorist.” He also asserts and supports with his entire book that the main way Fergusson adjusted to the changes he faced was by writing highly autobiographical fiction, to be foot­ loose with McGarnigal, to suffer the loss of a wife with Robert Jayton in In Those Days. Gish succeeds, though he has to cross some rather dry deserts to arrive at his destination safely. DICK HEABERLIN Southwest Texas State University The Witch of Goingsnake and Other Stories. By Robert J. Conley. (Norman: University of Oklahoma Press, 1988. 165 pages, $17.95.) Conley is an author of Native American literature rather than a narrator in the Cherokee oral tradition, but like Momaday, Silko, and Welch he draws on tribal myth, legend, and history in order to adapt and renew it. Yellow Bird, first-person narrator of the opening story, is nearing death as he writes in 1867, but before he leaves he assumes the common responsibility for tribal perpetua­ tion by passing on not only his memories of...