Don Graham

From Hopalong to Hud : thoughts on Western fiction

In this lively discourse on Western Fiction C. L. Sonnichsen brings together nine previously published essays, spanning thirty-five years, with two new pieces. The result is a sometimes scholarly, sometimes curmudgeonly glance at this centurys literary responses to the West. To his credit Sonnichsen is interested in both lower-case westerns—formulaic pulp fiction—and upper-case serious Westerns. When he adopts the tone of detached commentator, his insights are unfailingly fresh. Thus he sheds light on the sharecropper in fiction, bringing to our attention minor but interesting works by Dorothy Scarborough, Ruth Cross, and John Watson. Or he shows how Owen Wisters idealized gentleman cowboy is, statistically anyway, an aberration. From Hopalong Cassidy to Hud Bannon, the cowboy hero has been more often scamp than courtier. Similarly, chapters on the Wyatt Earp legend and the contrasting treatment of Apaches in serious and popular fiction are valuable contributions.