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The Arkansas Regulators (Transatlantic Perspectives #5)
by Charles Adams Christoph IrmscherThe Arkansas Regulators is a rousing tale of frontier adventure, first published in German in 1846, but virtually lost to English readers for well over a century. Written in the tradition of James Fenimore Cooper, but offering a much darker and more violent image of the American frontier, this was the first novel produced by Friedrich Gerstäcker, who would go on to become one of Germany’s most famous and prolific authors. A crucial piece of a nineteenth-century transatlantic literary tradition, this long-awaited translation and scholarly edition of the novel offers a startling revision of the frontier myth from a European perspective.
Best Shot in the West: The Thrilling Adventures of Nat Love—the Legendary Black Cowboy!
by Patricia McKissack Frederick McKissack Jr.The thrilling graphic biography of the unforgettable Nat Love, from acclaimed authors Patricia C. McKissack and Fredrick L. McKissack Jr., is now in paperback! Born into slavery in 1854, Nat Love, also known as Deadwood Dick, grew up to become the most famous African American cowboy in the Old West. A contemporary and acquaintance of Bat Masterson and Billy the Kid, Nat was widely known as an expert roper and driver, a crack shot, and a real Wild West character. Featuring lively full-color artwork by Randy DuBurke, Best Shot in the West is an exhilarating mix of high-interest historical fiction and nonstop adventure.
South of the Big Four
by Don KurtzSouth of the Big Four is a gracefully told, arresting look at an America in which the center no longer holds, where a new kind of forgiveness and understanding must be found. In the tradition of A Thousand Acres and A Map of the World, the novel's sudden truths and lasting images transcend the daily lives of its Midwestern characters to create a penetrating, resonant story, made all the more remarkable because it is the author's debut.
Herstories on Screen: Feminist Subversions of Frontier Myths
by Professor Kathleen CumminsFrom the late 1970s into the early 1990s, a generation of female filmmakers took aim at their home countries’ popular myths of the frontier. Deeply influenced by second-wave feminism and supported by hard-won access to governmental and institutional funding and training, their trailblazing films challenged traditionally male genres like the Western. Instead of reinforcing the myths of nationhood often portrayed in such films—invariably featuring a lone white male hero pitted against the “savage” and “uncivilized” native terrain—these filmmakers constructed counternarratives centering on women and marginalized communities. In place of rugged cowboys violently removing indigenous peoples to make the frontier safe for their virtuous wives and daughters, these filmmakers told the stories of colonial and postcolonial societies from a female and/or subaltern point of view.Herstories on Screen is a transnational study of feature narrative films from Australia, Canada, the United States, and New Zealand/Aotearoa that deconstruct settler-colonial myths. Kathleen Cummins offers in-depth readings of ten works by a diverse range of women filmmakers including Jane Campion, Julie Dash, Merata Mita, Tracey Moffatt, and Anne Wheeler. She reveals how they skillfully deploy genre tropes and popular storytelling conventions in order to critique master narratives of feminine domesticity and purity and depict women and subaltern people performing acts of agency and resistance. Cummins details the ways in which second-wave feminist theory and aesthetics informed these filmmakers’ efforts to debunk idealized Anglo-Saxon femininity and motherhood and lay bare gendered and sexual violence and colonial oppression.
The Western Genre: From Lordsburg to Big Whiskey (Short Cuts)
by John SaundersThe Western Genre: From Lordsburg to Big Whiskey offers close readings of the definitive American film movement as represented by such leading exponents as John Ford, Howard Hawks, and Sam Peckinpah. In his consideration of such iconic motifs as the Outlaw Hero and the Lone Rider, John Saunders traces the development of perennial aspects of the genre, its continuity and, importantly, its change. Representations of morality and masculinity are also foregrounded in consideration of the genre's major stars John Wayne and Clint Eastwood, and such films as Shane, Rio Bravo, The Wild Bunch, and Unforgiven.
