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Louis L'Amour: His Life and Trials: An Unauthorized Biography
Some very light spine creasing and light edge wear. Roller stamp on top edge. Age discoloring, but tight and no other marks. Shps very quickly and packaged carefully!
Mass Market Paperback
Published January 1, 1989
About the author
Robert S. Phillips
45 books8 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the Goodreads database.
American poet, author and editor, usually publishes under the name Robert Phillips.
Robert S. Phillips was born 1938 in Milford, Delaware and is the author or editor of some 30 volumes of poetry, fiction, criticism, and belles lettres and publishes in numerous journals. A graduate of Syracuse University's creative writing program, he is currently (May 2007) a professor of English at the University of Houston; he was also director of the Creative Writing Program there from 1991 to 1996. His honors include a 1996 Enron Teaching Excellence Award, a Pushcart Prize, an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a New York State Council on the Arts CAPS Grant in Poetry, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships, a National Public Radio Syndicated Fiction Project Award, a Syracuse University Arents Pioneer Medal, and Texas Institute of Letters membership. In 1998 he was named a John and Rebecca Moore Scholar at the University of Houston.
[Portions of biographical sketch taken from Mr. Phillips' faculty home page at the University of Houston, http://www.uh.edu/cwp/faculty/phillip..., retrieved 11 May 2007.]
Source
American poet, author and editor, usually publishes under the name Robert Phillips.
Robert S. Phillips was born 1938 in Milford, Delaware and is the author or editor of some 30 volumes of poetry, fiction, criticism, and belles lettres and publishes in numerous journals. A graduate of Syracuse University's creative writing program, he is currently (May 2007) a professor of English at the University of Houston; he was also director of the Creative Writing Program there from 1991 to 1996. His honors include a 1996 Enron Teaching Excellence Award, a Pushcart Prize, an American Academy and Institute of Arts and Letters Award in Literature, a New York State Council on the Arts CAPS Grant in Poetry, MacDowell Colony and Yaddo Fellowships, a National Public Radio Syndicated Fiction Project Award, a Syracuse University Arents Pioneer Medal, and Texas Institute of Letters membership. In 1998 he was named a John and Rebecca Moore Scholar at the University of Houston.
[Portions of biographical sketch taken from Mr. Phillips' faculty home page at the University of Houston, http://www.uh.edu/cwp/faculty/phillip..., retrieved 11 May 2007.]
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Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews
April 22, 2018
Not gripping but very thorough and easy to read. Also offers evenhanded literary criticism.
December 23, 2019
A mediocre biography of L’Amour that nevertheless contains interesting information about the novelists’ childhood, “yondering” days, family, and publishing career. L’Amour’s memoir Education of a Wandering Man is a much better and more entertaining book, though necessarily less objective. I hope someone will write a full scale, detailed, critical biography of L’Amour in the future.
March 26, 2012
Unfortunately not a very informative book. Most of the content can be gleaned from reading book jackets and L'Amour's books. The only "new" thing I learned was that he died in 1988 of lung cancer - a fact you could find today on Wikipedia.
July 7, 2020
A very uninspiring book about an incredibly inspiring man. Almost no original research done, so you don’t learn much more than what you pick up from L’Amour’s books themselves. Disappointing.
September 22, 2023
Not a huge Louis L’Amour fan (I’ve read The Haunted Mesa and that may be it), but I enjoyed this book. Not sure why L’Amour rejected his doctor’s theory that his lung cancer was related to his mining work. Silicosis can be caused by coal mining, but it can also be caused by any mining where you’re dealing with silica dust – meaning any mining where the rock has quartz in it. And the Monte Cristo Mountains of Nevada, where L’Amour worked as a miner, have a lot of quartz in them.
But I wonder if that isn’t typical of L’Amour. For all his research, he has some curious blind spots. For example, he apparently believed cowboys were such profound fans of Sir Walter Scott that they had embraced Scott's ideas of chivalry, once saying, "It's hard to believe that a decent woman could ride anywhere in the West, entirely alone and be unmolested and safe. Rape was almost unknown."
