mythic Western films, as good as many of them are.nThe result of all this crankiness in me has been a numbernof novels that are about as far removed from the typicalnWestern as possible. In one, Winter Grass, the hero is anHarvard-schooled Boston Brahmin. In another, Sam Hook,nthere’s a venal sheriff too fat to ride a horse, so he covers hisncounty in a buggy. In Richard Lamb, the hero is a formernmountain man, now a trader to the Blackfeet, who’d been anclassics professor at Amherst. My new Pinnacle series. ThenRocky Mountain Company, will be the first, as far as Inknow, to deal with the early buffalo robe trade. In my novelnDodging Red Cloud, the heroine is a clever con artist whonmatches wits with a rascal. In yet another, the hero is anfarmer who’s clawed a fortune in gold out of a Montanangulch, only to lose it to road agents. Is he stoic? No, he fallsnto the ground, weeping. But ultimately he, and the othernprotagonists, discover things more important than gold.nThat one was Fool’s Coach, which won the Spur Award fornBest Western Novel in 1989, and I believe its unusualnending had something to do with that.nOne could scarcely imagine Western heroes, or situations,nfarther removed from the L’Amour approach. Andnyet they are succeeding, more or less. They are profitable,nthough they don’t capture large audiences. Maybe somedaynthey will: these books are being read by people whonotherwise don’t read Westerns, which means I’m expandingnthe category. I’ve written traditional stories too, mostnrecently one that reworks the Shane theme about the mannfamiliar with weapons who doesn’t wish to use them again.nBut the nontraditional story is my joy.nThe mythic Western is so far removed fromnthe reahty of the frontier that thenaficionados of the old West rarely readnpaperback fiction; instead, they buy historynand biography from the Universities ofnNebraska and Oklahoma presses.nAll of which suggests that it is possible to market Westernnstories that buck tradition. Some of the work of ElmernKelton and Will Henry lies outside the stock categorynapproach. Likewise, the Western stories of Doug Jones, BennCapps, and some of Jack Schaefer. (I am not in the samenleague as these men, but their work has inspired andninfluenced me.) There have always been Western authorsnwho have bucked tradition. But they tend to be thenexception, and I’m sure that most Western novels beingnpublished today adhere to the powerful conventions I’vendescribed above.nStill, change is in the air. It began, actually, with LarrynMcMurtry’s Pulitzer Prize-winning Western novelnLonesome Dove, back in 1985. That book is a watershed innWestern fiction. Mr. McMurtry was careful to point out thatnhis novel isn’t really a Western, and he was quite correctnabout that, even though the novel contains all the elementsn22/CHRONICLESnnnof a classic Western story, including an 1870’s cattle drive,nconflict with Indians, and cowboy lore. But the differencenbetween Lonesome Dove and a category Western is profoundnand instructive.nOne critically important distinction is that McMurtry’snstory is not about loner males in conflict, or justification ofnthe male self through strength. In Dove, bonding is thentheme. Some men, loosely bonded by ranching life in Texas,ngrow closer together on the long trail to Montana as theynendure hardships. They grieve the death of any of theirnnumber, and express their grief in funeral ritual of a sort thatnis absent from category Westerns, where bodies lie unburiednand unmourned. Friendships, loyalties, sacrifice, and lovenare profound elements in McMurtry’s story.nMcMurtry’s characters wrestie with metaphysics, rightnand wrong, good and evil, theology, and God — all elementsnthat don’t usually exist in traditional Westerns.nMcMurtry’s characters are therefore larger than conventionalnWestern heroes. After Gus McCrea dies, the twonwomen who loved him, Lorena and Glara, wonder wherenGus’s soul went, and what the experience of dying must benlike, and along with their questioning the story acquires angrace and aching intensity unmatched by traditional stories.nThere are no mythic heroes in Lonesome Dove. CaptainnCall and Gus McCrea are marvelously mortal, cranky,nidiosyncratic, opinionated, buUheaded, tender, foolish, andnwise. They make mistakes and are not so strong as tontriumph over all trouble. They are, nonetheless, courageous,nand empathetic as well. The women, Clara and Lorena, arenas bullheaded and uncertain and bewildered by life as thenmen. And both antagonists. Blue Duck and Jake Spoon, arenas complex as the protagonists.nTenderness is important in McMurtry’s story. One of thenbest scenes in both the book and TV miniseries involves anpicnic in which Gus and Clara rediscover each other afternyears of separation, enjoying their reunion even whilenremembering old lovers’ hurts. It was the first picnic I’venever seen in a Western story, after thirty-some years ofnreading them.nExcept for a beginning so slow that it will defeat thenimpatient reader. Lonesome Dove is a model of what can benaccomplished in a nontraditional Western story. Othersnworth studying are Will Henry’s I, Tom Horn, JacknSchaefer’s Monte Walsh, and Elmer Kelton’s The GoodnOld Boys. All of these transcend the realm of the categorynstory, can be considered literature, and are delightful,nrealistic expressions of frontier life.nI’ve been lucky enough to find publishers for mynnonmythic Westerns, but that doesn’t mean publishers arencomfortable with them. They are all packaged as traditionalnWesterns, no matter what the contents. My story RichardnLamb was about an old man who has become an Indianntrader after years as a mountain man. He has a flowing whitenbeard and hair, and wears beautiful golden buckskins,nelaborately fringed, and decorated by his Blackfeet wife. Henhas a white medicine horse. But on the cover of thenBallantine paperback, he has been transformed into ancowboy with a Levi jacket, jeans, boots and spurs, and ancowboy hat. The beard is there, but neatly trimmed down,nand the flowing hair is gone. He sits on a golden-colorednquarter horse. Another of my stories has a heroine who isn