Best Reads (And They Aren't All Westerns)
Western writers share the books that most influenced their lives and craft.
By: TW Editors 07/01/2007
Michael Wallis is best known for Route 66: The Mother Road. That book directly led him to becoming a consultant and voice talent (the 1949 Mercury Sheriff car) in Pixar Studio’s Cars. He is spending much of 2007 touring for two new books, Billy the Kid: The Endless Ride (see May 2007) and The Lincoln Highway: Coast to Coast from Times Square to the Golden Gate, both from W.W. Norton. In addition, the University of Oklahoma Press has released a special centennial edition of Way Down Yonder in the Indian Nation.
The Grapes of Wrath
John Steinbeck
This classic American novel, published in 1939, had a profound impact on me when I first read it as a boy. I am still stirred and inspired when I reread it—as I often do—as a man. This book was banned and burned in Oklahoma when it appeared. I have made it my mission to build a solid case for this important work with my fellow Oklahomans. It speaks to the resiliency and fortitude of the good Oklahoma stock. “Okie” is a badge of courage and not one of shame. No more admirable character exists in American literature than Ma Joad, and the words of Tom Joad when he bids his mother farewell should be memorized by every school child in America. Bravo, Mr. Steinbeck, Bravo!
To Kill a Mockingbird
Harper Lee
If this Southern Gothic novel, published in 1960, would not have won the Pulitzer Prize the following year, I would have left the country. A coming-of-age story of courage in the face of blatant racial prejudice set against a backdrop of life in the Deep South, this book is as relevant and compelling today as it was back then. Ms. Lee’s only published novel is this single tome, but it is surely enough.
Lonesome Dove
Larry McMurtry
I once heard Larry McMurtry say he will never write a book as good as Lonesome Dove. I have to agree. If, like Harper Lee, he would have written just one book and it was Lonesome Dove, then his place in American letters would have been safe. Some of the most memorable characters in Western fiction not only come alive in this novel and leap off the page, but also chase the reader around the room. If you can read this book and not be moved by the relationship between Augustus McCrae and Woodrow Call, then you must be brain dead. By the way, in my opinion, the miniseries that followed was one of the finest Westerns ever made, with the exception of Blue Duck, who was not half as ominous as he was in McMurty’s book.
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