The Bad Lands: A Novel

New
Illustrated
2016
$22.20

It's 1883 in Johnson County, in the old Dakota Territory a rugged, wide-open landscape of rolling, red earth, prairie, and cattle as far as the eye can see. But the land is closing, the Beef Bonanza is ending, and the free-range cattlemen are stuck watching a way of life disappear in a blaze of drought and gunfire. An action-packed western from one of the masters of the genre, Oakley Hall's The Bad Lands blends round-ups and rustlers, whorehouses and land grabs, shoot-outs and the threat of hangings in a tale of the war between the cowboys and the cattle barons. But more than this, it is an elegy to the wild beauty of the badlands before the ranchers moved in, chased off the free-rangers, the trappers, and the tribes, and fenced it all in.

Synopsis

It's 1883 in Johnson County, in the old Dakota Territory a rugged, wide-open landscape of rolling, red earth, prairie, and cattle as far as the eye can see. But the land is closing, the Beef Bonanza is ending, and the free-range cattlemen are stuck watching a way of life disappear in a blaze of drought and gunfire. An action-packed western from one of the masters of the genre, Oakley Hall's The Bad Lands blends round-ups and rustlers, whorehouses and land grabs, shoot-outs and the threat of hangings in a tale of the war between the cowboys and the cattle barons. But more than this, it is an elegy to the wild beauty of the badlands before the ranchers moved in, chased off the free-rangers, the trappers, and the tribes, and fenced it all in.

$22.20

Quantity

20+ in stock

More Information

Format: Illustrated
Pages: 376
Edition: Illustrated
Publisher: University of Chicago Press
Published: 10 Oct 2016
ISBN 10: 022641261X
ISBN 13: 9780226412610

Media Reviews

Readers unable to suppress an unfashionable yearning for a good story will be delighted with The Bad Lands. . . . The cast of whores, gunhands, buffalo hunters, and grizzled settlers is effectively put into play. . . . Hall has thrust his imagination into that time and that place, and has written quite a good book. --Larry McMurtry New York Times
Readers unable to suppress an unfashionable yearning for a good story will be delighted with The Bad Lands. . . . The cast of whores, gunhands, buffalo hunters, and grizzled settlers is effectively put into play. . . . Hall has thrust his imagination into that time and that place, and has written quite a good book. --Larry McMurtry New York Times

Author Bio

Oakley Hall (1920 2008) was a great novelist of the American West and beloved writing teacher of Michael Chabon and Richard Ford, among many others. He is the author of numerous books, including Warlock, The Coming of the Kid, Apaches, and Separations.