Brief Notices

Reviews 189 BRIEF NOTICES By Anne Maxham-Kastrinos, Utah State University Barsness, Larry. Heads, Hides & Horns. (Ft. Worth: Texas Christian Uni­ versity, 1985. 233 pages, $40.00 cloth, $19.50 paper.) Combining the history and myth of the enigmatic buffalo, Larry Barsness has produced a thorough and comprehensive text. The attractive design of the book is created through the frequent use of historical photographs and anec­ dotal narration of the Montana native. The book is indeed “the compleat buffalo book” and highly recommended as a source book on the North Ameri­ can buffalo. Redneck Review of Literature: From The Landed West. Edited by Penelope Reedy. (Fairfield, Idaho: Camas Writer’s Workshop, 1986. 67 pages, $5.00.) A diversified collection of essays, stories, poetry and reviews make this grass roots publication of the Camas Writer’s Workshop an interesting anthol­ ogy. The individual works are new, refreshing and reflective of the new direc­ tions in American western literature. Stewart, George R. Ordeal by Hunger. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. 320 pages, $7.95.) George R. Stewart used the existing records and stuck to the facts in reconstructing the events that befell the Donner caravan. This Bison Book reprints the 1960 edition, which added a new foreword and other materials, including more diaries and letters of survivors. Since its first publication in 1936, Ordeal by Hunger has been the definitive history of an ill-fated band of pioneers. —from the book cover Welsch, Roger L. Catfish at the Pump: Humor and the Frontier. (Lincoln: University of Nebraska Press, 1986. 152 pages, $14.50 cloth, $5.50 paper.) In his second anthology of frontier humor, Roger Welsch entertains the reader with stories reflecting pioneer lore and attitudes while analyzing the preoccupations of the pioneer during the Great Depression. The well-known folklorist acknowledges the major resource for this collection as the files of the Nebraska Federal Writers Project from 1937-1940. This reprint of the 1982 edition celebrates the quick wit and light heart of the American West. ...