New West Reader: Essays on an Ever-Evolving Frontier

by Philip Connors

The West is vital to the myth of America. It is where radical individualism and beautiful landscapes merge in a sort of earthly paradise. Or so we've been led to believe by cinematic and literary mythmakers. There is, however, a counter-narrative put forth by writers such as Joan Didion and Mike Davis, who argue that the myths of the West met their end on California's golden shores some time ago, in ecological catastrophe and social anomie. Between these visions lies another West where contradictions abound. No other part of the country is as undeveloped; yet no other part of the country contains urban areas that are growing as quickly, where there are struggles over the West's most precious commodity, water; over how to manage and maintain wilderness; over the pace and character of the sprawl that threatens to turn Denver and Phoenix into inland LA's. Amid these struggles, individuals still try to create a place for themselves that allows for a connection to the landscape and a connection to some form of community. The New West Reader explores the conflicts and contractions that make up the contemporary West with writing by Larry McMurtry, Sherman Alexie, Edward Abbey, and others.

Genres: Essays, Nonfiction

384 pages, Paperback

First published October 26, 2005

About the author

Philip Connors is the author of Fire Season, which won the Banff Mountain Book Competition Grand Prize, the National Outdoor Book Award, the Sigurd F. Olson Nature Writing Award, and the Reading the West Book Award. Connors's writing has also appeared in Harper's, n+1, the Paris Review, and elsewhere. He lives in New Mexico.

Reviews

[Mark Bailey · Rating 5 out of 5]

The New West is unique. This book took me around.

[Zach · Rating 3 out of 5]

A collection of essays about the west - I found it on the street and saw that there were essay's by Larry Mcmurtry, Thomas Mcguane, Dennis Johnson, Gretel Ehrilic, Sherman Alexi and others on the 'new west'. I had to give it a whirl.
First off, any book with an essay by Larry Mcmurtry where he reveals that pretty much the entire content of 'All My Friends Will One Day Be Strangers' is true gets an A+ by me. High points include a very weird essay about trout fishing by 'Spirit-Fried No-Name River Brown Trout: a Recipe'by David James Duncan - who I've never heard of before but want to go find now and 'Creeks of Galiuro' by Craig Childs, a biologist in Arizona writing about the creeks and water ways of the high desert - incredibly beautiful and moving in the way that biologists can be when they get a touch of the spirit in them and tell us facts.