American Meteor
by Norman Lock“[Lock’s fiction] shimmers with glorious language, fluid rhythms, and complex insights. ” —NPR “[Lock] is one of the most interesting writers out there. ” —Reader’s Digest “Lock writes some of the most deceptively beautiful sentences in contemporary fiction. Beneath their clarity are layers of cultural and literary references, profound questions about loyalty, race, the possibility of social progress, and the nature of truth. ” —Shelf Awareness In this panoramic tale of Manifest Destiny, Stephen Moran comes of age with the young country that he crosses on the Union Pacific, just as the railroad unites the continent. Propelled westward from his Brooklyn neighborhood and the killing fields of the Civil War to the Battle of Little Big Horn, he befriends Walt Whitman, becomes a bugler on President Lincoln’s funeral train, apprentices with frontier photographer William Henry Jackson, and stalks General George Custer. When he comes face-to-face with Crazy Horse, his life will be spared but his dreams haunted for the rest of his days. By turns elegiac and comic, American Meteor is a novel of adventure, ideas, and mourning: a unique vision of America’s fabulous and murderous history. Norman Lock is the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as well as stage, radio, and screenplays. His recent works of fiction include Love Among the Particles, a Shelf Awareness Best Book of the Year, and The Boy in His Winter, a re-envisioning of Mark Twain’s classic The Adventures of Huckleberry Finn, which Scott Simon of NPR’s Weekend Edition hailed for “mak[ing] Huck and Jim so real you expect to get messages from them on your iPhone. ” He lives in Aberdeen, New Jersey.
Country of the Bad Wolfes
by James Carlos BlakeA page-turning epic about the making of a borderland crime family, Country of the Bad Wolfes will appeal both to aficionados of family sagas and to fans of hard-knuckled crime novels by the likes of Donald Pollack, Elmore Leonard, James Lee Burke and James Ellroy. Basing the novel partly on his own ancestors, Blake presents the story of the Wolfe family - spanning three generations, centering on two sets of identical twins and the women they love, and ranging from New England to the heart of Mexico before arriving at its powerful climax at the Rio Grande. Begat by an Irish-English pirate in New Hampshire in 1828, the Wolfe family follows its manifest destiny into war-torn Mexico. There, through the connection of a mysterious American named Edward Little, their fortunes intertwine with those of Porfirio Díaz, who will rule the country for more than thirty years before his overthrow by the Revolution of 1910. In the course of those tumultuous chapters in American and Mexican history, as Díaz grows in power, the Wolfes grow rich and forge a violent history of their own, spawning a fearsome legacy that will pursue them to a climactic reckoning at the Río Grande.
Cowboy Heat
by Delilah Devlin Beth WilliamsonThey may ride off into the sunset, but cowboys never go out of style. These manly men embody the fiercely independent, earthy alpha male and hero who isn't afraid to show the gentle, nurturing side of his complex nature when he's faced with a woman in need. Even when he's coated with dust from riding behind a herd of cattle or up to his knees in mud freeing a calf from a wallow, this stud still generates a lot of Cowboy Heat. Delilah Devlin's Cowboy Lust was a sensation, hitting the top ten of romance books and generating a river of praise. Award-winning Devlin is back on the ranch with stories of rugged romantics, rough riders, and rope wranglers sure to satisfy the reader who craves the idea of that gruff, romantic hero, a man of few words but many moves. Cowboy Heat sits tall in the saddle, winning hearts and spurring readers to new heights of happiness.
Cowboy Lust
by Delilah Devlin Lorelei JamesThere's a reason Western romance novels never go out of fashion. The cowboy is an iconic figure embodying the dichotomy of the fiercely independent, earthy alpha male juxtaposed with the male as a nurturer and protector. Cowboys take care of their women in every possible way. Wild and wayward women are gentled by the scent of horse and cow and the sight of sun-kissed skin, the feel of work-hardened thighs and arms, and the sound of a deep-voiced Texas drawl. Contributors at the top of the Western romance genre, including Charlene Teglia, Randi Alexander, and Cat Johnson, have corralled here strong and memorable characters ranging from a rodeo star and a cop on horseback to a feisty female gunslinger. Traversing romantic settings from Montana, Texas, California, Mexico, and the Outback of Australia, the stories in Cowboy Lust are risky and risqué, full of studs in spurs hot enough to send you to a vacation on a dude ranch!
