rev. of The Best of the West #4 an anthology edited by James and Denise Thomas

The West is a place of myth, legend, and genre. "Call it a geography of the heart -- a geological survey of western literary imagination," write the editors. The stories in this collection were chosen not necessarily because they are from and about the region, but because they follow a tradition in theme and setting, stretching from Brett Harte and Willa Cather to William Kittredge and Ron Hansen.

Readers looking for Louis L'Amour, or traces of Zane Grey and other writers of hack fiction, should look elsewhere. These are stories not from pulp or entertainment magazines for male readers, but rather from
The Seattle Review, Grand Street, Threepenny Review, Antioch Review, Prairie Schooner, and other literary magazines, and writers Rudolpho Anaya, Robert Day, Joy Harjo, and Ron Tanner are not the familiar ones. These are absorbing, crafted fictions about relationships, set in desert towns, high in the mountains where people have fled the cities to live in unmarked country, surrounded by oil fields and cowboys and trailer camps, where hunting is not a sport but puts food on the table.

As with any anthology, the quality of writing varies, some selections stretching their applicability to the West, but there are several exceptional stories, such as "The Flood" by Joy Harjo, a Native American allegory which in substance and setting are fitting and poetic. Similarly, "A Guide to Small Airports" by Peter LaSalle depends very much on a sense of place, with vivid descriptions of men and women in the West. Its landscapes are coupled with insights into a family relationship that struggles against the mind of a young man who flies a single-engine plane and smuggles drugs. Other stories, too, for instance those by the underrated Gladys Swan, Rick Bass, and Ken Smith, make this collection a welcome addition to the anthologies of American fiction which appear each year.