Book Review

Maverick Heart: The Further Adventures of Zane Grey. By Stephen J. May. (Athens: Ohio University Press, 2000. xxv + 267 pp. Illustrations, appendix, notes. $29.95, cloth; $16.95, paper.)

Bret Harte and Zane Grey "opened" the West to vast numbers of readers. Grey became famous in 1910 when The Heritage of the Desert (New York, 1910) appeared. From the start, the academy ignored writing that had its roots in the Dime Novels; the public could not get enough of Grey. He had money to travel when and where he wanted--emulating the "strenuous life" ideal of Theodore Roosevelt, his great hero. His work ethic kept him writing--and for years following his death in 1939, novels appeared that he had completed but had held back. In the 1870s, years before Grey, Harte was the highest paid writer in America. He knew and received encouragement from the lions of the day. Unlike Grey, he squandered his fame, family, and friendships, his health, and assuredly his talent. Writing did not come easily to him. Though living in Europe (mostly in England) for the last twenty years of his life, he relied on the formulas of his early California writing. Turning to the platform, he emulated Twain but he lacked Twain's talent. Neither his literary nor personal journey is inspiring.	1
The titles of these biographies invite contemplation of the "westernness" of their subjects. Harte and Grey both warranted chapters in Fifty Western Writers (Westport, CT, 1982). In A Literary History of the American West (Fort Worth, 1987), Harte would seem the more significant western writer: although not one of the writers granted a chapter of his own, he gets top billing in the chapter "Bret Harte, Mark Twain, and the San Francisco Circle." A reader wanting an assessment of Grey's place in the history must seek the index.	2
However badly Harte's career ended, he has not been forgotten. In the first half of the twentieth century, high school students typically found a Harte story in their textbooks. His stories still appear in college anthologies. Grey, on the other hand, does not make it into anthologies. Yet his fame is assuredly greater than Harte's. His place in "popular" literature has been lofty and assured by a vigorous paperback market. And his position may rise. May suggests that there are undiscovered dimensions of Grey for contemporary readers to appreciate, and he argues that the short stories have been unjustly neglected.	3
Scharnhorst does not argue that Harte has been misjudged by critics or the public. Rather, he seeks to provide a reliable record of a life that--at least on the fringes--was "western."	4
Neither title is satisfactory, though May's is more apt. Scharnhorst, who has edited Selected Letters of Bret Harte (Norman, 1997) and has written a critical study on Harte, provides an authoritative record of Harte's life that should serve the needs of scholars for a long time. But Scharnhorst's subtitle and chapter titles prime one for the "idea" of the American West. The West was Harte's best subject, but he had little inclination or wish to probe "westernness." He had little idea of America, either, although he mined "the slag heap" of western local color in his lectures. Because his writing earned him little money, he sought a position in the diplomatic corps and in 1878 departed for Europe. His story became more Jamesian than western. He left a wife and four children on this side of the ocean--where he wanted to keep them and mostly did. In Europe, he dressed the dandy, sought the famous, and eventually found a rich patron. The last sentence of Scharnhorst's epilogue has a fine ring: "No less than the calculating gamblers and schemers who people his best stories, he deserves our respect if he does not inspire our affection" (p. 234). Mark Twain would argue the point, and so, I think, would most of Scharnhorst's readers.	. . .