Volume 47, Number 17 · November 2, 2000
Pulpmaster
By Larry McMurtry
Zane Grey: Romancing the West
by Stephen J. May
Ohio University Press, 180 pp., $14.95 (paper)
Maverick Heart: The Further Adventures of Zane Grey
by Stephen J. May
Ohio University Press, 267 pp., $16.95 (paper)
Now that the gene sleuths have identified the genes for a great many human quirks and compulsions, perhaps it will soon be discovered that there is even a gene for pulp fiction—or, if not a whole gene, at least an errant particle that induces in its victims a kind of lifelong, low-grade logorrhea. The sufferers can't really write well, but they can't stop writing, either. I once saw a letter from an extreme case, Frederick Faust, the so-called 'King of the Pulps,' who wrote under at least nineteen pseudonyms, the most famous of which is Max Brand. The letter was twenty-eight pages long, single-spaced, and yet Faust had evidently just tossed it off before settling down to work. Frederick Faust's lifetime output has been estimated at thirty million words. But he had aspired to poetry and one of his books of poems was published by Basil Blackwell in Oxford. (Louis L'Amour also aspired to poetry; his book of verse was published in Oklahoma City.)
Review, 2345 words
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