Crooked Creek
by Maximilian Werner2012 Eric Hoffer Book Awards for General Fiction Honorable Mention2011 Utah Book Award FinalistCrooked Creek takes place during the latter part of westward expansion and chronicles the lives (and deaths) of the Wood family. The Woods-Preston and Sara-must flee Arizona when they, along with Sara's parents and little brother Jasper, unwittingly get caught up in the plunder and sale of American Indian corpses and funerary objects. Preston, Sara, and Jasper end up in the Heber Valley of Utah, where they seek the support of Sara's Uncle Neff until they can be reunited with Sara's mother and father. But from the moment they ride into Heber, Preston and Sara learn that life in the valley is not as it appears, and that no matter how far we run, we cannot escape the past. Maximilian Werner is the author of Black River Dreams, a collection of literary fly fishing essays that won the 2008 Utah Arts Council's Original Writing Competition for Nonfiction: Book. Mr. Werner's poems, fiction, creative nonfiction, and essays have appeared in several journals and magazines, including Matter Journal: Edward Abbey Edition, Bright Lights Film Journal, The North American Review, ISLE, Weber Studies, Fly Rod and Reel, and Columbia. He lives in Salt Lake City with his wife and two children and teaches writing at the University of Utah."Maximilian Werner is a fresh and grounded writer, a welcome and original new voice." -Thomas McGuane, author of Driving on the Rim"Here in the deep measured prose of Max Werner is a western story, harsh and lush as the old world it depicts. Crooked Creek shows again that one of the natural laws of the wilderness--along with wind and stone and animals and family--is violence. Just as wind and water shaped the stone, trouble shaped these men. With its compelling, layered story, this rich book is a reader's pleasure." -Ron Carlson, author of The Signal"Max Werner's Crooked Creek offers a haunting voyage into the past and into living landscapes sharpened by western light, resonating with the work of such authors as Cormac McCarthy and Wallace Stegner. A narrative of the vitality of family bonds, it is also a tale of the heroic struggle to carry the burden of memory and to transform history's nightmares into visions of possibility, as Octavio Paz once argued was the high calling of literature. Crooked Creek reminds us of the tough aesthetic that is required to sustain hope in family, in community, and in the staggering and heartbreaking beauty of nature that Werner's prose powerfully illuminates, while also reckoning with the dark sins of betrayal and violence that are the legacies of the American West. Werner convinces us that no meaningful sense of place is possible otherwise."-George Handley, author of Home Waters: A Year of Recompenses on the Provo River
Durango
by Gary HartWith a contemporary Western flavor and plenty of intrigue and suspense, Gary Hart's latest novel Durango brings readers into the world of the small southwest Colorado town as the close-knit community is rocked by scandal and controversy. As a drawn-out battle for water rights looms over the town, one of Durango's most eminent citizens, stoic former politician Daniel Sheridan, is implicated in a shocking transgression, forcing him to clear his name and resolve the contention that has weighed upon his hometown for decades. Drawing on the classic themes of loyalty, honor, redemption, and the land, Durango presents an unforgettable saga of the American west. Gary Hart has been and continues to be one of America's great public servants for almost four decades, from his role in the 1972 McGovern campaign to his years as a visionary senator, from his leadership on national security matters before and after 9/11 to his contributions as a respected statesman on various issues. He is the author of several books, including The Thunder and the Sunshine: Four Seasons in a Burnished Life, as well as two novels published under the pseudonym John Blackthorn. Hart lives in Denver, Colorado.
House of Purple Cedar
by Tim Tingle"The hour has come to speak of troubled times. It is time we spoke of Skullyville." Thus begins the House of Purple Cedar, Rose Goode's telling of the year when she was eleven in Indian country, Oklahoma. The Indian schools boys and girls had been burned, stores too. By the time the railroad came, all of Skullyville had been burned.
