Cactus Thorn

by Mary Hunter Austin

Grant Arliss, a young politician overwhelmed by the pressures of his New York City life, retreats to the serenity of the American Southwestern desert, where he meets the independent and intriguing Dulcie Adclaid

Genres: Fiction, Classics, Female Authors, Westerns

122 pages, Hardcover

First published December 31, 1988

About the author

Mary Hunter Austin was a prolific novelist, poet, critic, and playwright, as well as an early feminist, conservationist, and defender of Native American and Spanish-American rights and culture.

After graduating from Blackburn College in 1888, she moved with her family to California and established a homestead in the San Joaquin Valley. She married Stafford Wallace Austin In 1891 and they lived in various towns in California’s Owens Valley before separating in 1905.

One of the early nature writers of the American Southwest, her popular book The Land of Little Rain (1903) describes the fauna, flora and people of the region between the High Sierra and the Mojave Desert of southern California. She said, "I was only a month writing ... but I spent 12 years peeking and prying before I began it."

After visiting Santa Fe in 1918, Austin settled there in 1924. She helped establish The Santa Fe Little Theatre (still operating today as The Santa Fe Playhouse). She was also active in preserving the local culture of New Mexico, establishing the Spanish Colonial Arts Society in 1925.

In 1929, she co-authored a book, Taos Pueblo, with photographer Ansel Adams. It was printed in 1930 in a limited edition of only 108 copies. It is now quite rare because it included actual photographs made by Adams rather than reproductions.

She is best known for her nature classic Land of Little Rain (1903) and her play The Arrow Maker (1911).

Reviews

[Leigh · Rating 4 out of 5]

This unfinished novella by everyone's favorite turn of the century eastern California feminist nature writer and indigenous advocate, Mary Austin, has all the makings of a great love story: catastrophic desert wind storms, whistling trains, progressive rhetoric and violence. The highlights are still the descriptions of desert landscapes, as in Land of Little Rain and The Basket Woman, but this one has a blatently feminist flare I appreciate.

[Amy · Rating 4 out of 5]

I love the desert, so her evocative descriptions of the desert landscape resonated for me. Without them, I may have gone down a star.

[Chilli McLellan · Rating 5 out of 5]

the personal is always political.

[Ashley · Rating 4 out of 5]

Short, but affecting. Great desert writing.

[Trevin Alger · Rating 4 out of 5]

Absolutely loved the prose in this one.

[Natalya · Rating 2 out of 5]

Western Justice much? I couldn't sympathize with either of these characters and I kept falling asleep when I was reading. I have never fallen asleep while reading in my LIFE. Hm.

[Jim · Rating 4 out of 5]

Mary Austin's Cactus Thorn is a strange little novella written by a naturalist who was in love with the desert and at the same time was an early feminist. Her book The Land of Little Rain is probably the best book ever written about the California desert.

In Cactus Thorn, a traveling politico from New York called Grant Arliss travels to California's Owens Valley and meets up with a strange desert dweller named Dulcie Adelaid Vallodon and falls in love with her. The scenes set in the California desert are beautifully written, though the character of Arliss is a bit of a stick. (I guess men described by feminists can be as unreal as women described by male chauvinist pigs.)

This book, written in 1927, was rejected for publication until Mary Austin was long dead. I'm glad that the University of Nevada Press saw fit to give it a chance. I like Mary Austin's work and try to collect as many of her books as I can find.

[Melissa Matthewson · Rating 5 out of 5]

An early feminism book written in 1922 but published in 1980s. Such a great read. Beautiful desert landscape writing. I appreciate the prologue and critical afterword to give context to Mary Austin & the story. I love Mary Austin and her sentences. Everyone should read her!

[Brooke]

I get how this is a feminist classic, but I was also just so frustrated by it. I'm realizing that Land of Little Rain is my jam.

[Leone Betts · Rating 4 out of 5]

I read this book because I was interested in the feminising of nature. Here, we have the desert presented as a seductive female force which won't be mastered. Well worth a read.

[Bradley · Rating 3 out of 5]

Austin's beautiful scenery descriptions were the highlight.

[David K. Glidden · Rating 5 out of 5]

A remarkable novel about a professor and an independent woman in Death Valley, written well ahead of its time with what was at the time an unpublishable ending.

[Callie Stephenson · Rating 5 out of 5]

So thankful for Graulich's foreward and afterword to help elucidate some of the more subtle points of writing I didn't notice. This could be something to incorporate into an essay in my grad studies.

[Amy · Rating 5 out of 5]

A feminist western novella. Loved it!

[Sarah · Rating 1 out of 5]

The only reason I read this was for school and for the most part it sucked complete ass.