Under the Tonto Rim
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As a kid, I liked to read Westerns. Grey, L'Amour, Haycox, Brand, Leonard, Nye and others. A Western can be anything...Action, Romance, Mystery...But mostly they have the backbone of a morality play.
Many of the novels have been made into movies or tv programs. Many of them have strayed far from the original novel. Even when the novel had the material to make a good movie.
Under the Tonto Rim is one of Zane Grey's novels that has been filmed three times. All of them badly. None of the movies are worth watching.
Yet, the novel remains. I think it one of Grey's better works, along with Riders of the Purple Sage and Nevada (part of the Forlorn River books). It has characters that are a tad different than most Westerns, even those set in the 1910-1920 period. A wild bee hunter, a welfare worker, backwoods farmers and hunters, moonshiners, homesteaders, a fallen woman, and the usuals, such as saloon keepers and outlaws. The plot concerns a young woman born in a lower income family, who claws her way upwards and takes a job upon graduation as a social worker with the state, in one of the last wild areas of the West.
A city dweller, she learns to love the forests and the mountains of the Tonto Rim country, along with the pioneering inhabitants of the forest and their unique society.The book is public domain and despite being published a hundred years ago, is quite readable. If you like the genre, give it a try. And decide if it would make a good movie...
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Thanks for the recommendation. I dont think that I have ever read an US Western book before.
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@taiwan_girl said in Under the Tonto Rim:
Thanks for the recommendation. I dont think that I have ever read an US Western book before.
If you only going to read one Zane Grey, read the one that made him famous - Riders of the Purple Sage.
If you only read one Western, try Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry. If you want something shorter, try True Grit by Charles Portis.
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Grey. 1912.
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@Jolly said in Under the Tonto Rim:
If you only read one Western, try Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
I put on "hold" from the on-line library. Estimated wait is 26 weeks!!!
May have to buy it. LOL
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@taiwan_girl said in Under the Tonto Rim:
@Jolly said in Under the Tonto Rim:
If you only read one Western, try Lonesome Dove by Larry McMurtry.
I put on "hold" from the on-line library. Estimated wait is 26 weeks!!!
May have to buy it. LOL
$695, signed edition.
Want a used hardcover, unsigned? From $10 with free shipping (same web site).