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Reviews 87 the age of thirty, not influenced by Western movies and television programs, lack empathy with much, if any, of the experience of the settling of the frontier. Instead these readers are drawn to fantasy, science fiction, Gothic romance, bodice snatching tales, spy thrillers, detective novels, and suddenly a spate of Vietnam War materials for their thrills. They certainly have found little to identify with in traditional Westerns. A novel which could change this attitude is Elmer Kelton’s The Man Who Rode Midnight. Wes Hendrix, the protagonist, is an older man well aware of his cowboying and rodeoing past who comes to realize the necessity of leaving the past behind to live in the present. Hendrix, like Charlie Flagg in Kelton’s highly acclaimed The Time It Never Rained, is not fighting rustlers or outlaws; and, in this case, Hendrix is not even fighting the weather and federal bureaucracy that plagued Flagg, Like Flagg, however, he must come to grips with being socially ostracized, abandoned, and even attacked by his former friends, who want Hendrix’sranch in order to build a recreational lake. The success of this novel hinges on a well-told story that touches us— the loss of a possession at the core of our being to what some label progress but others see differently. This situation is one of the major dilemmas of life, so the novel continues Kelton’s concern for the necessity of adapting produc­ tively to change as it confronts us, often traumatically. Ample details of how cattle and sheep are worked by today’scowboys are included, but that is counterbalanced by a view of small-town social life and politics. The symbolism is potent, and the poetic justice brings a rewarding conclusion to the novel. In The Man Who Rode Midnight, Kelton may well have surpassed his previous outstanding performance in The Time It Never Rained and The Good Old Boys. LAWRENCE CLAYTON Hardin-Simmons University The Western Writer’s Handbook. Edited by James L. Collins. (Boulder, Colo­ rado: Johnson Books, 1987. 154 pages, $12.95/$7.95.) Novelist Ivan Doig has coined the lovely word “Wisterns” for those Western novels heretofore politely called “traditional” (often to be interpreted as “potboiling”)— in which, according to Mr. Doig, “nobody ever milks a cow or plants a spud,” and the plots are all “cardgames and saving schoolmarms.” Westerns like that are still with us, but more and more what was once a simple, formulary genre is breaking free of its restrictive bonds. Now we hear often of the “novel of the West”—a serious work of fiction with a western setting that may be historical or contemporary, but which would presumably be a serious novel no matter what its geographical setting. The sixteen essays in this helpful, if lightweight, book edited by a Colo­ rado writer, cover virtually all forms of the western book, including nonfiction. 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...

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