Best Western Novel

Annie Proulx's Close Range: Wyoming Stories, published in 1999, is a short story collection rather than a novel. Set primarily in rural Wyoming, it portrays ranchers, cowhands, and isolated communities whose options are shaped by hard conditions and social expectations. The stories give the modern W...

Norwegian-American author Ole Edvart Rølvaag's Giants in the Earth follows Norwegian immigrants settling the Dakota prairie in the 1870s. Its two original Norwegian volumes appeared in 1924 and 1925, with an English translation published in 1927. The settlers face harsh winters and the work of estab...

In Kent Haruf's 1999 novel Plainsong, the fictional farming town of Holt, Colorado, becomes the meeting point for lives that initially seem separate. A high school teacher and his family, a pregnant teenager, and two elderly bachelor farmers face difficulties that draw them into unexpected relations...

Wallace Stegner's 1943 semi-autobiographical novel The Big Rock Candy Mountain follows the Mason family through the western United States and Canada in the early twentieth century. Bo Mason pursues wealth and a better life, repeatedly moving his wife Elsa and their sons in search of opportunity. Eac...

Published in 1935, Honey in the Horn was H. L. Davis's debut novel and received the Pulitzer Prize for the Novel in 1936, the award category now known as Fiction. Set in early-twentieth-century Oregon, it moves through a rural world inhabited by drifters, settlers, and ranchers. The story's attentio...

Published in 1927, Willa Cather's Death Comes for the Archbishop follows Bishop Jean Marie Latour and his fellow French missionary, Father Joseph Vaillant, in nineteenth-century New Mexico. Their work establishing and administering the Catholic Church brings them into contact with communities whose...

Frederick Manfred's 1954 novel Lord Grizzly turns the story of frontiersman Hugh Glass into a fictionalized account of survival in the American West. After a grizzly bear mauling in 1823, Glass is abandoned by companions who believe he cannot survive. His struggle to return through the wilderness, d...

Larry Watson's Montana 1948, published by Milkweed Editions in 1993, is a novella set in the fictional town of Bentrock, Montana. David Hayden narrates his memories of the summer when his father, the local sheriff, confronted allegations of sexual assault against David's uncle Frank. Frank's standin...

My Antonia is a Western novel by Willa Cather chronicling the life of Antonia Shimerda, a Czech immigrant woman in Nebraska during the early 20th century. The story details her struggles and triumphs on the prairie alongside her family and neighbors. It offers a poignant look at pioneer life and the...

Eventide is a literary novel by Kent Haruf published in 2004, set in the fictional farming community of Holt, Colorado. As a sequel to his earlier novel Plainsong, the book revisits several established characters, including the elderly McPheron brothers and their adopted daughter, Victoria. The narr...

Ivan Doig’s *Dancing at the Rascal Fair* portrays life among Scottish homesteaders establishing a new existence in Montana during the late nineteenth century. The novel offers a detailed and poignant look at their struggles and triumphs as they adapt to the harsh environment and build communities. I...

Wizard and Glass (1997) is the fourth novel in Stephen King's Dark Tower series, blending fantasy, horror, and western elements. Much of the book is a flashback in which gunslinger Roland Deschain recounts his youth in the barony of Mejis, his first love for Susan Delgado, and the betrayal that set...

Track of the Cat is a 1949 Western novel by Walter Van Tilburg Clark, set on an isolated ranch in the Nevada mountains during winter. The story follows three brothers who hunt a legendary black mountain lion, a pursuit that acts as a catalyst for intense family conflicts. As the hunt progresses, the...

The Time It Never Rained by Elmer Kelton portrays the profound impact of a prolonged drought on a Texas ranching family during the early 1970s. Set against the backdrop of the 1950s, the novel realistically depicts the hardships faced by farmers and ranchers struggling with water scarcity and econom...

