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Under the Tonto Rim
Lucy Watson, a young schoolteacher, is appointed welfare instructor in a community of isolated backwoods folk. She quickly overcomes their fears, and achieves popularity by the practical results of her work. She is especially successful with a strong, uncouth bee-hunter. Zane Grey's handling of these primitive characters is robust and understanding.
"Zane Grey is a gifted artist who draws scenes of the southwest in unforgettable stories." (B-O-T Editorial Review Board)
384 pages, Paperback
First published January 1, 1925
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244 people want to read
About the author
Zane Grey
2,076 books590 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 - 29 of 29 reviews
February 28, 2022
This Zane Grey novel took me pleasantly by surprise. It’s not one of his usual cowboy and old west tales that I’ve become accustomed to. There wasn’t any gun slinging action or wild chases on horseback, but there was wild romance aplenty, which is normal for his novels, and one of the things that endear them to me.
What we have here is 20 year-old Lucy Watson leaving the city life to go into the Arizona wilderness to teach and help the backwoods folks in daily living. One has to wonder what a city girl could possibly come up with that would improve the lives of these people, and that they’d be willing to accept. She surprises us and them and herself with her ideas. She also learns quite a bit in the process.
Grey gives us a good many diverse characters to root for and against. The most interesting is a bee-keeper, (or wild-bee hunter, as he is called) Edd Denmeade, whose work is a fascinating education in itself. I loved the passage where Edd takes Lucy on a bee hunt. Grey’s prose is perfectly suited to such an adventure.
As in his other novels, nature itself is a vibrant character.
“She [Lucy] found out, presently, that going into the forest was a source of comfort. When there seemed no comfort she went to the lonely solitude of trees and brush, of green coverts and fragrant wild dells, and always she was soothed, sustained. She could not understand why, but it was so. She began to prolong the hours spent in the woods, under a looming canyon wall, or beside a densely foliaged gorge from which floated up the drowsy murmur of stream. All that the wild forest land consisted of passed into her innermost being.”
Some folks might find this novel a little slower paced than his others, but I found the details of the simple daily living of these country people at the beginning of the 20th century a breath of fresh air.
What we have here is 20 year-old Lucy Watson leaving the city life to go into the Arizona wilderness to teach and help the backwoods folks in daily living. One has to wonder what a city girl could possibly come up with that would improve the lives of these people, and that they’d be willing to accept. She surprises us and them and herself with her ideas. She also learns quite a bit in the process.
Grey gives us a good many diverse characters to root for and against. The most interesting is a bee-keeper, (or wild-bee hunter, as he is called) Edd Denmeade, whose work is a fascinating education in itself. I loved the passage where Edd takes Lucy on a bee hunt. Grey’s prose is perfectly suited to such an adventure.
As in his other novels, nature itself is a vibrant character.
“She [Lucy] found out, presently, that going into the forest was a source of comfort. When there seemed no comfort she went to the lonely solitude of trees and brush, of green coverts and fragrant wild dells, and always she was soothed, sustained. She could not understand why, but it was so. She began to prolong the hours spent in the woods, under a looming canyon wall, or beside a densely foliaged gorge from which floated up the drowsy murmur of stream. All that the wild forest land consisted of passed into her innermost being.”
Some folks might find this novel a little slower paced than his others, but I found the details of the simple daily living of these country people at the beginning of the 20th century a breath of fresh air.
December 23, 2010
Although I've heard of Zane Grey all my life (five-plus decades), I'd never read him -- a bit surprising, given my love of horses, western- and wilderness-based stories, and clean adventure and romance. I guess I'd been put off by the covers or the reputation, and expected manly gunslinger tales.
What I got in this book was a woman's coming-of-age story through the cultural conflicts of city vs. country, including much social-class prejudice. Technically, Lucy was too old to qualify as a "coming of age" heroine, though the idea was the same. Her personality and point of view were transformed by living among and working with mountain people. That she ended up falling in love with one arose logically from this experience.
Yes, there were horses and some gun slinging, but these too were a natural part of the story and its characters. A big player was the setting -- which, I gather, Grey is known for. He lovingly and realistically describes it without bogging down the story, and it influences the character and fate of everyone who lives within it.
Oddly, he never places it solidly on the map; and not once did the word "Tonto" cross the pages even though the rim itself was a dominant part of the setting. I haven't decided yet whether these omissions cheat the reader or are a subtle and classy element of style. Either way, they're the only aspect of the book that distracted me.
Although the book was quiet in tone, it was nonetheless a page-turner for me. I read the large-print version, and its jacket blurb hinted at an outcome contrary to what I wanted for the characters. So I read with bated breath, dreading the turnabout hinted at and an unhappy ending. Grey maintained the suspense until very close to the end, then tidily wrapped things up. As a reader who hates tragedy, I appreciated this resolution. Then promptly went to the library and took out another title from the packed Zane Grey shelf.
