An old friend of mine and fellow author Russell Rowland is editing a cool anthology exploring the changing identity of the West. I was honored when Russ ask me to contribute an essay, especially since some of my literary heroes will be featured, including Jim Harrison, Rick Bass, Larry McMurtry, Barry Lopez, and Gretel Erlich. I can't wait to read it when it's released next year by the University of Texas Press.

My essay is called, "Blame It On Ranch Deluxe."

(Rancho Deluxe is a rather obscure movie from 1975 written by Thomas McGuane and is one of my favorites)

An excerpt from the essay:

"..The characters in the movie are from the west or of the west, but I noticed something right off that has stuck with me always: the only characters who spoke in “westernisms” (dropping the “g’s” off of words, using colorful and corny cowboy phrases like, “Let’s git down the road a piece to Ole Wyomin’”) was the ranch owner (John Brown) who’d sold his Eastern beauty parlor empire to retire on his new Montana spread, and Slim Pickens, who really was authentic and used his corny talk as a ruse. The other characters spoke clearly, without accent, in complete and brilliant sentences.

Unlike characters in so much fiction about the contemporary west (and certainly most movies), the characters in Rancho Deluxe were of the modern world, and accepted it, but still chose to live and celebrate the place. They weren’t trying to strike it rich and get out. They were comfortable in their own skin and they accepted and embraced the unique culture without a second thought.

And unlike cinematic or literary portrayals of the contemporary West (still, sadly, to this day) the characters didn’t grunt and spit and kick at the dirt jes’ tryin’ to find the right words to say, or speak in a slightly drawling Southern accent as if Georgia was in the next county. They talked like real people I knew: clear, literate, with a nod toward modernity and at least a dollop of wisdom.

The American Indian (Waterston) anti-hero in Rancho Deluxe didn’t speak woodenly without conjunctions or in that sappy romantic child-of-nature hogwash so often used by novelists or screenwriters. He talked like a real person: funny, down-to-earth, self-deprecating.

Say what you will about folks from Wyoming and Montana, but we don’t talk like rubes."

I'll send out a notice to readers when the anthology is available.