Charles Leland Sonnichsen

For twenty years, grassroots historian C. L. Sonnichsen went door to door through the backcountry of east and south-central Texas to coax tales from reluctant informants and peruse county documents on the colorful feuds that bloodied the state's early history. From these human explosions emerged legendary gangs such as the Regulators, Moderators, Hoodoos, Heel Flies, and Boots. Personal vengeance righted intolerable wrongs and settled unbearable grievances. Sonnichsen notes, "The men who fought these battles were mostly pretty good people," but they harshly stamped their otherwise normal lives with bloody vengeance. Dale L. Walker, Sonnichsen's biographer, sketches the author's life, historical craft, and publishing and teaching career.

Many books and innumerable articles have been published on the subject of "Westerns" since 1960, but the emphasis has been almost entirely on Western movies. Not much attention has been paid to the fiction of and about the American West. This book begins with the assumption that the novel of the West is a sort of autobiography of the West and that the writing must be studied if we are to see what our fiction reveals about ourselves. In these eleven essays C. L. Sonnichsen looks at both popular and "serious" fiction, starting with a consideration of what the West means to America and the world and going on to discuss a number of topics that act as mirrors to our prejudices and emotions. What does our fiction show has happened to our feelings about the Mexican over the last century? About violence? About sex? About the mythical West? The author's final chapter suggests other doors that should be opened--other topics of Western fiction that should be investigated and discussed. In scope and variety of approaches this book is unique. Some chapters will provoke heated disagreement, but the subject is timely. Nothing is more interesting to us than ourselves, and these essays tell something about who and what we are.