Inhabited
by Charlie Quimby"Charlie Quimby is a writer with a big talent, big heart, and big social conscience. In his second novel, Inhabited, characters finely drawn and memorable live amidst the crisscrossing lines of moral conscience, political juggling and economic expediency, a tough neighborhood. I was staggered by the authenticity of these people and their dilemmas."-FAITH SULLIVAN, author of Goodnight, Mr. Wodehouse and The Cape Ann"Charlie Quimby is the sharpest shooter in the West. Inhabited is a dramatic, honest, humane portrait of a Colorado city in the throes of great change and great choice. The characters and the setting are indelibly rendered...We're all in the mix here-rich and poor, homeless and over-housed, rancher and eco-activist, native politician and outside scoundrel. Inhabited is a vivid, compelling story delivered with 21st-century true grit."-ALYSON HAGY, author of Boleto"A thoroughly enjoyable novel that masterfully takes the reader on an emotionally rewarding exploration of 'home' and the power the concept has on the human psyche."-JONATHAN ODELL, author of Miss Hazel and the Rosa Parks League"Inhabited transforms a typical community 'homeless problem' into a layered drama about our responsibilities to each other and the blunders and scars we must endure. I salute Charlie Quimby for following the path of Steinbeck and Orwell in writing empathetic portraits of the ignored and the shunned."-JIM LYNCH, author of Before the WindMeg Mogrin sells pricey houses, belongs to the mayor's inner circle, and knows more than she's letting on about her sister's death. Isaac Samson lives in a tent and believes Thomas Edison invented the Reagan presidency. When their town attracts a game-changing development, Isaac is displaced by the town's crackdown on vagrancy. As Isaac struggles to regain stability, Meg contends with conflicting roles of assisting the developer while serving on the homeless coalition. Isaac's quest to return a lost artifact soon intrudes into Meg's tidy world, digging up a part of her past she'd rather remained buried. Inhabited, a sister novel to Charlie Quimby's acclaimed Monument Road, returns to the Grand Valley of western Colorado to explore the dimensions of loss, the boundaries of compassion, and the endurance of love.Charlie Quimby is the author of Monument Road, an Indie Next List pick and Booklist Editors' Choice in 2013. He began his writing career as playwright and arts journalist, veered into corporate communications and then founded a marketing agency that now purrs along without him. Along the way, he collected awards and developed the notion he had a few good novels in him. A native Coloradan and adopted Minnesotan, he is at home in both places.
Killer Joe
by Tracy Letts"One of our most valuable playwrights."-Time Out New York"A hideously funny tabloid noir. . . . Letts' balance of irony and empathy continues to impress."-LA WeeklyA definitively dysfunctional family gives in to its basest instincts and is forced to face hidden truths in this twisted modern-day fairy tale by the Pulitzer Prize-winning author of August: Osage County. Performed in fifteen countries and twelve languages since its 1998 stage debut, Killer Joe is "a terrifically tasty potboiler. . . . It has the enjoyable hairpin turns of the standard mystery thriller, but it's the skewed shifting relationships that keep you hooked" (The New York Times). Now a critically acclaimed film adapted by the playwright and starring Matthew McConaughey.Tracy Letts is the author of the Pulitzer Prize- and Tony Award-winning play August: Osage County (soon to be a feature film starring Meryl Streep and Julia Roberts). His other plays include Bug, Superior Donuts, and Man from Nebraska, a finalist for the Pulitzer Prize. He is an ensemble member of the Steppenwolf Theatre Company in Chicago as playwright and actor.
Lesbian Cowboys
by Sacchi Green Rakelle ValenciaFifteen writers share their take on the phenomenon of Cowboys - a calling, a vocation, and a status that has nothing to do with gender. Whether in the old west or the Australian outback, New England or the Great Plains, these girls and their horses work hard, play hard, and love hard. Contributors Radclyffe and Jove Bell depict the rough and tumble world of female rodeo riders, while Cheyenne Blue explores cattle ranching and the new environmentalism, and Delilah Devlin writes about a "Hired Hand" who may be a woman, but is more than a match for any man. Sexy, steamy, and crackling with the energy of a wild filly, these stories represent the cutting edge of lesbian cowboy fiction.
The Lonesome Trials Of Johnny Riles
by Gregory HillThe Lonesome Trials of Johnny Riles revisits Strattford County, the setting of Hill's award-winning novel, East of Denver. Set in 1975, we follow the feverish tale of Johnny Riles, a reclusive rancher who spends his days and nights searching for the murderer of his horse, for the soul of his mad brother, and for a sober reason to live. Over the course of this unpredictable, witty novel, Johnny delves beneath landscapes both great and plain to unearth the truths behind his nightmares.
The Lovesick Skunk
by Joe Hayes Antonio Castro L.When Joe Hayes was a boy, he loved to wear his black and white high-top sneakers. He wore them every day. "Get rid of those shoes," his mother told him one morning. "They smell terrible!" But did Joe listen, did he believe what his mother said? Not until he met the back end of a skunk!