What I got in this book was a woman's coming-of-age story through the cultural conflicts of city vs. country, including much social-class prejudice. Technically, Lucy was too old to qualify as a "coming of age" heroine, though the idea was the same. Her personality and point of view were transformed by living among and working with mountain people. That she ended up falling in love with one arose logically from this experience.
Yes, there were horses and some gun slinging, but these too were a natural part of the story and its characters. A big player was the setting -- which, I gather, Grey is known for. He lovingly and realistically describes it without bogging down the story, and it influences the character and fate of everyone who lives within it.
Oddly, he never places it solidly on the map; and not once did the word "Tonto" cross the pages even though the rim itself was a dominant part of the setting. I haven't decided yet whether these omissions cheat the reader or are a subtle and classy element of style. Either way, they're the only aspect of the book that distracted me.
Although the book was quiet in tone, it was nonetheless a page-turner for me. I read the large-print version, and its jacket blurb hinted at an outcome contrary to what I wanted for the characters. So I read with bated breath, dreading the turnabout hinted at and an unhappy ending. Grey maintained the suspense until very close to the end, then tidily wrapped things up. As a reader who hates tragedy, I appreciated this resolution. Then promptly went to the library and took out another title from the packed Zane Grey shelf.
December 15, 2020
O.K., it is a book about Lucy Watson, a welfare worker who comes from a city and is assigned to an uncivilized community in the middle of a mountainous region of the Southwest. Remember, Grey died in 1934 and the basic description of the book left me uninterested. When, I picked it up, I was fascinated. I am a descendant of Appalachians and related with the uncivilized people with whom she went to live with under the Tonto rim. It was a good glimpse of life in uncivilized America at the beginning of the 20th century. I could not put it down and finished it in one night and part of a day. If you are interested in this time period and life before, I strongly recommend this book.
February 12, 2020
Such beautiful language and setting
August 31, 2025
I've gone through Zane Grey phases a couple of times, and this paperback has probably been on my to be read pile for thirty years or more.
It's very hard for me not to judge this through the lens of time. It has some beautiful writing, and as always Grey's strength lies in his ability to describe the natural world.
Some of the main themes:
- Lucy, a city girl, goes to the mountain to educate the poor and uneducated who live in the backwoods. This includes practical things, like installing a pulley to make it easier to get water to the house, but also questionable things that could be seen as just different, not worse than life in the city.
- The "wild bee-hunter" who attracts Lucy is seen as coarse. He literally forces Lucy to go to a dance with him, after she turns him down. He manfully picks her up and throws her on a horse. Is the reader supposed to find that attractive in a man? (I do not.) Even worse, there is a party to go harvest some honey and Edd arranges things so those less experienced than him get swarmed and stung many times by the bees. Really? Is the reader supposed to find that - an amusing anecdote? (I do not.) I'm sure, even 100 years ago, that people were allergic to bees.
- Lucy's sister Clara is a bad woman. She fell in love with a bad man and ran off with him, then had a child out of wedlock. When she finds a new man, Joe, in the mountains, Lucy "nobly" takes it on herself to claim the child so that Clara's new marriage doesn't end. Lucy by now has fallen in love with Edd, and she sacrifices her own future love with him. Give me a break.
- But guess what? It's all okay, because both Edd and Joe forgive both girls for having/claiming to have had a child out of wedlock. Clara is compelled to confess, and she and Joe happily go off to retrieve her child from the city. (And Lucy goes out to be healed and calmed by the wilderness, the only thing I actually bought into.)
So, it's a novel of its time (1925), it's beautifully written and easy to read, and it is definitely not a favorite of mine. Off it goes to the free shelf at the public library.
It's very hard for me not to judge this through the lens of time. It has some beautiful writing, and as always Grey's strength lies in his ability to describe the natural world.
Some of the main themes:
- Lucy, a city girl, goes to the mountain to educate the poor and uneducated who live in the backwoods. This includes practical things, like installing a pulley to make it easier to get water to the house, but also questionable things that could be seen as just different, not worse than life in the city.
- The "wild bee-hunter" who attracts Lucy is seen as coarse. He literally forces Lucy to go to a dance with him, after she turns him down. He manfully picks her up and throws her on a horse. Is the reader supposed to find that attractive in a man? (I do not.) Even worse, there is a party to go harvest some honey and Edd arranges things so those less experienced than him get swarmed and stung many times by the bees. Really? Is the reader supposed to find that - an amusing anecdote? (I do not.) I'm sure, even 100 years ago, that people were allergic to bees.
- Lucy's sister Clara is a bad woman. She fell in love with a bad man and ran off with him, then had a child out of wedlock. When she finds a new man, Joe, in the mountains, Lucy "nobly" takes it on herself to claim the child so that Clara's new marriage doesn't end. Lucy by now has fallen in love with Edd, and she sacrifices her own future love with him. Give me a break.
- But guess what? It's all okay, because both Edd and Joe forgive both girls for having/claiming to have had a child out of wedlock. Clara is compelled to confess, and she and Joe happily go off to retrieve her child from the city. (And Lucy goes out to be healed and calmed by the wilderness, the only thing I actually bought into.)
