Great Short Novels of the American West

Too often, the Western novel has roughly the same position in American fiction that a slightly disreputable brother would have in one's family-we know he's around, but we'd rather not speak of him. Although much frontier fiction can be dismissed as the crude adventures of what the editor calls some "saddle-happy sun-god," there are many notable exceptions. The four short novels in this collection are among the most memorable of these exceptions. Whether written bye an old-time New Mexican rancher like Eugene Manlove Rhodes or by a contemporary author like Jack Schaefer, they are powerful examples of the Western genre at its literay best.