Volume 45, Number 16 · October 22, 1998
The West Without Chili
By Larry McMurtry
The New Encyclopedia of the American West
by Howard R. Lamar
Yale University Press, 1,324 pp., $60.00
It used to be that the best way for a Westerner, male or female, to get mentioned in the papers was to shoot up a town. A certain volume of gunplay, even if ineffective, usually brought instant celebrity, as many an entry in this big reference book attests. Wordplay, on the other hand—particularly serious wordplay—has not been as warmly welcomed. The world public has always wanted to read about the American West, but, from at least the time of Ned Buntline (Edward Z.C. Judson), its overwhelming preference has been to read the colorful if bizarre fictions that the pulp writers of many countries have so voluminously supplied.
Review, 3515 words
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