Good Western novels for a genre newbie
April 19, 2019 10:05 AM

What classic or modern western novels would you recommend to a genre newbie?

I've been thinking about how western novels are a big gap in my reading experience and I'd like to fix this.

I'm interested in either old genre-defining classics, or more recent works written with modern sensibilities. Not too interested in anything in-between (yet). I'm more curious about "straight" western recommendations rather than weird west or supernatural, but if you have a really good recommendation I'm open to changing my mind. I strongly prefer standalone novels to series', and avoid doorstoppers when I can.

Here's a random grab-bag of authors I usually enjoy: Agatha Christie, David Mitchell, David Wong, Jasper Fforde, Scarlett Thomas, Joe Abercombie, Terry Pratchett, Charles Stross, Michael Crichton and KJ Parker (Tom Holt less so).

In terms of content, I like at least a bit of action. I'm not fond of long drawn-out introspective narratives or misery porn - I have a very limited stomach for foregrounded racism/sexism (Raymond Chandler is at my limit) or very explicit sexual/physical violence (I can bear Warren Ellis, but not Stephen King).

I realise this is a bit of an open question, so I'm grateful for any recommendations.
posted by Lorc to Media & Arts (26 answers total) 17 users marked this as a favorite
I really liked Epitaph: A Novel of the OK Corral by Mary Doria Russell.
posted by mrbarky at 10:13 AM on April 19, 2019


I don't like the western genre at all but Lonesome Dove is one of my favorite books of all time. I try to get everyone I know to read it. Including, now, you. Read it!
posted by something something at 10:23 AM on April 19, 2019


A good one is Gunman's Rhapsody by Robert Parker. He also writers the Hitch and Cole western series which are decent. Gunman's is about OK Corral. Awesome thread and I can't wait to steal all the book ideas.
posted by Draccy at 10:28 AM on April 19, 2019


If you want genre-defining, The Virginian (available free on Project Gutenberg).
posted by Lexica at 10:35 AM on April 19, 2019


True Grit is fun as is Little Big Man.

Dorothy M. Johnson wrote some great ones.
posted by Duffington at 11:05 AM on April 19, 2019


Try Jack Schaefer (Shane, etc.).

Also don't forget Mark Twain's Roughing It, which is on Project Guttenberg.

Walter Van Tilburg Clark’s The Ox-Bow Incident.

Also, I would argue for reading Laura Ingalls Wilder's Little House books (despite their flaws, and despite them being a series).
posted by gudrun at 11:31 AM on April 19, 2019


Seconding Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry is one of my favorite books. I put Gus McCrae high on the list of best American literary characters. It's just a fantastic book- it won the 1986 Pulitzer Price for fiction! The TV miniseries with Robert Duvall and Tommy Lee Jones is also pretty great and an excellent adaptation of the book.

You also can't go wrong grabbing a stack of Louis L'Amour paperbacks and just steaming through them. They're quick reads, formulaic sometimes, but they're fun, pulpy, western adventures.
posted by The Man from Lardfork at 11:33 AM on April 19, 2019


Seconding Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove, which is an outstanding read about a cattle drive from the Texas/Mexico border to Montana. There's also a prequel and a sequel; I read the prequel about the friendship of the two mains, Texas Rangers Gus and Call; it was okay. But I've not read the sequel.

There was a creditable miniseries based on the book, back in the '80s, and it was serious event television, right up there with The Thorn Birds.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2019


The Virginian, indeed.

True Grit is great.

Two by Elmore Leonard that are fantastic are Three-ten to Yuma and Hombre.
posted by dobbs at 11:35 AM on April 19, 2019


> I'm not fond of long drawn-out introspective narratives or misery porn

I read the first two books of Cormac McCarthy's "Border Trilogy," All the Pretty Horses and The Crossing, and got lost somewhere mid Cities on the Plain. Drawn out is exactly what they are, as I recall them, so skip.
posted by Sunburnt at 11:38 AM on April 19, 2019


Daniel Woodrell's Woe to Live On is pretty great.
posted by dobbs at 11:40 AM on April 19, 2019


Cormac McCarthy is the modern master, both of Old West Tales (Blood Meridian) and New West Tales (All the Pretty Horses, No Country for Old Men). His prose is a bit fanciful at times, but nay of those three would be considered a masterpiece.

The Sisters Brothers is a recent entry that is being made into a film.

The Son is a recent favorite of mine. One of those generational epics that span the history of a place.

