A Man in the Wheatfield

by Robert Laxalt, Cheryll Glotfelty (Foreword)

Set in a small Nevada town of Italian immigrants, this allegorical tale illustrates the human traits of evil and fear. Laxalt relays his shocking story simply and concisely. Father Savio Lazzaroni is obsessed with a vision of evil. Mayor Manuel Cafferata is only concerned with his own standing in a tiny village peopled with Italian immigrants. Into their isolated town comes Smale Calder, the first outsider to set up business in the tightly knit society. The events that befall these three men and the villagers reveal the chilling ways in which people deal with fear and prejudice. When Calder’s secret passion for rattlesnakes is discovered, the lives of all involved are changed in a dramatic sequence of emotions and events. Laxalt’s quiet buildup of suspense and violence will sneak up on readers and leave them questioning the meaning of good and innocence. One of the best works written in the West, this novella was honored alongside Hemingway and Bellow upon its first release in 1964.

Genres: Fiction

208 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1987

About the author

Laxalt was a Basque-American writer whose work was especially well received in the ranching areas of Nevada and adjacent states, and led to creation of several "Basque Festivals" in those areas. Laxalt also served as a consultant to the Library of Congress on Basque culture, and helped start the Basque Studies program at the University of Nevada.

Laxalt founded the University of Nevada Press, which published almost all of his books written after 1964. Laxalt was chosen along with Walter Van Tilburg Clark to be the first writer inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.

Reviews

[Howard · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Basque-American writer Robert Laxalt wrote seventeen books, and nearly all of them, whether fiction or nonfiction, had this in common: they were accounts of the Basque immigrant experience in the United States.

His third book, A Man in the Wheatfield (1964), which was also his first novel, represented a sharp departure from what he had written before and what he would write afterwards. The story is about an isolated, tightly-knit village of immigrants living in the Nevada desert, but they are not Basques; they are Italians. In fact, not one Basque makes an appearance in the story.

Do you remember ever hearing about or reading about a community of Italian immigrants living in the Nevada desert? No? I haven’t either. The reason we are not aware of such a community is because one never existed.

Not being a fan of fantasy, when I read in the opening pages about Manuel Cafferata’s founding of such a community, I was ready to lay the book aside and move on. If the immigrants had been Basque, for example, the people and the place would have been logical and I would have had no problem continuing.

However, there were two reasons why I didn’t give up. First, I had read Laxalt’s previous book, Sweet Promised Land, which I thoroughly enjoyed. Second, the American Library Association named A Man in the Wheatfield as one of the six notable novels of 1964. Two of the other novels honored were Ernest Hemigway’s A Moveable Feast and Saul Bellow’s Herzog, which placed Laxalt in exalted company.

I’m glad that I didn’t bail out.

As I read further I understood what Laxalt had in mind. Living all but a few years of his life in Nevada, he knew that no such settlement existed. His creation of an inauthentic village was intentional. This was his way of signaling to the reader that the story should not be taken literally. He used unrealistic fictional people in an unrealistic fictional setting to serve as symbols in order to generalize about the human condition, in particular, the perception of good and evil. In short, it is an allegorical, or at least semi-allegorical, novel.

I tried to write a few words about the characters and something about the plot, but I felt that everything I wrote, even an explanation of the title, was a spoiler. So I gave that up. And I hesitate to give the book a blanket endorsement. It probably isn’t a book for everybody; but it is one that I won’t ever forget, and that is why I gave it five stars.

[Dan · Rating 4 out of 5]

A very, very good book about the Basque in Nevada. I think this might be the only significant work of literature to come from Nevada.

[Chick · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author has the knack for creating prose that sticks, that pushes.

This is apparently written as an allegory. Wondering what is represented symbolically. There is the theme of snakes -> evil, fire -> purification, the outsider -> Smale Calder, the insider -> Della the banker and Manuel Cafferata the mayor, self-confidence ->

This book is worth exploring in a book group.

[Sue · Rating 5 out of 5]

A beautiful first novel with incredible insight into who we are and how we became who we are.