Why am I passionate about this?
As a college instructor and a student of Western American Literature for many, many years I have read a great number of western novels for my classes and for my literary studies. In addition to my doctoral dissertation on the topic, I have written and published numerous articles and reviews on western writers, and I have given many public presentations as well. I have a long-standing interest in what makes good works good. As a fiction writer, I have published more than thirty traditional western novels with major publishers, and have won several national awards for my western novels and short stories.
John's book list on thought-provoking classic westerns worth rereading
Why did John love this book?
Riders of Judgment is part of a series of high-geared western novels by Frederick Manfred, whose best-known work is Lord Grizzly. I choose this novel because of its fictional and figurative treatment of the Johnson County War, a famous event in Wyoming history. In his fictional treatment, Manfred gives symbolic and mythic dimensions to his characters, and he tells a compelling story with original, not standard, characters. Several years ago, when Manfred came to our college in Wyoming to participate in a literary conference, he told us about how, in the mid-1950s, he researched the area and interviewed family members of some of the original participants.
1 author picked Riders of Judgment as one of their favorite books, and they share why you should read it.
Here is a rich and serious novel of the violent West. Full of the authentic sounds and colors of Wyoming cattle country in the late nineteenth century, it tells the true story of a long-vanished time-the era of the cowhands and the bloody Johnson County range wars.
Riders of Judgment centers on the three Hammett brothers and their cousin Rosemary, whom all three love. To the oldest brother, Cain, falls the lot of avenging the murder of his father, grandfather, and brother. Cain-who is in a sense a cowboy Hamlet-is torn by conflicts within himself. He desires peace yet is…