“This comprehensive and sometimes contradictory collection offers as much pleasure as scholarly merit.”
— Publishers Weekly
BOOKS
West of 98
A raucous, funny, reflective Greek chorus
West of 98:
Living and Writing the New American West
edited by Lynn Stegner & Russell Rowland
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Publication date: October 1, 2011
Language: English
ISBN: 978-0292726864
hardcover | paperback | ebook
Available where all fine books are sold.
West of 98 gathers sixty-six literary testimonies, in essays and poetry, from a stellar collection of writers who represent every state west of the 98th parallel—a kind of Greek chorus of the most prominent voices in western literature today, who seek to “characterize the West as each . . . grew to know it, and, equally important, the West that is still becoming.” It is a collective declaration not of independence but of interdependence with the land and with the people who inhabit it. West of 98 opens up a whole new panorama of the western experience.
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Reviews
“Many of the stories, poems, and essays in this enjoyable collection touch on widely recognized images–cowboys, cattle, the Great Plains–while others present frank, forthright arguments about race and politics specific to the states west of the 98th meridian . . . This comprehensive and sometimes contradictory collection offers as much pleasure as scholarly merit.”
— Publisher’s Weekly read more
“A medley of essays and poetry, it’s an impressive collection, a Who’s Who of Western literature.”"
— High Country News read more
“West of 98 contains several fist-shaking essays, most of them lamenting environmental degradation. . . . But there are just as many funny essays, particularly those that confront Western stereotypes.”
— The Dallas Morning News read more
“Editors Rowland and Stegner, in this wonderful compilation, have indeed assembled a raucous, funny, reflective Greek chorus—one that reminds us, as Rowland writes in ‘Chasing the Lamb,’ that ‘the last frontier of the West might be the internal journey, the search for how each of us fits in this mythical place.’”
— Lively Times read more
“In this thick, rich volume, we’re treated to essays and poems by, among others, Rick Bass, Larry McMurtry, Judy Blunt, Walter Kirn, Gary Snyder and Gretel Ehrlich. Some of the contributors merely define their own postage-stamp-sized corner of the West, others conclude by admitting they’re baffled by the physical and imaginative boundaries of the region.”
— The Billings Gazette read more