Upright Women Wanted
by Sarah Gailey
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In a last-ditch effort to escape her powerful and dangerous father, Esther stows away on the traveling book wagon of the Librarians, a group that carries government-approved reading material between far-flung desert communities. She’s quickly discovered hiding amongst the books, but when the Librarians invite her to travel and train with them, Esther quickly learns that being a Librarian isn’t just about bringing state-sanctioned stories from town to town. The Librarians have dangerous secrets, and as Esther grows closer to the group, she realizes how little she actually knows about the restrictive and desolate society in which she lives.
This novella is a quick and immersive read that puts a modern, feminist twist on the classic Western. While there are horse chases, small-town sheriffs, and toothpick-chewing rebels, the story is about the importance of resistance in the face of tyranny and the inherent value of intellectual freedom. Esther and the Librarians are a diverse and interesting group of heroes that face danger at every turn, and I had a hard time putting this book down!
Reviewed by Madison
Tagged: Adventure, Dystopia, Fiction, LGBTQ, Libraries, Western
Hombre
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In this hardboiled Western, Elmore Leonard writes a short, gritty tale where a group travels via stagecoach through the Arizona desert. Our trusty narrator, who is conversational with the reader and serves as a moral compass, is under the employ of the stagecoach/horses owner. Bickering begins at the outset and when the stagecoach comes under attack by a group of outlaws, these early differences of opinion result in chaos. A mysterious Apache, John Russell, is their only hope in making it out of the desert alive.
Reviewed by Jason
Tagged: Adventure, Hardboiled, Western
Hell is Empty
by Craig Johnson
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Craig Johnson’s Walt Longmire series is one of my favorites. Part mystery, part western, set in the remote and mythical Absaroka County, Wyoming with a wonderful cast of characters, with sheriff Walt Longmire at the center. I was thrilled when I heard that A&E has been filming the new series
Longmire based on these books.
Walt starts off on routine prisoner exchange, dreaming of lasagna and his daughter’s upcoming marriage. The prisoner exchange hits some complications and Walt heads off into the Bighorn Mountains after the prisoner Raynaud Shade, a Crow Indian and a sociopath who claims to hear voices and seems to know that the (same?) voices have also spoken to Walt when he has been in the mountains. Walt is led through the icy hell of the peaks of Wyoming by Virgil, coming across his own demons, and yes, carrying
Dante’s Inferno to complete the metaphor. The latest in the Walt Longmire series; start with
The Cold Dish.
Reviewed by Molly
Tagged: Fiction, Mystery, Western, Wyoming
The Whistling Season
by Ivan Doig
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“Can’t cook but doesn’t bite.” So begins the newspaper ad offering the services of an “A-1 housekeeper, sound morals, exceptional disposition” that draws the hungry attention of widower Oliver Milliron in the fall of 1909. And so begins the unforgettable season that deposits the noncooking, nonbiting, ever-whistling Rose Llewellyn and her font-of-knowledge brother, Morris Morgan, in Marias Coulee along with a stamped of homesteaders drawn by the promise of the Big Ditch — a gargantuan irrigation project intended to make the Montana prairie bloom. When the schoolmarm runs off with an itinerant preacher, Morris is pressed into service, setting the stage for the “several kinds of education” — none of them of the textbook variety — Morris and Rose will bring to Oliver, his three sons, and the rambunctious students in the region’s one-room schoolhouse.
A paean to a vanished way of life and the eccentric individuals and idiosyncratic institutions that made it fertile, The Whistling Season is Ivan Doig at his evocative best.
Reviewed by Dylan
Tagged: Culinary fiction, Education, Families, Fiction, Frontier, Historical fiction, Western
True Grit
by Charles Portis
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After learning that I was a fan of the recent True Grit film the Coen Brothers released in 2010, a co-worker told me that the novel which it was based is an essential read. This recommendation certainly did not disappoint.
The story takes place in the West at the close of the 19th century. It’s narrated by Mattie Ross, who shares her story of a quest to avenge the death of her father when she was just fourteen. She searches for a man with “true grit” who is up to the task of hunting down the killer. Mattie is exceptionally shrewd, fearless and also has an advanced understanding of law and finances. Traveling on her own, she finds and hires a heavy drinking, dirty, eye-patch wearing, cursing, aging bounty hunter named Roger “Rooser” Cogburn. Mattie and Cogburn are later joined by a Texas Ranger by the name of LaBoeuf. The three set out on the trail of murderer Tom Chaney.
True Grit is a real page turner of an adventure novel where stakeouts and gun fights are standard fare. Author Charles Portis also chooses to use a great deal of humor in the storytelling thanks to the wild Cogburn his constant one-upmanship between he and LaBoeuf. There’s also the constant reminder that the young Mattie is more educated and sensible at fourteen than any characters in the story.
Reviewed by Jason
Tagged: Fiction, Western
