THE WESTERN IS DEAD?

 I remember the critics and reviewers posting articles in which the explained how society had moved ahead in the Twentieth Century and we were leaving the Western novel, stories of sharply defined right and wrong, in the paved-over dust of the modern prairie.

Life is interesting. I grew up reading Western novels, Louis L'Amour, others. Thirty years ago we were assured that the Western was dead. Elmore Leonard didn't agree and continued to produce noteworthy Western crime novels. Then along came Craig Johnson with his take on a Wyoming sheriff named Walt Longmire. Longmire is sheriff of a Wyoming county in the early Twenty-first Century. Johnson sold the books for a TV series which is available on various platforms. I recommend the books and the TV series.

And now I see Yellowstone a series growing in popularity and two more on the near horizon plus at least one feature film in production. The Western novel, a mainstay in early American literature is dead? I don't think so. Good stories, well-written will find audiences, and good stories well-conceived, produced, acted and authentic to their period will make good movies and good and popular television.