"Doc" is a historical fiction novel written by Mary Doria Russell and published in 2011. The book provides a biographical depiction of the American Old West figure Doc Holliday, specifically focusing on his life as a dentist and gambler in Dodge City, Kansas, during the late 1870s. It explores his c...

Peder Victorious is a 1929 novel written by Norwegian-American author Ole Edvart Rølvaag. As the second book in a trilogy, it continues the narrative of a Norwegian immigrant family in southeastern Dakota Territory, following their son Peder. The story explores themes of cultural assimilation, relig...

English Creek is a 1984 novel by Ivan Doig and the first published volume of his Montana trilogy, followed by Dancing at the Rascal Fair and Ride with Me, Mariah Montana. Set in 1939, it is narrated by Jick McCaskill, a fourteen-year-old growing up in a ranching community along the Rocky Mountain Fr...

"Paso Por Aqui" is a 1927 western novella written by Eugene Manlove Rhodes, often regarded as a masterwork of the genre. Set in the New Mexico Territory, the story centers on a group of outlaws who seek refuge in an isolated ranch during a smallpox epidemic. The narrative subverts standard western t...

O Pioneers! is a 1913 novel by American writer Willa Cather and the first volume of her Great Plains trilogy. Set in rural Nebraska, it follows Alexandra Bergson, the daughter of Swedish immigrants, as she assumes control of the family farm and turns difficult prairie land into a productive enterpri...

"Epitaph" is a 2015 historical novel by American author Mary Doria Russell. It is a sequel to her 2011 novel "Doc" and continues the story of the Earp and Clanton families in Tombstone, Arizona, during the early 1880s. The novel covers the events leading to the Gunfight at the O.K. Corral on October...

"These Thousand Hills" is a 1956 novel by A.B. Guthrie Jr., the third installment in his sequence of Western novels following "The Big Sky" (1947) and "The Way West" (1952), the latter of which won the Pulitzer Prize for Fiction. The novel follows Lat Evans, a young man from Missouri who travels wes...

E.L. Doctorow's 1960 debut novel, a revisionist dark western set in the Dakota Territory that subverts frontier mythology; adapted into a 1967 film with Henry Fonda.

The Friendly Persuasion is a 1945 novel by Jessamyn West structured as a sequence of interconnected short stories. The narrative follows the Birdwell family, a group of Quakers living in rural Indiana during the American Civil War. The stories explore the tension between their pacifist religious bel...

Enemy Women is a historical fiction novel written by Paulette Jiles and published in 2002. The story is set in the Ozark region of Missouri during the American Civil War, focusing on the chaotic guerrilla warfare between Union militia and Confederate bushwhackers. The protagonist is Adair Colley, an...

The Day the Cowboys Quit is a 1971 historical Western novel by Texas author Elmer Kelton, based on the actual 1883 cowboy strike that occurred along the Canadian River in the Texas Panhandle. The novel depicts the labor conflict that arose when cowboys on several ranches organized to protest against...

A Lantern in Her Hand is a novel by Bess Streeter Aldrich first published in 1928. It follows Abbie Deal, a pioneer woman who settles with her family in the Nebraska Territory, tracing her life from the 1850s through the early twentieth century as she sacrifices personal artistic ambitions for the d...

"Long Remember" is a historical novel written by MacKinlay Kantor and published in 1934. The narrative provides a detailed depiction of the three-day Battle of Gettysburg during the American Civil War. Unique for its time, the story prominently features the perspective of civilian townspeople living...

Monte Walsh is a Western novel written by Jack Schaefer and published in 1963. The narrative follows the life of its eponymous protagonist, a skilled cowboy, as he navigates the transition from the open-range era of the 1870s to the industrialized early 20th century. The book explores the challenges...

"Desperadoes" is a historical fiction novel written by Ron Hansen and published in 1979. The book provides a fictionalized account of the Dalton Gang, a group of outlaw brothers who robbed trains and banks in Kansas and Oklahoma during the early 1890s. The narrative is largely told from the perspect...