Description: William R. Handley examines literary interpretations of the Western American past. Handley asserts that although recent scholarship presents a narrative that counters optimistic frontier individualism by focusing on the victims of conquest, twentieth-century American fiction tells of intra-ethnic violence, involving marriages and families. He examines historiography and writing by Zane Grey, Willa Cather, Wallace Stegner and Joan Didion among others.
Brief description: William R. Handley is Assistant Professor of English at the University of Southern California. His articles have appeared in Arizona Quarterly, Contemporary Literature and Twentieth Century Literature.
Review Quotes: "With this fine book, William R. Handley joins ranks with a bright new generation of scholars who are bringing notable breadth, critical perspicacity, and theoretical sophistication to the study of western literature. His bold and often brilliant book succeeds because its explorations range so far afield and because it achieves such lucidity in the midst of the ambiguous and unfamiliar." Western American Literature