OLIVER LAFARGE'S _Laughing Boy_ (1929) grew out of the
author's ethnological knowledge of the Navajo Indians. He
achieves character.
TOM LEA'S _The Brave Bulls_ (1949) has, although it is a
sublimation of the Mexican bullfighting world, Death and Fear
of Death for its dominant theme. It may be compared in theme
with Stephen Crane's _The Red Badge of Courage_. It is written
with the utmost of economy, and is beautiful in its power.
_The Wonderful Country_ (1952), a historical novel of the
frontier, but emphatically not a "Western," recognizes more
complexities of society. Its economy and directness parallel
the style of Tom Lea's drawings and paintings, with which both
books are illustrated
_Sundown_, by John Joseph Mathews (1934), goes more profoundly
than _Laughing Boy_ into the soul of a young Indian (an Osage)
and his people. Its translation of the "long,
long thoughts" of the boy and then of "shades of the prison
house" closing down upon him is superb writing. The "shades of
the prison house" come from oil, with all of the world's
coarse thumbs that go with oil.
GEORGE SESSIONS PERRY'S _Hold Autumn in Your Hand_ (1941)
incarnates a Texas farm hand too poor "to flag a gut-wagon,"
but with the good nature, dignity, and independence of the
earth itself.
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