A Million Heavens
by John BrandonOn the top floor of a small hospital, an unlikely piano prodigy lies in a coma, attended to by his gruff, helpless father. Outside the clinic, a motley vigil assembles beneath a reluctant New Mexico winter-strangers in search of answers, a brush with the mystical, or just an escape. To some the boy is a novelty, to others a religion. Just beyond this ragtag circle roams a disconsolate wolf on his nightly rounds, protecting and threatening, learning too much. And above them all, a would-be angel sits captive in a holding cell of the afterlife, finishing the work he began on earth, writing the songs that could free him. This unlikely assortment-a small-town mayor, a vengeful guitarist, all the unseen desert lives-unites to weave a persistently hopeful story of improbable communion.Upon the release of John Brandon's last novel, Citrus County, the New York Times declared that he "joins the ranks of writers like Denis Johnson, Joy Williams, Mary Robison and Tom Drury." Now, with A Million Heavens, Brandon brings his deadpan humor and hard-won empathy to a new realm of gritty surrealism-a surprising and exciting turn from one of the best young novelists of our time.
Monument Road
by Charlie QuimbyLeonard Self has spent a year unwinding his ranch, paying down debts, and fending off the darkening. Just one thing left: taking his wife's ashes to her favorite overlook, where he plans to step off the cliff with her into a stark and beautiful landscape. But Leonard finds he has company on a route that intertwines old wounds and new insights that make him question whether his life is over after all."Part modern western, part mystery, this first novel will appeal to fans of Louise Erdrich and Kent Haruf. Quimby's prose reads so true, it breaks the heart."-BOOKLIST, starred review"The Colorado setting and the author's simple style of prose perfectly complement the complexity of the human spirit in this superb debut."-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY"Monument Road is so rich with landscape, character and event that such a small telling cannot begin to do it justice. Read this exquisite story; it is a joy and a wonder and a tour de force of authorship."-SHELF AWARENESS"Quimby's storytelling, his humane impulses and his lyrical passages on the meaning of love and time, and on the history, geology and botany of the region, will surely impress readers."-MINNEAPOLIS STAR TRIBUNE"Quimby uses words as spare as Colorado's landscape to describe characters who range from endearing to crusty, wise to foolish, spiritual to downright evil. The folks who live near Monument Road aren't just descriptions in a book; they're complex people readers will care about."--FOREWORD REVIEWS"Not to be overlooked is the love, humor and friendship among pain and loss, which makes it a book far more about the richness of life than the finality of death."-GRAND JUNCTION DAILY SENTINEL"Monument Road is a wonderful novel full of wit and wisdom, generosity and malice."-GRAND JUNCTION FREE PRESS"Quimby's writing is sensitive and graceful; he has a talent for revealing slowly blossoming characters who are beautifully flawed and realistic."-THE DESERET NEWS"While not exactly a happy novel, Monument Road is beautiful and real, full of landscape imagery of the American Southwest as a poignant and sometimes haunting metaphor of our connections to the land."-15 BYTES"This is a novel with size and scope and generosity, with an acute understanding of human nature and a deep appreciation for the ways people face change and work out their lives in relation to each other."-Kent Meyers, author of Twisted Tree and The Work of Wolves"In prose that might have been chiseled from the magnificent landscape he describes, Charlie Quimby has written a great big American Novel. Full of pathos and humor and sadness, you won't reach the end of this book without feeling fuller and wiser. What a gift Charlie has given us."-Peter Geye, author of The Lighthouse Road and Safe from the Sea"Monument Road is a legitimate modern western, complete with an impressively authentic and aging rancher, heartache, ghosts, low-lifes, a rural landscape undergoing radical transformation, a glut of evangelical churches, and the ancient, powerful cliffs and mesas that surround it all, in southwestern Colorado. The narrative is likewise unpredictable and wild! A pleasure to read."-Bonnie Nadzam, author of Lamb"The landscape and characters of Monument Road ring true. Charlie Quimby has created a story that is hard to forget. His attention to the details of a fading life and life style are spot on and will be a window to any reader's understanding of the central phenomenon of the New West."-Dan O'Brien, author of Stolen Horses and Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch"Monument Road is a big-hearted novel chock full of memorable characters, a pleasure to read."-David Rhodes, author of Jewelweed and Driftless
The Ordinary Truth
by Jana RichmanWhen Nell Jorgensen buried her husband, she buried a piece of herself-and more than one secret. Now, thirty-six years later, the rift between Nell and her daughter Kate threatens to implode as Kate, a water manager for the Nevada Water Authority, plans to pipe water from a huge aquifer that lies beneath the family ranch to thirsty Las Vegas. Meanwhile, Nell's granddaughter Cassie intends to unearth those old secrets and repair the resentments that grew in their place. Throughout the novel, sparse and beautiful landscapes surround an emotional wilderness of love, loss, and family.Jana Richman is the award-winning author of The Last Cowgirl (HarperCollins, 2009), a novel which won the 2009 Willa Award for Contemporary Fiction. A sixth-generation Utahn, Jana was born and raised in Utah's west desert, the daughter of a small-time rancher and a hand-wringing Mormon mother. With the exception of a few misguided years spent in New York City trying to make a fortune on Wall Street, she has lived her entire life west of the hundredth meridian. She writes about issues that threaten to destroy the essence of the west-and about passion, beauty, and love. Jana lives in Escalante, Utah.