Uh, no, not quite. Women probably didn’t worry about it as much then as they do now, but rape was definitely a possibility that most adult women were well aware of when they found themselves alone and unprotected. I think L’Amour fell for the same evidence that had most male historians thinking the Civil War was "surprisingly low-rape" for decades, an idea that has been thoroughly disproved. Victorians didn't talk frankly about rape, using euphemisms, and rape was rarely prosecuted, partly because a “proper woman” ought to have fought to the death, and the very fact she was alive claiming rape put her own virtue in question. Women captured and raped by Indians were regularly shunned by friends, family and husbands if they managed to find a way back.
There’s also the fact that “cowboy” was originally a term applied to men who were considered rustlers and rowdies, and we have letters and diaries into the 1880s with women terrified they’d be raped when they discovered their companion in the stage coach (or whatever) was a cowboy!
L'Amour was a high school drop out, and I love his reasoning here: "When I was asked by other kids about dropping out, I tell them they should drop out only if they have read from fifty to one hundred non-fiction books per year for three years, for fun." That's a legitimate argument, I think. If someone will do considerable research and reading on their own, school is much less necessary than it is for someone who doesn't read for fun.
But while I generally enjoyed L’Amour in this book, even when I disagreed with him, and while the book is very readable, I have some issues with the author. L’Amour worked hard not to talk down to his audience – this author right regularly tells the reader what to think, as in this passage:
[L'Amour] never stopped working. "People ask me how I can do so much, and I wonder why I have done so little." This is either extreme modesty or disingenuousness.
Me, I think L'Amour felt that way because he was comparing his productivity to what he wanted to have gotten done, or comparing projects finished to projects begun. Meaning that comment is neither "extreme modesty" nor "disingenuousness" -- at worst, it's an indication that L’Amour set his sights unreasonably high. Not to say that the author’s interpretation is necessarily wrong, but as the reader I am perfectly comfortable with believing L’Amour’s statement is just a reflection of his own ambitions and his frustration over the projects he hasn't finished yet. And I definitely don’t need this author telling me what I should think!
I also don’t like that this author tries to make L’Amour look the more “authentic” writer by dissing Zane Grey for having been “a dentist in New York City” – ignoring the fact that Grey’s works were set in the east until he’d spent years in the west; the fact that Grey had Navajo friends; the fact that Grey often set his stories in places where he’d spent considerable time, etc. etc. L’Amour seemingly had issues with resenting critics and those who dismissed his novels as “westerns” rather than taking them seriously as historical novels, while this author seems determined to convince the reader that he recognizes L’Amour’s flaws, while at the same time trying to say that L’Amour’s accuracy and other aspects of his best story telling justify loving the guy’s works (or some of them) anyhow.
But, while I get cranky about the presentation sometimes, this remains a highly readable book, and an interesting study of an interesting character. I just prefer biographies where the author seems to be observing along with me, maybe dropping a comment here or there that tells me what they think. I don't have problems with authors trying to convince me of this or that using reason and evidence, whether I agree with them or not, but I never appreciate people just flat telling me what to think, especially when their claims make me think they either lack imagination or are weirdly defensive about something.
But I wonder if that isn’t typical of L’Amour. For all his research, he has some curious blind spots. For example, he apparently believed cowboys were such profound fans of Sir Walter Scott that they had embraced Scott's ideas of chivalry, once saying, "It's hard to believe that a decent woman could ride anywhere in the West, entirely alone and be unmolested and safe. Rape was almost unknown."
Uh, no, not quite. Women probably didn’t worry about it as much then as they do now, but rape was definitely a possibility that most adult women were well aware of when they found themselves alone and unprotected. I think L’Amour fell for the same evidence that had most male historians thinking the Civil War was "surprisingly low-rape" for decades, an idea that has been thoroughly disproved. Victorians didn't talk frankly about rape, using euphemisms, and rape was rarely prosecuted, partly because a “proper woman” ought to have fought to the death, and the very fact she was alive claiming rape put her own virtue in question. Women captured and raped by Indians were regularly shunned by friends, family and husbands if they managed to find a way back.
There’s also the fact that “cowboy” was originally a term applied to men who were considered rustlers and rowdies, and we have letters and diaries into the 1880s with women terrified they’d be raped when they discovered their companion in the stage coach (or whatever) was a cowboy!
