Riders of the Purple Sage

Before last night Zane Grey was only a name known to me through TV’s Zane Grey Theatre. I now learn that Pearl Zane Grey was a dentist who wrote nearly 200 western-style novels and died 10 years before I was born. Until I started this novel I had not suspected a Mormon connection or the State of Utah as a setting. My knowledge of what constitutes the West in American mythology is limited but I’m learning that it was a moving target as civilization and manifest destiny moved westward. It has just been in the last days that I learned that Mexican Immigration was an issue in Arizona in 1914. I suppose I shouldn’t be surprised as next to Texas it has the longest border and geography favours it as a crossing point. Driven out of Missouri at a time when the only good Mormon was considered a dead one the Brotherhood are here painted as being as intolerant of ‘Gentiles’ as the people who forced them to move west.

I’m finding this book a heavy read in spite of the fact that it’s under 150 pages. [Research shows the page count is out by 200 pages.] For one thing there are extended physical descriptions of the landscape and the people. As others have pointed out the dialogue is somewhat stilted and there seem to be long periods in which little seems to happen. Somehow a bit more economy of expression would have helped. Throwing the Mormons into the mix added nothing to the story which seems to be somewhat light on plot. The author really didn’t like Mormons!