Where Have All the Westerns Gone?

I weed every day. Not outdoors in the yard or garden, but in the library, specifically Adult Fiction. We have a pretty small section of Westerns, as I suspect most libraries do these days. A very dedicated few are keeping that section going, checking out the same 20 or 30 titles over and over. Zane Grey and Louis L'Amour are mainstays with a few Elmer Kelton and Elmore Leonard titles thrown in, but otherwise the Western is dying a slow death.



Maybe you have to have been from an older generation to truly appreciate a Western novel or story. I've only read a handful of Westerns but I saw lots of Western movies as a kid. Maybe that's a generational thing, too. When I was a kid, Gunsmoke was nearing the end of its 20-year run on television. I watched it from time to time, but even as a kid, the show struck me as somewhat sanitized, a little too squeaky-clean for the Old West.



In sharp contrast were the Western movies. I grew up in the 60s and 70s, watching Clint Eastwood as The Man With No Name and some of the more non-traditional Westerns like High Plains Drifter, Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid and A Fistful of Dynamite. I didn't even know about the earlier tradition of classic Westerns like Stagecoach, She Wore a Yellow Ribbon, My Darling Clementine, The Searchers and tons of others.

So I suppose I came to the table after most of the good cards had been dealt. Later I understood the attraction (and sometimes, even, the genius) of the American Western film, even though I largely ignored Western Fiction. Maybe I should make it a point to check out one of those Louis L'Amour books and see what the fuss was all about. Before they're all gone.