Pale Harvest
by Braden Hepner"Hepner's stunning debut novel is an homage to the barren landscape of the American West. Hepner's gorgeous prose evokes the austerity and lonely beauty of the landscape. The novel is a meditation on the nature of hope and self-determination, a sweeping elegy to a dying town and to the bond between blood and earth."-PUBLISHERS WEEKLY (starred review)"...a deeply moving and intellectually profound novel built on the iconic myth of the American West. Think McMurtry's The Last Picture Show or Horseman, Pass By...Hepner draws a narrative exploring the existential angst smoldering in the rural West as family farmers who hold stewardship of the land confront social and economic conditions beyond their control. A bravura debut."--KIRKUS REVIEWS (starred review)"Set in a rugged scrap of Utah, this first novel rings with the hard-scrabble tones of Steinbeck...Pale Harvest is lush with unusual vocabulary and microscopic detail that combine to evoke a land and a kind of life singular to the American West...One of the most important characters is the landscape: between a river that takes lives and a desert that hypnotizes, the setting is inextricably linked to Jack's character..." --FOREWORD REVIEWS"Hepner is a master storyteller, a craftsman of the first order, and a fine new talent. His Western Realism is a refreshing jolt, a throwback to Steinbeck and Stegner with its own stamp of uniqueness." -Anthony Swofford, author of Jarhead and Hotels, Hospitals, and Jails"Hepner's starkly poetic voice leads us into the lives of characters torn be¬tween the imagined glories of the infinite and the raw realities of hard labor here on earth. Pale Harvest is an unforgettable addition to the ever more various stew of American literature." -Scott Spencer, author of Man in the Woods, A Ship Made of Paper, and Endless LoveJack Selvedge works a dying trade in a dead town. When the lovely Rebekah Rainsford returns on the run from her father, her dark history consumes him, and she becomes the potential for his salvation, the only thing that might dredge him up from his crisis of indifference. As betrayal and tragedy change Jack's life forever, he discovers a new if nascent hope amid the harshly beautiful western landscape that shaped him. A deeply written and deeply felt story of love, depravity, and shattered ideals, Pale Harvest examines the loss of beauty, purity, and simplicity within the mindset of the rural American West.
The Scholar of Moab
by Steven L. PeckWhat happens when a two-headed cowboy, a high school dropout, and a poet abducted by aliens come together in 1970's Moab, Utah? The Scholar of Moab, a dark-comedy perambulating murder, affairs, and cowboy mysteries in the shadow of the hoary La Sal Mountains.Young Hyrum Thayne, an unrefined geological surveyor, steals a massive dictionary out of the Grand County library in a midnight raid, startling the good people of Moab into believing a nefarious band of Book of Mormon thugs, the Gadianton Robbers, has arisen again. To make matters worse, Hyrum's illicit affair with Dora Tanner, a local poet thought to be mad, results in the delivery of a bouncing baby boy who vanishes the night of his birth. Righteous Moabites accuse Dora of the murder, but who really killed their child? Did a coyote dingo the baby? Was it an alien abduction as Dora claims? Was it Hyrum? Or could it have been the only witness to the crime, one of a pair of Oxford-educated conjoined twins who cowboy in the La Sals on sabbatical?Take a blazing ride with Hyrum LeRoy Thayne, the Lord's Chosen Servant and Defender of Moab. His short rich life spans the borderlands of magical realism where geology, ecology philosophy, and consciousness collide, in Steven L. Peck's rip-snorting tale The Scholar of Moab.Steven L. Peck knows Moab, inside out. An evolutionary ecologist at Brigham Young University, Peck teaches the philosophy of biology. His scientific work has appeared in American Naturalist, Newsweek, Evolution, Trends in Ecology and Evolution, Biological Theory, Agriculture and Human Values, Biology & Philosophy. Steven also co-edited a volume on environmental stewardship. His creative works include a novel, The Gift of the King's Jeweler (2003 Covenant Communications). His poetry has appeared in Dialogue, Bellowing Ark, Irreantum, Red Rock Review and other magazines. Peck was nominated for the 2011 Science Fiction Poetry Association's Rhysling Award. Other awards include the Meyhew Short Story Contest, First Place at Warp and Weave, Honorable Mention in the 2011 Brookie and D.K. Brown Fiction Contest, and Second Place in the Eugene England Memorial Essay Contest.The Scholar of Moab was award the best novel of 2011 by the Association of Mormon Letters, and was selected as a finalist for the Montaigne Medal (a national award for the most thought-provoking books being considered for the Eric Hoffer Award).