So, it's a novel of its time (1925), it's beautifully written and easy to read, and it is definitely not a favorite of mine. Off it goes to the free shelf at the public library.
December 27, 2025
Lucy Weston, a young girl from a bad homelife and a small city, takes a job as welfare worker for the poor and deprived backwoods families of the Tonto Rim Valley. She teaches them sanitation and hygiene; they teach her about life, wild-bee hunting, and love. But the arrival of her younger sister, hiding a terrible secret, threatens peace and the chance of happiness for Lucy and the man she's come to love.
"Life is a good deal like bee huntin'. You get stung a lot. But the honey is only the sweeter..."
Zane Grey sure loved his depictions of the tenderfoot city kid learning to love the incredible vistas of the West and the "fine, brave, clean" people there, no matter how uncouth and crude they first appear. His argument is always that the educated city slicker has a lot to learn from the backwoodsman, who is closer to nature and thus to God, and less of value to teach -- I'm not sure of any specific changes Lucy brought, other than a pulley system for the spring! Would've liked more focus on her work and her interactions with the other women but Zane Grey truly did not care. Great chapters on bee-hunting and only one fight scene, unusual for Grey...
"Life is a good deal like bee huntin'. You get stung a lot. But the honey is only the sweeter..."
Zane Grey sure loved his depictions of the tenderfoot city kid learning to love the incredible vistas of the West and the "fine, brave, clean" people there, no matter how uncouth and crude they first appear. His argument is always that the educated city slicker has a lot to learn from the backwoodsman, who is closer to nature and thus to God, and less of value to teach -- I'm not sure of any specific changes Lucy brought, other than a pulley system for the spring! Would've liked more focus on her work and her interactions with the other women but Zane Grey truly did not care. Great chapters on bee-hunting and only one fight scene, unusual for Grey...
December 9, 2019
Two loving sisters from uptown find love and acceptance
In the backwoods, along with peace, tranquility, and harmony. Problems of yesteryear are resolved, life partners are chosen and there is peace in the valley.
In the backwoods, along with peace, tranquility, and harmony. Problems of yesteryear are resolved, life partners are chosen and there is peace in the valley.
August 26, 2024
A romance story, glorifying the power of nature and love.
Set entirely in the lush woods in South West of America,
My complete review: https://klasikfanda.blogspot.com/2024...
Set entirely in the lush woods in South West of America,
My complete review: https://klasikfanda.blogspot.com/2024...
September 3, 2025
Man, I loved this book!! I just bought it because it waa a Zane Grey book, and I enjoyed the three other books I have read from him. But this story felt unexpected. So much feeling!! Gorgeous decriptiveness! I don't think I could have enjoyed any book right now, as I did this one.
October 9, 2025
Grey is remembered as one of the, if not the, greatest western writers. This is not that. This is about a school teacher who becomes the welfare instructor to a group of backwoods hillbillies. It’s good. It’s just nothing amazing.
February 2, 2019
Fabulous book/ <3
May 18, 2020
This is a very old physical book, 1926 is the publishing date and a very good example of the genre and writing style that made Zane Grey synonymous with western/cowboy stories.
May 23, 2021
Somewhat slow and always didactic but really heats up in the end
Well worthwhile for the Zane fan
A nice teaching of bee hunting
Always good descriptions of the wild back countries
Well worthwhile for the Zane fan
A nice teaching of bee hunting
Always good descriptions of the wild back countries
October 16, 2021
Another fantastic read by Zane Grey
April 7, 2023
I didn't expect such a hilarious love book from a Western author.
September 28, 2023
Extremely wordy and predictable.
January 6, 2024
Good read
Read
February 15, 2024this is one of the books I keep to reread every few years, so I know the story. It goes back on my shelf for next time.
November 12, 2024
One of my first reads as a kid. I enjoyed it very much.
July 20, 2025
Un poco los dark romance de la época pero bien escrito y con descripciones bellísimas
Read
July 22, 2025A great change of pace. Kind of Christy meets Mrs Mike. A very enjoyable book.
October 30, 2025
A Zane Grey Romance. A young school teacher is sent to the back woods of 1900 Arizona to help the isolated homesteaders upgrade conditions. Enter the big, unruly Bee Hunter.
Nice tale
Nice tale
February 18, 2009
This is one of my all-time favorite novels.
September 10, 2009
Finally a Zane Grey that I loved reading. Predictable? Yeah, but still really enjoyed it!
Read
October 30, 2009Southwest
March 26, 2014
'Zane Grey can hook you on page one and keep you there until the very end which you often do not want to happen.
May 20, 2013
Love the stories of that show how people might have lived at different times and places. This is a great book to do that.
August 17, 2016
Zane Grey is known for his descriptions of western scenery; he also knows how people tick. A great story ... the last chapter is a "tear jerker" but all works out well.
January 17, 2017
it was a decent read, with some truly fun and funny parts, but it was also a bit heavy on internal dialog and thoughts.
Displaying 1 - 29 of 29 reviews