Lost in the New West : reading the works of Williams, McCarthy, Proulx and McGuane

third-party websites referred to or in this book. All internet addresses given in this book were correct at the time of going to press. The author and publisher regret any inconvenience caused if addresses have changed or sites have ceased to exist, but can accept no responsibility for any such changes. Getting lost in the West is easy because it is always new and impossible to pinpoint on a map. Western historian Donald Worster confided in 'New West, True West' that even after years of studying scholarly work on the region 'I could not put my finger on the map and say, "There is the West" since that meaning of the word has become bewildering.' 1 Perhaps a map is not the best place to start: How do you find your way around a region that includes the Rocky Mountains, the Great Plains, the Pacific North West, the Arizona Desert, Alaska and Hawaii? But the notion of the West is more 'bewildering' than its geography. For Frederick Jackson Turner -the first great regional historian -'The Problem of the West' is we're never quite sure which West we are talking or writing about. Amy Hamilton reminds us that even when writers have sought consensus -such as the first issue of the flagship Western American Literature in 1966 -some argued that 'the word "West" does not describe a geographical entity so much as it names an idea [that] has something to do with the romantic ideal of America's destiny' whilst others pointed to 'a vast unsettled wilderness, a region, real or imaginary, "out there" in the mountains, forests, plains, and deserts'. 2 Ironically, both hedge even when establishing the parameters of West as geography or symbol: the first conceptual approach is immediately closed by an appeal to American destiny; the latter slips in an 'imaginary' to preface the 'out there'. 'Out there' or 'in here', it is this ambivalence that writers, particularly those under consideration in this study, have been grappling with, exposing and exploiting in their construction of the West in their work. Like the 'West', the concept of the 'New West' is problematic and has a long and troubling history. A despairing Charles Wilkinson warned in Introduction: 'Where's the All-American Cowboy At?' The question 'Where's the all-American Cowboy at?' is posed by Billy Parham right at the beginning of McCarthy's Cities of the Plain (p. 3). "Lost in the New West investigates a group of writers - John Williams, Cormac McCarthy, Annie Proulx and Thomas McGuane - who have sought to explore the tensions inherent to the Western, where the distinctions between old and new, myth and reality, authenticity and sentimentality are frequently blurred. Collectively these authors demonstrate a deep-seated attachment to the landscape, people and values of the West and offer a critical appraisal of the dialogue between the contemporary West and its legacy. Mark Asquith draws attention to the idealistic young men at the center of such works as Williams's Butcher's Crossing (1960), McCarthy's Blood Meridian (1985) and Border Trilogy, Proulx's Wyoming stories and McGuane's Deadrock novels. For each writer, these characters struggle to come to terms with the difference between the suspect mythology of the West that shapes their identity and the reality that surrounds them. They are, in short, lost in the new West"-- Provided by publisher Acknowledgements -- Introduction: 'Where's the All-American cowboy at?' -- 1. Butcher's Crossings lost vision: Williams's cowboy outsider -- 2. Lost between borders: McCarthy's vanishing cowboys -- 3. Lost in the hyperreal: Proulx's broken cowboys -- 4. Lost in the shadow of the crazies: McGuane's dislocated cowboys -- Conclusion: Where's the All-American cowboy going? -- Notes -- Bibliography -- Index. Cover Contents Acknowledgements Introduction: ‘Where’s the All-American Cowboy At?’ 1 Butcher’s Crossing’s Lost Vision: Williams’s Cowboy Outsider 2 Lost between Borders: McCarthy’s Vanishing Cowboys 3 Lost in the Hyperreal: Proulx’s Broken Cowboys 4 Lost in the Shadow of the Crazies: McGuane’s Dislocated Cowboys Conclusion: Where’s the All-American Cowboy Going? Bibliography Index