Louis L'Amour and Zane Grey are two of the old school masters if you want quick and dirty with few nods to modern sensibilities. (Noble savage tropes abound)

N'thing Lonesome Dove
posted by OHenryPacey at 12:01 PM on April 19, 2019


the Virginian is really good. i read it in college for a class, and actually liked it, even under those circumstances.
posted by misanthropicsarah at 12:06 PM on April 19, 2019


If you're going with Cormac McCarthy, I'd start with All the Pretty Horses - I've read that and quite enjoyed it (it's part of a trilogy, but it stands on its own and is resolved by the end of the book) . I liked Blood Meridian as well, but it's fairly brutal and bleak.
posted by LionIndex at 12:20 PM on April 19, 2019


Tony Hillerman combined westerns *and* contemporary mysteries with his Navajo Tribal Police series.
posted by TWinbrook8 at 1:32 PM on April 19, 2019


I had some stereotypical idea of what a 'western' was (which perhaps I had formed from movies, tbh), and then I read Zane Grey's Riders of the Purple Sage and it was not what I expected at all. As OHenryPacey says, you will not find modern sensibilities here! But that was one of the things I enjoyed - like, wow, this is for a different audience with different assumptions about society and motivations and behaviour, so it's a glimpse of another world.
posted by inexorably_forward at 1:35 PM on April 19, 2019


Blood Meridian is textbook misery porn. It's still a good book, but just wanted to forewarn you.
posted by sacrifix at 1:50 PM on April 19, 2019


Nthing True Grit and Lonesome Dove, which is wonderful. One I recently read and truly loved was Warlock by Oakley Hall, which concerns a Wyatt Earp-style gunfighter asked to bring order to a town. Instead of a straight-ahead hero's tale, it's a great examination of violence, power, and heroism (in addition to being a thumping good tale).

Butcher's Crossing by John Williams is another one I really like, about a young man who goes west to make his fortune hunting buffalo.
posted by lhputtgrass at 1:57 PM on April 19, 2019


Louis LAmour and Zane Grey are classic and as popular as Christie is. Ralph Compton is popular with the lovers of classic westerns, also.
posted by Enid Lareg at 2:02 PM on April 19, 2019


The Sisters Brothers
posted by Ideefixe at 3:00 PM on April 19, 2019


I'll 2nd Warlock and Butcher's Crossing.

Also, West by Carys Davis is not a traditional western and maybe not even a western at all, but may interest you. Same goes for In the Distance by Hernan Diaz.

Once you've "finished" your run of westerns, I recommend you read Denis Johnson's wonderful Train Dreams. Again, not a western, but starting where those books end and telling about 80 years of a man's life in 116 pages. Wonderful.
posted by dobbs at 3:51 PM on April 19, 2019


I *loved* Lonesome Dove and I've recommended it to anyone/everyone, it's at least 800 pages and I'd have read 800 more -- one hell of a story, really rich characters, drawn so well.

A few years ago I was at a coffee shop here in town, and in conversation with a woman I'd just met I was really recommending the book, and how wonderful it is, and etc and etc, and then I thought. *What* I thought is this -- the woman I was speaking to is obviously Hispanic background, this being Austin likely a TexMex connection.

And the words died in my mouth as I thought of how casually racist Lonesome Dove is, discounting Mexicans in upwards of seventeen thousand ways. And likely that is how it was -- I'm not disputing that. But I wondered how much fun she wouldn't have reading that book, and that she'd absolutely see me as flat-out racist, and blind to my racism, too, for recommending it to her.

It gave me pause. It still does.
posted by dancestoblue at 6:57 PM on April 19, 2019


Louis L'Amour has been recommended without mentioning his Sackett series. These are more like historical Western novels than shoot-em-up westerns. You might learn a bit while being entertained.
posted by Cranberry at 1:19 AM on April 20, 2019


The Library of America recently published a collection of four Elmore Leonard western novels and some short stories. The whole collection is worth reading.
posted by maurice at 7:18 AM on April 20, 2019


I love C. J. Box’s Joe Pickett series—it begins with the book “Open Season”. He’s a contemporary writer who writes Western mysteries. They can be very violent, and I don’t read Warren Ellis to be able to make that comparison, so do approach with some caution. I would steer clear of his Cody Hoyt/Cassie Dewell series—there’s considerable discussion of graphic sexual violence committed by a serial killer in multiple books in this series.
posted by epj at 3:52 PM on April 20, 2019


Came to recommend the works of Frederick Schiller Faust (aka Max Brand)

Loved his Lucky Larribee from 1932. Read it as a teenager (maybe a preteen) in the 70s and thought it was funny. Remember it fondly to this day.
posted by rw at 6:36 PM on April 20, 2019


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