Spirit Walk
by Jay Treiber"A thrilling and elegantly wrought debut about the far-reaching effects of our decisions, and our irrepressible desire to undo the worst of them. Treiber is a writer of enormous talents, and Spirit Walk will leave you breathless until the final page."--JONATHAN EVISON, author of The Revised Fundamentals of Caregiving"At once gritty and lyrical, Spirit Walk is a haunting tale of the modern American West. Out of the explosive violence, hard living, and stark beauty of the Arizona borderlands, Jay Treiber has woven a gripping story of remembrance and redemption, beautifully painting the place and giving voice to its people. I can't stop thinking about it."--JENNIFER CARRELL, author of Haunt Me Still and Interred with Their Bones"The borderland setting of Spirit Walk only appears empty. This landscape is inhabited by commingled cultures, criss-crossed jurisdictions and colliding values--where a rancher wouldn't leave a bottle cap, traffickers litter bodies. Depicting an episode of violence as confounding in memory as the day it erupted, Jay Treiber shows the corrosive costs of the drug trade--and of burying the past. In the vein of Philip Caputo's Crossers."--CHARLIE QUIMBY, author of Monument Road"There's a wonderful sense of authenticity and place here...Jay Treiber has given us a rich, well-written, multi-layered book to satisfy wide reading appetites."--ROBERT HOUSTON, author of Bisbee 17"In this intersection of New West and Old West, Jay Treiber writes without sentiment about life, love, and death in the borderlands of the American southwest. Spirit Walk bleeds a rawness and honesty missing from much of today's fiction--this triumph belongs within the canon of western literature. Watch out, Cormac!"--ANDY NETTELL, owner of Back of Beyond Books, Moab, UT
Strange Cowboy
by Sam Michel"Sam Michel is such a smart, manic, virtuosic stylist . . . the kind of deep insights that make you suddenly and newly appreciative of the world around you."-George SaundersThere was a hot, high sun, a hard ground and a long way off to any certain water, and my wife, a tenderfoot, I thought, not immodest, seemed bent on ruined feet and spectacle, on making of herself to passing innocents a living proof of what could happen to a man and woman ventured too far off alone together in the desert. Yet who passed? Who could be so innocent? Snakes and ravens, rabbits, buzzards, toads-- these passed, these witnessed, and what could they have made from us?...I saw myself preceded by my wife. I wanted to follow her, feel what she felt; I thought that I might find myself absolved... Maybe I would get some. Somewhere in me was a cheerful voice assuring me that what this needed was our getting laid.Here is the head of his home-the one to speak, surely-on the occasion of his son Lincoln Dahl Jr.'s fifth birthday. Wife and mother order him to engage with his boy, but he remains in his chair dreaming up the speech he'll give to convey his life and glory to his boy, meanwhile avoiding his child and all others, until forced from his chair. Here's cowboy Beckett, a man of wonder and excess.Sam Michel is the author of Under the Light and Big Dogs and Flyboys.
Yesterday's News
by Kajsa IngemarssonAgnes has most things in life: a job at a fancy restaurant, a boyfriend who loves her, and a best friend whom she knows inside out. Or does she? All of a sudden things begin to crumble, one by one, and soon nothing is as it was. This is a beautiful feel-good novel with a memorable heroine, set in Sweden.