All four of the beloved and acclaimed westerns by David Wagoner, unforgettable novels that the Philadelphia Inquirer says prove that he is the “closest nowadays approximation of Mark Twain himself.”
THE ROAD TO MANY A WONDER
“One of the wildest, funniest, and most memorable trips ever dreamed up by a novelist. Wagoner is a master story-teller.” Chicago Tribune
It’s 1859, and twenty-year-old Ike Bender, eager to escape the yoke of his brutal father, runs away from his family’s hard-scrabble Nebraska farm with dreams of making his fortune in the gold-rush country around Pike’s Peak, where his older brother Kit has already fled. Ike sets out alone, armed with only his home-made wheelbarrow, a side of bacon, an old pick-ax, a few dollars, and the love of plucky, head-strong teenager Millicent Slaughter to sustain his dangerous, 500-mile journey.
“A masterpiece of first-person, vernacular narrative. It’s a joy to read.” Philadelphia Inquirer
WHERE IS MY WANDERING BOY TONIGHT?
“Mark Twain had a way of describing life that let you taste it and laugh at it simultaneously. It isn’t a gift that shows up very often among writers, but it’s here again in David Wagoner’s tale. He writes with wit and sparkle,” Courier-Post
Seventeen-year-old Andrew Jackson Holcomb suddenly finds himself part owner of a bank and whorehouse in 1890s Wyoming when his father, a crooked judge, skips town to avoid a scandal. But that’s only the beginning his troubles. Soon Andrew and his best friend Fred, the preacher’s son, take a crash course in “cowboying” from colorful cowpoke Greasy Brown and hit the trail for Indian Territory and into a wild, bawdy adventure for the ages.
“Almost every line is worth quoting… a good piece of entertainment, sly, witty, and true.” New York Times
TRACKER
“Wagoner transmutes this heist into pure sunshine with his alchemical story-telling. What follows has as many surprises as the spines on a cactus. An impeccable mingling of pace and humor.” New York Times
Eli is a harmonica-playing teenager working in a livery stable in Sheepshank, Colorado in 1889 when he witnesses the town’s bank explode in a shower of coins and a gang of robbers make their getaway with $30,000 in gold bullion. He recognizes the desperados…and offers to share their identities with Tracker Byrd if the half-breed Indian expert at reading trails will take him on as his apprentice. Byrd agrees, they join the town’s whiskey-drinking posse, and their wild adventure begins.
WHOLE HOG
“Wagoner has a winning way with a yarn, a rhythm of speech that is quaint without being unintelligible and a true storyteller’s pace. His language, as usual, is delicious.” Minneapolis Star-Tribune
It’s 1852, and it’s twenty-two-year-old Zeke Hunt’s job is to herd his family’s 28, insatiable, scissorbill hogs from Missouri to California, where the Hunts hope to start a new life. But after his family is massacred, he’s forced to continue the perilous, wild, unpredictable journey across the Great Plains with what’s left of his scalp, his three remaining hogs, and Casper, an old whiskey salesman that he befriends along the way.
David Wagoner /
Anthologies, Western
