Shane - by Jack Schaefer (Paperback)

About the Book

In Shane, Schaefer executes a perfect Western narrative while exploring the overarching themes of virtue, the human condition, and a man's search for self.

Book Synopsis

In this true Western classic, Jack Schaefer tells the story of a mysterious stranger who finds himself in the Wyoming Territory, joining local homesteaders in their fight to keep their land and avoid the intimidating tactics of cattle driver Luke Fletcher. While trying to leave his gunslinging days behind him, the mysterious stranger, Shane, is tested by Fletcher and his men. In Shane, Schaefer executes a perfect Western narrative while exploring the overarching themes of virtue, the human condition, and a man's search for self.

Shane was Schaefer's first novel, originally published in three installments in the pulp magazine Argosy as "The Rider from Nowhere," and remains a giant in the landscape of Western fiction. The now well-worn trope of the reluctant gunslinger saw its apotheosis in this narrative of a peace-seeking man pushed back into the fray, witnessed through the eyes of a young boy--the perfect narrator for a larger-than-life story of cowboys, land barons, ranch hands, and homesteaders that infleunced generations of filmmakers and novelists, and still rings true today.

Review Quotes

"A real superiority here, narrative and literary."-- "Kirkus Reviews"

"The author has created a tale that captivates the reader's attention from beginning to end. His skill in depicting a character, a situation, or a mood, with a minimum of words, gives the story a tightly woven quality. . . . The book almost demands completion in one sitting."-- "Library Journal"

About the Author

Jack Schaefer was a journalist and writer known for his authentic and memorable characters set in the American West. Schaefer received the Western Literature Association's Distinguished Achievement Award in 1975 and the Saddleman Award in 1986 from the Western Writers of America. His popular Western novels include Shane (1949) and Monte Walsh (1963).

Robert Nott is the author of The Films of Randolph Scott; Last of the Cowboy Heroes: The Westerns of Randolph Scott, Joel McCrea, and Audie Murphy; and The Films of Budd Boetticher. He is also the coauthor, with Max Evans, of Goin' Crazy with Sam Peckinpah and All Our Friends (UNM Press). He has been a reporter for the Santa Fe New Mexican for the last twenty-five years.