I loved Lonesome Dove and its subsequent books and I need more! But I feel like when I see westerns mentioned, it's almost always something by McMurtry or McCarthy. Please recommend some other westerns that have scratched any similar itch for you guys!
by 69thParliament
11 Comments
Sisters Brothers was wonderful
James Carlos Blake In the Rogue Blood
Butchers Crossing – John Williams
Virgil Cole and Everett hitch series by Robert B Parker
Riders of the Purple Sage by Zane Grey
The Lonesome Gods by Louis L’Amour.
Gone to Texas by Forrest Carter.
Little Big Man – Thomas Berger
Try Thomas Berger’s *Little Big Man*. It’s the life story of 111-year-old Jack Crabb, who alternated between living as a white man and a Native American, and covers the major historical events in the post-Civil War 19th century West.
A revisionist, satirical look at the historical American West, it’s filled with as much humor as it has drama and tragedy. Additionally, unlike earlier Westerns, it delves into Native American life and culture in a complex, sympathetic way. Well worth reading. It was also adapted into a great film, “Little Big Man” (1970), starring Dustin Hoffman. I recommend both book and movie.
There’s also *The Way West*, by A.B. Guthrie, about a wagon train trying to traverse the Oregon Trail in the 1840s.
Follow that with Rinker Buck’s *The Oregon Trail: A New American Journey*. It’s about the author taking a covered wagon and traveling the Oregon Trail in the 21st century. Great running commentary on the Trail’s history and the journey today.
Charles Portos (True Grit); Edna Ferber (Giant); Willa Cather (O Pioneers); and Louis L’Amour (Hondo) are places to start.
In The Distance by Hernan Diaz
The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton
The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout