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West of the Pecos
Templeton Lambeth had so desperately wanted a son-- an heir to ride by his side through the vast, wild ranges just west of the Pecos River. But to his disappointment, his wife bore a girl. His hopes crushed and in denial, he decides to raise his daughter as if she were a boy. In honor of Lambeth's more successful brother, they named her: Terrill. Upon the arrival of the Civil War, Lambeth enlists in Lee's army, leaving behind his wife and tomboy daughter, with hopes to reconcile living in the shadow of his brother. By the time the war ends, Lambeth returns a colonel and his wife has passed. Tired of his old life as a cotton planter, he packs up with his tomboy daughter, Rill, and heads for the alluring western frontier to start anew.
After they arrive in the West, the Colonel is brutally murdered. Rill, disguised as a youth of eighteen who rode with the toughest, is left to fend for herself in the Wild West swarming with outlaws. Enter the one they called Pecos Smith--a rugged desperado with a mysterious past and one bad reputation. Though, he may not be what he seems.
Filled with adventure, bandits, and the beautiful landscape of America in its formative years, West of the Pecos is a classic tale by one of the greatest novelists of the American west.
Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns--books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians--are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
After they arrive in the West, the Colonel is brutally murdered. Rill, disguised as a youth of eighteen who rode with the toughest, is left to fend for herself in the Wild West swarming with outlaws. Enter the one they called Pecos Smith--a rugged desperado with a mysterious past and one bad reputation. Though, he may not be what he seems.
Filled with adventure, bandits, and the beautiful landscape of America in its formative years, West of the Pecos is a classic tale by one of the greatest novelists of the American west.
Skyhorse Publishing is proud to publish a broad range of books for readers interested in fiction that takes place in the old West. Westerns--books about outlaws, sheriffs, chiefs and warriors, cowboys and Indians--are a genre in which we publish regularly. Our list includes international bestselling authors like Zane Gray and Louis L'Amour, and many more. While not every title we publish becomes a New York Times bestseller or a national bestseller, we are committed to books on subjects that are sometimes overlooked and to authors whose work might not otherwise find a home.
481 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1931
107 people are currently reading
276 people want to read
About the author
Zane Grey
2,101 books591 followersPearl Zane Grey was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the rugged Old West. As of June 2007, the Internet Movie Database credits Grey with 110 films, one TV episode, and a series, Dick Powell's Zane Grey Theater based loosely on his novels and short stories.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 38 reviews
August 6, 2024
The Western novel has always been a highly popular literary genre, and few authors have made their name in that genre the way Zane Grey did. Best known perhaps for Riders of the Purple Sage (1912), a novel that did much to shape audience expectations for the Western novel in the decades that followed, Zane wrote five dozen other novels over a long literary career. On a recent trip to Texas, I read his 1931 novel West of the Pecos; and in the process, I learned much about what made Grey’s work popular in his time, and even more regarding why it might not speak so well to readers of today.
Grey’s early life – he was born in Ohio, studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and practiced dentistry in New York City – might not seem to have pointed the way to a career as a writer of Western novels. But even before he relocated with his wife to Altadena, California, he was drawn to the Western genre. The way he persisted with his literary aspirations, in the face of one rejection after another, should provide inspiration to anyone who wants to write for a living.
It is often a convention of the Western novel – and indeed, Grey had much to do with the formation of those conventions – that two characters will be brought together in the Western landscape, one of whom knows the West and one who does not. In the case of West of the Pecos, the newcomer to the West is Terrill Lambeth, the daughter of a Southern aristocrat who served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. With the South’s defeat and the ruination of his fortunes, Colonel Lambeth decides that he and his daughter will try to make a new start in the trans-Pecos region of West Texas – an area known for a harsh landscape and a lawless frontier society.
Like a couple of Shakespeare’s heroines – Viola from Twelfth Night and Rosalind from As You Like It come to mind – Terrill decides that, for safety’s sake, she will go west of the Pecos disguised as a young man. Terrill, in accordance with her disguise, wants to be called “Rill,” but the Lambeths’ black attendant, who has remained faithful to the family in spite of the end of slavery, replies that “you is what you is an’ you can’t nebber be what you ain’t” (p. 10).
Let me add here that (a) the idea of the faithful black attendant who stays with former slaveholders after the end of slavery is an incredibly grotesque and historically inaccurate stereotype and (b) the character’s name is itself so offensive to modern sensibilities that I can’t even bear to write his name here. I’ll just call him “S.”
On their way from the Deep South to the trans-Pecos, the Lambeths stop in San Antonio, Texas. At San Antonio, Terrill gets a sense of how different her new world is going to be, seeing “picturesque Mexicans with their serapes< their tight-legged flared-bottom trousers, their high-peaked sombreros; here and there a hard-eyed, watching man whom Lambeth designated as a Texas Ranger” (p. 13), along with soldiers, teamsters, buffalo hunters, cattlemen, horse dealers, gamblers, and ragged Confederate veterans undone by the war.
She also meets a young man named Pecos Smith, as he settles a fight outside a saloon. It quickly emerges that Pecos Smith, along with being a tough fighter, is basically a good young man. While some people whom he knows have engaged in unethical practices regarding the branding of cattle in the trans-Pecos (and eventually pay a high price for it), Pecos Smith himself has not crossed over those moral boundaries. He is a bit rough around the edges, and he just needs the redemptive love of a good woman in order to realize his potential. (Ms. Terrill Lambeth, please take note.)
Terrill’s journey to the trans-Pecos is a rough one. Hearing a loud rumbling noise that sounds somewhat like thunder, Terrill tells S. that “it cain’t be ordinary thunder” (p. 16) – and she’s right, because soon their wagon train is caught up in the middle of a buffalo stampede! As the rampaging animals draw ever closer to Terrill’s wagon, Terrill “lost the clearness of her faculties then, and seemed clutched between appalling despair and hope. But surely the wagon slowed, careened, almost upset. Then it stopped, and Terrill closed her eyes on the verge of collapse” (p. 20). Terrill’s path becomes an even more challenging when, perhaps inevitably, her father leaves the novel.
It should be no surprise that Terrill’s and Pecos Smith’s paths cross again, as Terrill encounters the treachery of some residents of the region and Pecos is put in the position of needing to rescue her. As Pecos goes into a tavern where the disguised Terrill has been unjustly detained, the narrator reflects how, “For years one of Pecos Smith’s essential habits had been to look at men, to gauge them in one lightning swift glance. The fact that he had been able to do so, in some instances, accounted for the fact that he was still alive” (p. 102).
When Terrill is released, Pecos “saw a slender, well-formed youth stagger out into the sunlight”, whose worn sombrero is “pulled well down, shading big, deep eyes…and a tanned, clean-cut face. The sombrero, however, showed a tuft of glossy hair through a hole in its crown, and also straggling locks from under the brim” (p. 107). The reader gets a strong sense that the secret of Terrill’s gender will be revealed to Pecos sooner or later.
And indeed, the revelation of Terrill’s gender, albeit delayed for quite some time, comes in the context of a confrontation between Pecos Smith and the novel’s chief villain, Breen Sawtell. Grey seems to enjoy depicting villains, as Sawtell is one of the most vividly drawn characters in the novel. Jack Palance or Lee Van Cleef would have had a field day playing him in a movie.
After a final confrontation with the evil Sawtell, Terrill expresses a wish that she could have shot Sawtell dead, as then “He couldn’t have told” the secret of her gender. In response, Pecos “believed she meant that Sawtell could not have betrayed her sex. That seemed natural. Terrill over-exaggerated some kind of shame in this dual character she had lived” (p. 251).
This novelistic crisis resolved, Pecos and Terrill return for a time to the more easterly parts of Texas, to outfit for a return to the trans-Pecos, where they hope to make a living through cattle ranching. At the coastal town of Rockport, they see young couples who are planning their own journeys out to the frontier. Pecos approves of the spirit he sees in these young pioneers-in-the-making, telling Terrill, “Yu cain’t fool me when I see people’s eyes. That’s why I’m alive, ’cause I can see what men think” (p. 259).
On their way to build their ranching dream, Pecos and Terrill and the rest of their party face a fight against hostile Native Americans at Horsehead Crossing, a desolate point for getting cattle across the Pecos River. The crossing is marked by the bones and skulls of cattle that had died there, trying to get to the water of the river: “It was a place where death stalked. No Indian teepee, no herder’s tent, no habitation had ever marked Horsehead Crossing. Men had to cross the Pecos there, but they shunned it as a pestilence” (p. 286). The fight with a party of Kiowa raiders at the crossing shows Grey’s ability to write scenes of action.
Because the book is called West of the Pecos and mostly takes place west of the Pecos, I was hoping that Grey would include the well-known character of Judge Roy Bean – that semi-historical, semi-legendary “hanging judge” who ran his courtroom out of a saloon and declared himself to be “the law west of the Pecos.”
And I was not disappointed, as Grey does indeed introduce Judge Roy Bean into the novel, as described here: “He appeared to be a short stout man, well along in years, with a long grey beard, cut round in a half circle. He was in his shirt sleeves, wore a huge light sombrero, and packed a gun at his hip” (p. 319).
His “courtroom” is just as colourful as the judge himself: “A rifle leaned against the post nearest the judge. Behind him on the corner post was a board sign upon which had been painted one word – Saloon. Above the wide steps, at the edge of the porch roof, was another and much larger one bearing the legend in large letters -- Law West of the Pecos. Above that hung a third shingle with the judge’s name” (p. 319).
And Judge Roy Bean turns out to be important in the resolution of the novel.
I read West of the Pecos while I was west of the Pecos, on a trip into the Big Bend region. To cross the Pecos River on U.S. Route 90 is quite a dramatic thing; the green and curving river flows slowly, far below a high bridge that connects two dry and stony bluffs, and the region west of the river does somehow look even wilder than other parts of West Texas. I imagined the people of earlier times coming to this river crossing, looking across the river, and saying to themselves, “Well, here we go.”
Even driving an air-conditioned car along U.S. 90, it’s quite a while before one gets to the little town of Langtry, where Judge Roy Bean’s barroom-turned-courtroom is lovingly preserved as the centerpiece of a park operated by the Texas Department of Transportation. In some ways, West of the Pecos was a suitable reading choice for me to take into this unique American region.
At the same time, I found West of the Pecos to have many limitations. The writing style is often pedestrian, even awkward. Grey’s manner of conveying regional vernacular through elaborate phonetic misspellings has not aged well. And, as mentioned above, the manner in which characters from cultural-minority backgrounds are depicted is often decidedly stereotypical and retrograde.
All that being said, I know that Grey has many fans who still take up his Western novels with pleasure and enthusiasm. If you are among them, then I wish you all happiness on your trail ride west toward the sunset. I just don’t think I’ll be riding there with you.
Grey’s early life – he was born in Ohio, studied at the University of Pennsylvania, and practiced dentistry in New York City – might not seem to have pointed the way to a career as a writer of Western novels. But even before he relocated with his wife to Altadena, California, he was drawn to the Western genre. The way he persisted with his literary aspirations, in the face of one rejection after another, should provide inspiration to anyone who wants to write for a living.
It is often a convention of the Western novel – and indeed, Grey had much to do with the formation of those conventions – that two characters will be brought together in the Western landscape, one of whom knows the West and one who does not. In the case of West of the Pecos, the newcomer to the West is Terrill Lambeth, the daughter of a Southern aristocrat who served as a colonel in the Confederate Army during the Civil War. With the South’s defeat and the ruination of his fortunes, Colonel Lambeth decides that he and his daughter will try to make a new start in the trans-Pecos region of West Texas – an area known for a harsh landscape and a lawless frontier society.
Like a couple of Shakespeare’s heroines – Viola from Twelfth Night and Rosalind from As You Like It come to mind – Terrill decides that, for safety’s sake, she will go west of the Pecos disguised as a young man. Terrill, in accordance with her disguise, wants to be called “Rill,” but the Lambeths’ black attendant, who has remained faithful to the family in spite of the end of slavery, replies that “you is what you is an’ you can’t nebber be what you ain’t” (p. 10).
Let me add here that (a) the idea of the faithful black attendant who stays with former slaveholders after the end of slavery is an incredibly grotesque and historically inaccurate stereotype and (b) the character’s name is itself so offensive to modern sensibilities that I can’t even bear to write his name here. I’ll just call him “S.”
On their way from the Deep South to the trans-Pecos, the Lambeths stop in San Antonio, Texas. At San Antonio, Terrill gets a sense of how different her new world is going to be, seeing “picturesque Mexicans with their serapes< their tight-legged flared-bottom trousers, their high-peaked sombreros; here and there a hard-eyed, watching man whom Lambeth designated as a Texas Ranger” (p. 13), along with soldiers, teamsters, buffalo hunters, cattlemen, horse dealers, gamblers, and ragged Confederate veterans undone by the war.
She also meets a young man named Pecos Smith, as he settles a fight outside a saloon. It quickly emerges that Pecos Smith, along with being a tough fighter, is basically a good young man. While some people whom he knows have engaged in unethical practices regarding the branding of cattle in the trans-Pecos (and eventually pay a high price for it), Pecos Smith himself has not crossed over those moral boundaries. He is a bit rough around the edges, and he just needs the redemptive love of a good woman in order to realize his potential. (Ms. Terrill Lambeth, please take note.)
Terrill’s journey to the trans-Pecos is a rough one. Hearing a loud rumbling noise that sounds somewhat like thunder, Terrill tells S. that “it cain’t be ordinary thunder” (p. 16) – and she’s right, because soon their wagon train is caught up in the middle of a buffalo stampede! As the rampaging animals draw ever closer to Terrill’s wagon, Terrill “lost the clearness of her faculties then, and seemed clutched between appalling despair and hope. But surely the wagon slowed, careened, almost upset. Then it stopped, and Terrill closed her eyes on the verge of collapse” (p. 20). Terrill’s path becomes an even more challenging when, perhaps inevitably, her father leaves the novel.
It should be no surprise that Terrill’s and Pecos Smith’s paths cross again, as Terrill encounters the treachery of some residents of the region and Pecos is put in the position of needing to rescue her. As Pecos goes into a tavern where the disguised Terrill has been unjustly detained, the narrator reflects how, “For years one of Pecos Smith’s essential habits had been to look at men, to gauge them in one lightning swift glance. The fact that he had been able to do so, in some instances, accounted for the fact that he was still alive” (p. 102).
When Terrill is released, Pecos “saw a slender, well-formed youth stagger out into the sunlight”, whose worn sombrero is “pulled well down, shading big, deep eyes…and a tanned, clean-cut face. The sombrero, however, showed a tuft of glossy hair through a hole in its crown, and also straggling locks from under the brim” (p. 107). The reader gets a strong sense that the secret of Terrill’s gender will be revealed to Pecos sooner or later.
And indeed, the revelation of Terrill’s gender, albeit delayed for quite some time, comes in the context of a confrontation between Pecos Smith and the novel’s chief villain, Breen Sawtell. Grey seems to enjoy depicting villains, as Sawtell is one of the most vividly drawn characters in the novel. Jack Palance or Lee Van Cleef would have had a field day playing him in a movie.
After a final confrontation with the evil Sawtell, Terrill expresses a wish that she could have shot Sawtell dead, as then “He couldn’t have told” the secret of her gender. In response, Pecos “believed she meant that Sawtell could not have betrayed her sex. That seemed natural. Terrill over-exaggerated some kind of shame in this dual character she had lived” (p. 251).
This novelistic crisis resolved, Pecos and Terrill return for a time to the more easterly parts of Texas, to outfit for a return to the trans-Pecos, where they hope to make a living through cattle ranching. At the coastal town of Rockport, they see young couples who are planning their own journeys out to the frontier. Pecos approves of the spirit he sees in these young pioneers-in-the-making, telling Terrill, “Yu cain’t fool me when I see people’s eyes. That’s why I’m alive, ’cause I can see what men think” (p. 259).
On their way to build their ranching dream, Pecos and Terrill and the rest of their party face a fight against hostile Native Americans at Horsehead Crossing, a desolate point for getting cattle across the Pecos River. The crossing is marked by the bones and skulls of cattle that had died there, trying to get to the water of the river: “It was a place where death stalked. No Indian teepee, no herder’s tent, no habitation had ever marked Horsehead Crossing. Men had to cross the Pecos there, but they shunned it as a pestilence” (p. 286). The fight with a party of Kiowa raiders at the crossing shows Grey’s ability to write scenes of action.
Because the book is called West of the Pecos and mostly takes place west of the Pecos, I was hoping that Grey would include the well-known character of Judge Roy Bean – that semi-historical, semi-legendary “hanging judge” who ran his courtroom out of a saloon and declared himself to be “the law west of the Pecos.”
And I was not disappointed, as Grey does indeed introduce Judge Roy Bean into the novel, as described here: “He appeared to be a short stout man, well along in years, with a long grey beard, cut round in a half circle. He was in his shirt sleeves, wore a huge light sombrero, and packed a gun at his hip” (p. 319).
His “courtroom” is just as colourful as the judge himself: “A rifle leaned against the post nearest the judge. Behind him on the corner post was a board sign upon which had been painted one word – Saloon. Above the wide steps, at the edge of the porch roof, was another and much larger one bearing the legend in large letters -- Law West of the Pecos. Above that hung a third shingle with the judge’s name” (p. 319).
And Judge Roy Bean turns out to be important in the resolution of the novel.
I read West of the Pecos while I was west of the Pecos, on a trip into the Big Bend region. To cross the Pecos River on U.S. Route 90 is quite a dramatic thing; the green and curving river flows slowly, far below a high bridge that connects two dry and stony bluffs, and the region west of the river does somehow look even wilder than other parts of West Texas. I imagined the people of earlier times coming to this river crossing, looking across the river, and saying to themselves, “Well, here we go.”
Even driving an air-conditioned car along U.S. 90, it’s quite a while before one gets to the little town of Langtry, where Judge Roy Bean’s barroom-turned-courtroom is lovingly preserved as the centerpiece of a park operated by the Texas Department of Transportation. In some ways, West of the Pecos was a suitable reading choice for me to take into this unique American region.
At the same time, I found West of the Pecos to have many limitations. The writing style is often pedestrian, even awkward. Grey’s manner of conveying regional vernacular through elaborate phonetic misspellings has not aged well. And, as mentioned above, the manner in which characters from cultural-minority backgrounds are depicted is often decidedly stereotypical and retrograde.
All that being said, I know that Grey has many fans who still take up his Western novels with pleasure and enthusiasm. If you are among them, then I wish you all happiness on your trail ride west toward the sunset. I just don’t think I’ll be riding there with you.
May 10, 2018
The Texas landscapes and harsh living conditions back then were very well portrayed. Tried, true and Texan to the core sums up the people who worked hard and triumphed. The rotters are basically the same no matter where you live, dang their dark hearts anyway.
October 18, 2021
Esta es la primera novela que leo de Zane Grey. El autor recrea de manera magistral al viejo oeste, con unas descripciones muy ricas que me han hecho situarme perfectamente sobre el terreno, viviendo la historia de Pecos y Rill como un personaje más. Quizás dónde flojea un poco la novela es en los personajes, dado que no permite conocerlos demasiado bien, y sólo al final el lector intuye características de su personalidad concretas. En su conjunto, resulta una novela entretenida y con buen ritmo, y cualquier amante del género western la disfrutará: por sus páginas desfilan cuatreros, mejicanos, pieles rojas, pistoleros, terratenientes... e incluso un juez, Roy Bean, con un pequeño pero simpático papel. También resulta agradable ver la impronta española en Tejas, con los numerosos topónimos y expresiones en castellano que usan los protagonistas.
Por otra parte, hay ciertas partes de la novela que no resultarían aceptables hoy en día, y eso es lo que la hace más auténtica. Los protagonistas son rudos y bastante poco cultos, pero nobles y trabajadores, con una religiosidad que me ha sorprendido no por lo habitual pero sí por lo sincera: como cuando Pecos se maravilla de que Dios haya sido "tan bueno" con él, recordando entonces las plegarias de su madre. También me ha hecho gracia el momento en que Rill, que se viste y actúa como varón, tiene este diálogo con Sambo:
En cuanto a los indios, adoptan el papel habitual en las películas del oeste: son salvajes a los que hay que expulsar para que avance la civilización. Sin embargo, hacia el final del libro el autor los humaniza más, cuando los protagonistas tienen un enfrentamiento con ellos, y Terrill puede ver que los pobres kiowas "están en los huesos".
En resumen, una novela de aventuras entretenida, que se lee rápido y deja buen sabor de boca.
Por otra parte, hay ciertas partes de la novela que no resultarían aceptables hoy en día, y eso es lo que la hace más auténtica. Los protagonistas son rudos y bastante poco cultos, pero nobles y trabajadores, con una religiosidad que me ha sorprendido no por lo habitual pero sí por lo sincera: como cuando Pecos se maravilla de que Dios haya sido "tan bueno" con él, recordando entonces las plegarias de su madre. También me ha hecho gracia el momento en que Rill, que se viste y actúa como varón, tiene este diálogo con Sambo:
- Sambo, deja de llamarme señorita Rill - protestó Terrill -. Llámame señorito Rill.
- Claro que sí, señorita Rill, lo haré cuando me acuerde. Pero usted es lo que es y nunca podrá ser lo que no es.
En cuanto a los indios, adoptan el papel habitual en las películas del oeste: son salvajes a los que hay que expulsar para que avance la civilización. Sin embargo, hacia el final del libro el autor los humaniza más, cuando los protagonistas tienen un enfrentamiento con ellos, y Terrill puede ver que los pobres kiowas "están en los huesos".
En resumen, una novela de aventuras entretenida, que se lee rápido y deja buen sabor de boca.
April 22, 2016
This was the first Zane Grey I ever read as a middle school student -- which is amazing to me, because as I read it this time I found the first few chapters really slow and overly landscape descriptive. Once I got past that though I was totally captivated by the story and cowboy language. It is the story of Terrill Lambert, a young girl who disguises herself as a boy, at first to please her father's dream for a son and second to protect herself in wild west Texas when her father is murdered. Her path crosses with Pecos Smith, one of my all time favorite cowboys/vaqueros, who has to save her from the local bad hombres This is the quintessential western: buffalo stampede, rustlers, wagon ambushes, cattle drives, gun slinging, cowboy romance. Here is my caveat -- this book was written in 1931 so there is plenty of racial stereotyping that would easily offend today.
December 23, 2022
West of the Pecos is a really great novel, definitive of Zane Grey. The imagery and story blend together to make you feel like you are with Rill, Pecos Bill, and Sambo as they embark on their story of love, justice, and survival on the American frontier.
It's a solid read, and in my opinion one of his better ones.
It's a solid read, and in my opinion one of his better ones.
July 19, 2020
I read this book because my father read it when he was 16 and years later named me after the daughter in the story. So of course I had to find a copy and read it! I was not disappointed and am very happy to carry her name. It’s adventurous and heartwarming.
July 26, 2022
I got this western for my mom, since she has enjoyed Zane Grey westerns in the past, but I don't think this one has aged as well as some of the other ones.
The reason I picked this book out of other Zane Grey books was because of the child in it.
I loved the descriptions of the scenery and nature in the old west, like I had with Zane Grey's "The Man of the Forest," which is, perhaps my favorite of Zane Grey's works so far.
Like some of Zane Grey's other works, it felt more like a romance to me than a western. The romance was fairly predictable. Part of it felt like wish-fulfillment literature to me, on the part of Zane Grey.
The western part was more unpredictable to me, but that may be because I haven't read as many westerns, to know how they go, or how one should handle this or that dilemma in an old western. That part, to me, was more interesting than the romance.
There was unnecessary violence, but it is, after all, a western. I didn't like one of the main protagonists because, when we met him, he shot through a man's ear because it stuck out too much. And he was supposed to be the good guy(!) although he did have a murky past. I had a hard time getting past that ear-shooting behavior to actually like the guy, even though we were supposed to be impressed with him.
A child was kicked, and the child actually apologized! A child should not have to apologize for being hurt like that. The bully's reaction was extreme to what had been done, and the child did not cause that extreme of a reaction from the bully. But then again, shooting someone's ear because it sticks out is also extreme behavior.
In addition, there was making someone dance due to bullets being shot at his feet at a wedding. All danger from the fellow was over at that point, and it felt like unnecessary violence.
In short, he was not marriage material, even with the help he'd given Terrill over the ranch. I think, though, that Terrill had been too secluded to know her options among men.
Then there were all the gunfights ...
The concerns with this book included its blatant racism, which, however, might be accurate for the times, and some paternalism, too. Not that protection is a bad thing, but it crosses a line when it assumes incompetence or inability in the life of the women. I am not saying that I would've done better than Terrill in the situation. (I did think that it was cool that one of the other reviewers was named for this Terrill; my uncle's middle name was Grey after Zane Grey.)
One of the other reviewers noted that not only were there racist statements about non-whites (African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans), there were also negative stereotypes of white Texans. I didn't notice that, but I could see it in retrospect. I did notice that there were negative comments made about "white trash," too. Basically, many of the characters hardly liked anyone, and if they did, they still put them down. The slurs against non-whites were worse, though.
I did like that some of the characters, despite being called horrible things, went on to be good examples of humanity - strong, capable, courageous, and persevering. People who give up on reading this due to the racism might not get to that part of the book to realize that, though. And others, who do reach that point, might still justifiably say that it wasn't "enough," that those characters should've received more honor than they did.
I am not rating this 1-star, because for me that's a DNF (did not finish) and I did finish it. The racism was bad enough that I could've rated it 2-stars, and I can imagine people rating it worse than I did on that principle alone. But a 2-star rating for me is one in which I struggled to finish it, and I didn't struggle to finish this one. I wanted to see where the plot went with the western.
Not my favorite Zane Grey.
Favorite quote:
"Pecos, I hope to God you rise to your opportunity."
The Judge: "Can I? Say, young feller, I can marry you, divorce you, an' hang you."
"Wal, I only want the first."
The reason I picked this book out of other Zane Grey books was because of the child in it.
I loved the descriptions of the scenery and nature in the old west, like I had with Zane Grey's "The Man of the Forest," which is, perhaps my favorite of Zane Grey's works so far.
Like some of Zane Grey's other works, it felt more like a romance to me than a western. The romance was fairly predictable. Part of it felt like wish-fulfillment literature to me, on the part of Zane Grey.
The western part was more unpredictable to me, but that may be because I haven't read as many westerns, to know how they go, or how one should handle this or that dilemma in an old western. That part, to me, was more interesting than the romance.
There was unnecessary violence, but it is, after all, a western. I didn't like one of the main protagonists because, when we met him, he shot through a man's ear because it stuck out too much. And he was supposed to be the good guy(!) although he did have a murky past. I had a hard time getting past that ear-shooting behavior to actually like the guy, even though we were supposed to be impressed with him.
A child was kicked, and the child actually apologized! A child should not have to apologize for being hurt like that. The bully's reaction was extreme to what had been done, and the child did not cause that extreme of a reaction from the bully. But then again, shooting someone's ear because it sticks out is also extreme behavior.
In addition, there was making someone dance due to bullets being shot at his feet at a wedding. All danger from the fellow was over at that point, and it felt like unnecessary violence.
In short, he was not marriage material, even with the help he'd given Terrill over the ranch. I think, though, that Terrill had been too secluded to know her options among men.
Then there were all the gunfights ...
The concerns with this book included its blatant racism, which, however, might be accurate for the times, and some paternalism, too. Not that protection is a bad thing, but it crosses a line when it assumes incompetence or inability in the life of the women. I am not saying that I would've done better than Terrill in the situation. (I did think that it was cool that one of the other reviewers was named for this Terrill; my uncle's middle name was Grey after Zane Grey.)
One of the other reviewers noted that not only were there racist statements about non-whites (African Americans, Native Americans, and Mexicans), there were also negative stereotypes of white Texans. I didn't notice that, but I could see it in retrospect. I did notice that there were negative comments made about "white trash," too. Basically, many of the characters hardly liked anyone, and if they did, they still put them down. The slurs against non-whites were worse, though.
I did like that some of the characters, despite being called horrible things, went on to be good examples of humanity - strong, capable, courageous, and persevering. People who give up on reading this due to the racism might not get to that part of the book to realize that, though. And others, who do reach that point, might still justifiably say that it wasn't "enough," that those characters should've received more honor than they did.
I am not rating this 1-star, because for me that's a DNF (did not finish) and I did finish it. The racism was bad enough that I could've rated it 2-stars, and I can imagine people rating it worse than I did on that principle alone. But a 2-star rating for me is one in which I struggled to finish it, and I didn't struggle to finish this one. I wanted to see where the plot went with the western.
Not my favorite Zane Grey.
Favorite quote:
"Pecos, I hope to God you rise to your opportunity."
The Judge: "Can I? Say, young feller, I can marry you, divorce you, an' hang you."
"Wal, I only want the first."
March 19, 2018
I have read a lot of Zane Grey. I don't think I can say all, but maybe most, of his books have a romantic interest in them where it takes the entire book to win the fair maiden; and this one is no exception. He is the master at description of the western lands. This story is about a girl of 15 who dresses as a boy and travels west from Louisiana with her father and a married black couple. They have a guide to take them to a good place west of the Pecos and finally arrive many months later. When Pecos Smith meets them again a few years later, they are at the same ranch but her father has been killed by rustlers. She is still passing as a boy but during all their trials Pecos accidentally discovers that she is a girl; he keeps her secret. However, her secret is outed during a battle with the bad guys again and they admit their love for each other and get married. Assume they live happily ever after. Very entertaining.
October 2, 2019
I'm normally a fan of Grey, but this book was cringey, hard to read. It started off promising, but about halfway through, turned into a terrible parody of true Westerns. Terrill, who could have been interesting, devolved into a giggly, vapid bore. Pecos had zero growth, zero story arc. Don't get me started on the non-white characters (I wouldn't recommend this book simply because the portrayal of non-whites as slavish, superstitious halfwits is a cancer to modern eyes).
The whole novel feels like it was written to mock Texas and Texans, right down to the accent spelled out in the dialogues. And if it wasn't to mock, it was to overglamorize the wild West; written by someone whose only knowledge of it came from folk stories.
It had promise, but it failed miserably in the end.
The whole novel feels like it was written to mock Texas and Texans, right down to the accent spelled out in the dialogues. And if it wasn't to mock, it was to overglamorize the wild West; written by someone whose only knowledge of it came from folk stories.
It had promise, but it failed miserably in the end.
January 3, 2012
One of my favorite Zane Grey books - I absolutely loved his books as a kid! Reading his books led me to fall in love with the American Southwest.
October 21, 2022
Kirja: Pecos-joelta länteen
Kirjailija: Zane Grey
Ilmestymisvuosi: 1982, alkuteos West of the Pecos ilmestyi vuonna 1937 englanniksi.
Kustantaja: Taikajousi
Suomentaja: Don Engström
Olen pelannut tänä syksynä niin lumoutuneena Red Dead Redemption 2:sta, että halusin lukea jotakin Villiin länteen sijoittuvaa. Tämä romaani löytyi hakusanan 'Villi länsi' avulla Laukaan kirjastosta. Wikipedian mukaan Zane Grey oli 1920-luvun myydyin kirjailija Yhdysvalloissa.
Romaanin toinen päähenkilö on Terrill Lambeth, jonka isä toivoi aina saavansa pojan. Niinpä hän kasvattaa tyttärensä, Terrillin, poikana kovassa Länsi-Texasissa. Terrillin isän haaveena on perustaa valtava karjatila Texasin tutkimattomille maille.
Romaanin toinen päähenkilö on kiertävä karjapaimen nimeltään Pecos Smith. Hänen pistoolikätensä on herkkä ja hän on kovan kundin maineessa.
Romaanin aikana Pecosin ja Terrillin tiet kohtaavat. Pecos tuntee merkillistä mielenkiintoa sulokasvoiseen ja heiveröiseen teinipoikaan, Terrilliin. Sen sijaan orvoksi jäänyt karjatilallinen, Terrill, on mielissään, kun saa suojelijakseen pahamaineisen Pecos Smithin. Terrillin suuri salaisuus on hänen biologinen sukupuolensa, kun taas Pecosia painaa hänen menneisyytensä. Ulkopuolista huolta parivaljakolle aiheuttavat väkivaltaiset comanche-intiaanit sekä karjaa laittomasti omistukseensa polttomerkitsevät roistot.
Romaanin henkilöt, aiheet ja tapahtumapaikat olivat itselleni mielenkiintoista luettavaa, sillä Villi länsi miljöönä kiinnostaa kovasti. Valtavat biisonilaumat, leiriyöt joen varrella, jyrkänteellä vaanivat intiaanit ja aseiden pauke. Mitäpä sitä muuta kaipaisi hyvältä lännen romaanilta?
Toinen mielenkiintoinen asia romaanissa on tietysti omaa biologista sukupuoltaan salaileva Terrill, jolla ei itsellään tunnu kuitenkaan olevan suurta halua olla poika. Mieheksi identifioituminen suojelee kuitenkin häntä, mutta salailu aiheuttaa tietysti tukalia tilanteita miesten joukossa. Lukiessa minua vähän häiritsi romaanihenkilöiden naiivius, mutta jotenkin se tavallaan sopikin tällaiseen viihdyttävään lännentarinaan, jolta ei mitään hirmu syvällistä sanomaa kannata odottaakaan.
⭐⭐⭐
#zanegrey #pecosjoeltalänteen
Kirjailija: Zane Grey
Ilmestymisvuosi: 1982, alkuteos West of the Pecos ilmestyi vuonna 1937 englanniksi.
Kustantaja: Taikajousi
Suomentaja: Don Engström
Olen pelannut tänä syksynä niin lumoutuneena Red Dead Redemption 2:sta, että halusin lukea jotakin Villiin länteen sijoittuvaa. Tämä romaani löytyi hakusanan 'Villi länsi' avulla Laukaan kirjastosta. Wikipedian mukaan Zane Grey oli 1920-luvun myydyin kirjailija Yhdysvalloissa.
Romaanin toinen päähenkilö on Terrill Lambeth, jonka isä toivoi aina saavansa pojan. Niinpä hän kasvattaa tyttärensä, Terrillin, poikana kovassa Länsi-Texasissa. Terrillin isän haaveena on perustaa valtava karjatila Texasin tutkimattomille maille.
Romaanin toinen päähenkilö on kiertävä karjapaimen nimeltään Pecos Smith. Hänen pistoolikätensä on herkkä ja hän on kovan kundin maineessa.
Romaanin aikana Pecosin ja Terrillin tiet kohtaavat. Pecos tuntee merkillistä mielenkiintoa sulokasvoiseen ja heiveröiseen teinipoikaan, Terrilliin. Sen sijaan orvoksi jäänyt karjatilallinen, Terrill, on mielissään, kun saa suojelijakseen pahamaineisen Pecos Smithin. Terrillin suuri salaisuus on hänen biologinen sukupuolensa, kun taas Pecosia painaa hänen menneisyytensä. Ulkopuolista huolta parivaljakolle aiheuttavat väkivaltaiset comanche-intiaanit sekä karjaa laittomasti omistukseensa polttomerkitsevät roistot.
Romaanin henkilöt, aiheet ja tapahtumapaikat olivat itselleni mielenkiintoista luettavaa, sillä Villi länsi miljöönä kiinnostaa kovasti. Valtavat biisonilaumat, leiriyöt joen varrella, jyrkänteellä vaanivat intiaanit ja aseiden pauke. Mitäpä sitä muuta kaipaisi hyvältä lännen romaanilta?
Toinen mielenkiintoinen asia romaanissa on tietysti omaa biologista sukupuoltaan salaileva Terrill, jolla ei itsellään tunnu kuitenkaan olevan suurta halua olla poika. Mieheksi identifioituminen suojelee kuitenkin häntä, mutta salailu aiheuttaa tietysti tukalia tilanteita miesten joukossa. Lukiessa minua vähän häiritsi romaanihenkilöiden naiivius, mutta jotenkin se tavallaan sopikin tällaiseen viihdyttävään lännentarinaan, jolta ei mitään hirmu syvällistä sanomaa kannata odottaakaan.
⭐⭐⭐
#zanegrey #pecosjoeltalänteen
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
dnf
June 27, 2020got through three chapters before the racism wore me the fuck out. from what i could tell the film shaved off literally everything except the romance and enough guns for 1 climactic shootout and you know what, that was a good call! i might be wrong because i didn't care enough to do anything more than a cursory ctrl+f thru my epub, but from what i can see none of my favourite moments from the film originated here, which makes it even more boring to me. if anyone is still reading this, let me pimp out the 1945 film made out of this book wherein there is a genuine Only One Bedroll moment, robert mitchum says the actual words "get in and cuddle", there is some reach-around cigarette rolling action, and there is a scene where people throw eggs at each other to declare their affection. is there any point reading a "book" if it contains none of these moments, and is egregiously racist besides? no!!!! don't do it!!!!!
December 24, 2024
An excellent story that pulls no punches. Written in a different time when political correctness was unknown and casual racism the norm. Readers be warned this book pulls no punches when it comes to stereotypical racist depictions of blacks, Latinos and others; and damsels in distress needing a savior. If you can get past that this story is excellent. You can see the beginnings of so many cowboy and western tropes utilized in countless subsequent stories by this and many other authors.
This was my first foray into the world of Zane Grey and it certainly got me interested in his other titles. Recommended for mature and discerning readers.
This was my first foray into the world of Zane Grey and it certainly got me interested in his other titles. Recommended for mature and discerning readers.
November 1, 2023
Even when originally published, this book was probably criticized for its overtly racial terms and sterotypes of African Americans and Hispanics. Today it seriously detracts from any appreciation of the storyline. And, if you know anything about the Texas Pecos River country, you can make a game of finding all the inaccuracies of geography and history.
The story wears a bit thin as well, with the good bad man Pecos Smith and his love interest Terrell Lambeth who is disguised as a boy.
A really sadly dated and jumbled job, for those who know the truth of West Texas.
The story wears a bit thin as well, with the good bad man Pecos Smith and his love interest Terrell Lambeth who is disguised as a boy.
A really sadly dated and jumbled job, for those who know the truth of West Texas.
January 5, 2022
Hace tiempo no leía una buena historia del salvaje oeste, fue un buen reencuentro. Me pareció genial leerlo porque el autor viajó mucho conociendo su país y es muy contemporáneo de la época por lo tanto sus relatos son muy valiosos; su lectura es muy amena y bastante fotográfica, uno se imagina el paisaje tal cual lo describe, me gustó mucho y deseo seguir leyendo al autor.
August 31, 2023
I enjoyed this book. You had to remember this book was written in 1931. Unfortunately Racism and Sexism were openly conveyed then. Stereotypes of people of color and sex were described in the story. Aside from this, it is a very descriptive book on the west and life when Texas was becoming populated and settled. Zane Grey was a very good writer.
September 13, 2025
You have to remember that this book was written in 1931 and came out in serial form. Looking forward to the pleasure of reading an exciting western story may have been a small comfort during the Depression. Be forewarned that the 1931 language describing groups of people is offensive to today’s reader.
May 2, 2025
Pecos Smith goes back and forth from being an outlaw and doing the right thing. Set in Texas, when it was first being settled by Americans, this story is a good insight into how things went back then. it has adventure and romance.
December 3, 2025
Although I've read a lot of Zane Grey's books through the years, this is the first time I've read West of the Pecos. It's particularly interesting since I now live west of the Pecos in New Mexico, the land of enchantment.
June 2, 2017
Lectura entretenida y muy ligera. Hay que tener en cuenta la época en la que fue escrito pero tiene unos personajes y unas tramas taannn inocentes que te saca una sonrisa :-)
October 13, 2020
I loved this book when I was 13-14 years old and adored western stories and romances. It is a book for younger readers as most of Zane's work is.
December 5, 2021
The author manages to create vivid pictures of the scenery and the lifestyle at that particular time.
The story is catchy, but lacks some kind of final twists towards the end.
The story is catchy, but lacks some kind of final twists towards the end.
March 12, 2023
A good old romantic Western. Lots of fun.
March 22, 2024
A legend!
Really great to read Zane Grey again. He’s a great story teller that my late father (born in 1912) first told me about.
Really great to read Zane Grey again. He’s a great story teller that my late father (born in 1912) first told me about.
December 30, 2024
Not my favorite. The story was dull and uninteresting.
September 11, 2016
Great
Excellent writing and adventure. Interesting from page one to the end. Never knowing what will happen next. Have to keep reading to find out.
Excellent writing and adventure. Interesting from page one to the end. Never knowing what will happen next. Have to keep reading to find out.
October 29, 2014
I actually read my Great-Grandfather's copy, which has a copyright of 1937 on it, published by Grosset and Dunlap and not dated.
Modern readers may take offense at the stereotypes and use of racial and ethnic epithets which permeate the story, but as I considered it, this may well have been the way the rough society of the period functioned.
The story itself is about what is left of the Lambeth family, Father and Daughter and a pair of their former slaves heading west to make a new life. Into the story comes a tough as nails Texan who is also seeking to make a new life for himself, but he has some baggage that may be the undoing of many folks.
Then there is Judge Roy Bean, who eventually plays a bit part of some importance at the end of the story.
As Westerns go, it is pretty good. Well written, tight and nicely paced.
Modern readers may take offense at the stereotypes and use of racial and ethnic epithets which permeate the story, but as I considered it, this may well have been the way the rough society of the period functioned.
The story itself is about what is left of the Lambeth family, Father and Daughter and a pair of their former slaves heading west to make a new life. Into the story comes a tough as nails Texan who is also seeking to make a new life for himself, but he has some baggage that may be the undoing of many folks.
Then there is Judge Roy Bean, who eventually plays a bit part of some importance at the end of the story.
As Westerns go, it is pretty good. Well written, tight and nicely paced.
October 1, 2011
This book is an example of the typical Zane Grey book. A cowboy named Pecos Smith has a mysterious past and he comes into contact with a damsal in distress. The adventure of coming west to start a new life, conflicts with outlaws and eventually succeeding is told in Zane Grey's descriptive style. The description of being caught in a buffalo stampede is well worth the read. You can almost feel the thundering stampede as you read.
January 16, 2017
Templeton Lambeth heads west with his daughter Terrill following the Civil War. When Templeton is murdered Terrill is left to fend for herself until desperado Pecos Smith crosses her path. A romantic western of the early 20th century.
September 24, 2024
It's fun to reread a Zane Grey classic. I love the descriptions of the desert, the Pecos river, and the western landscape. It's a great tale of good vs evil and hard choices and tender love. An old fashioned thrilling story. Hurrah for Zane Grey!
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