L'Amour was a high school drop out, and I love his reasoning here: "When I was asked by other kids about dropping out, I tell them they should drop out only if they have read from fifty to one hundred non-fiction books per year for three years, for fun." That's a legitimate argument, I think. If someone will do considerable research and reading on their own, school is much less necessary than it is for someone who doesn't read for fun.
But while I generally enjoyed L’Amour in this book, even when I disagreed with him, and while the book is very readable, I have some issues with the author. L’Amour worked hard not to talk down to his audience – this author right regularly tells the reader what to think, as in this passage:
[L'Amour] never stopped working. "People ask me how I can do so much, and I wonder why I have done so little." This is either extreme modesty or disingenuousness.
Me, I think L'Amour felt that way because he was comparing his productivity to what he wanted to have gotten done, or comparing projects finished to projects begun. Meaning that comment is neither "extreme modesty" nor "disingenuousness" -- at worst, it's an indication that L’Amour set his sights unreasonably high. Not to say that the author’s interpretation is necessarily wrong, but as the reader I am perfectly comfortable with believing L’Amour’s statement is just a reflection of his own ambitions and his frustration over the projects he hasn't finished yet. And I definitely don’t need this author telling me what I should think!
I also don’t like that this author tries to make L’Amour look the more “authentic” writer by dissing Zane Grey for having been “a dentist in New York City” – ignoring the fact that Grey’s works were set in the east until he’d spent years in the west; the fact that Grey had Navajo friends; the fact that Grey often set his stories in places where he’d spent considerable time, etc. etc. L’Amour seemingly had issues with resenting critics and those who dismissed his novels as “westerns” rather than taking them seriously as historical novels, while this author seems determined to convince the reader that he recognizes L’Amour’s flaws, while at the same time trying to say that L’Amour’s accuracy and other aspects of his best story telling justify loving the guy’s works (or some of them) anyhow.
But, while I get cranky about the presentation sometimes, this remains a highly readable book, and an interesting study of an interesting character. I just prefer biographies where the author seems to be observing along with me, maybe dropping a comment here or there that tells me what they think. I don't have problems with authors trying to convince me of this or that using reason and evidence, whether I agree with them or not, but I never appreciate people just flat telling me what to think, especially when their claims make me think they either lack imagination or are weirdly defensive about something.
January 2, 2024
I learned several new things from this book, which surprised me. Cowpuncher is another term for cowboy. L'Amour actually wrote historical fiction, which means he tried to add a lot of historical facts to his "westerns." I will need to read them to verify this. As a writer, I was intrigued by other details, like his daily word count and other things that authors don't usually mention. I suppose he burned a lot of bridges with the writing community, and that might not be why I have heard or seen much about him in that regard. He was popular enough that you see his books a lot without hearing much about him from the writing community. I have heard them talk of Hemingway, Faulkner, etc., but they must only be focusing on prose. Louis definitely forced the issue of "if you tell a good story, you don't need all the fancy writing things like grammar and what-not." I don't think I can get away with that, nor would I want to. That isn't my writing style. However, it does seem like it is possible for some writers to tell a good enough story and have a large enough audience while thumbing their nose at the grammar police.
February 19, 2022
The life of Louis L’Amour is definitely like reading the adventures within his many books. The author compares him throughout to characters Louis L’Amour created and uses quotes from his writings.
September 14, 2025
Glad to learn more about L'Amour's life. Writing not the best and many misplaced commas made for distracted reading.
February 20, 2017
Quick Easy Read. Good Reads has it wrong. The subtitle should read His Life and Trails. Not Trials.
August 9, 2016
This book takes more time exploring the writing of my favorite author, rather than the life that he led. I thought L'Amour's Education of a Wandering Man did a better job of laying out the details of his life. There are several instances throughout the book where the author repeated himself within its 211 pages.
June 18, 2022
An OK biography of L'Amour that contains some interesting facts on his life and writing. It was not one of the better biographies I have read, but if you are a L'Amour fan, you will probably enjoy it.
May 11, 2008
Phillips pays tribute to L'Amour whose love of nature, home and hearth was a constant in his fiction and his life.
December 23, 2008
You know I like a writer when I start reading biographies of them. Louis L'Amour is one of my favorites and this is a pretty good book about him.
Displaying 1 - 13 of 13 reviews