Talking Up a Storm: Voices of the New West

by Gregory L. Morris

In interviews with fifteen contemporary writers of the American West, Gregory L. Morris demonstrates what these widely divergent talents have in common: they all redefine what it is to be a western writer. No longer enthralled (though sometimes inspired) by the literary traditions of openness, place, and rugged individualism, each of the writers has remained true to the demand for clarity, strength, and honesty, virtues sustained in their conversations. Morris talks with Ralph Beer, Mary Clearman Blew, Elizabeth Cook-Lynn, James Crumley, Ivan Doig, Gretel Ehrlich, Richard Ford, Molly Gloss, Ron Hansen, John Keeble, William Kittredge, David Long, Thomas McGuane, Amy Tan, and Douglas Unger. Their lives and fiction stretch from Montana to Texas, from ranches to universities, from sea level to mountain slopes.

246 pages, Paperback

First published October 28, 1994

Reviews

[Julie Richert-Taylor · Rating 5 out of 5]

"These are flush and wondrous times, if not for the American West, then at least for its fiction. Its writers throw wide the "doors to their houses," and what we find upon entering is a literature that (as William Kittredge suggests) "is no longer what we think it should be", a literature that surprises us and upsets our expectations of what we have come to define and know as Western American fiction. In fact, one of the most significant developments in recent American fiction has been the emergence of distinctive and new Western voices, voices that are at once literary and political, that seek both to demolish myth and to create myth anew."

I first read this ten years ago . . . cannot remember how I happened upon it. The conversations it contains were really a genesis for my comprehension of there being a Western Literary tradition from the perspective of values, experiences, politics, social issues and an emerging discussion of what was shaping literature out here. It also introduced me to the giants of the cannon.
Visiting it again, now, refreshes that experience in a remarkable way as the body of what might be considered "Western American fiction" has become gratifyingly more enormous, relevant and inventive and really shows the momentum these writers interviewed here were striving to initiate. The book showcases a fascinating stage of this process of growth, and I feel it still sheds light on where our literary traditions might be headed. Morris's questions in these interviews are every bit as fascinating and full of perspective as the answers and he coaxes out some wonderful expressions of opinion from the 15 writers featured.