True West

Austin, working on his Hollywood screenplay, is disturbed by the arrival of his estranged brother, Lee, just returned from three months in the desert. During a brief spell of uneasy cohabitation in their absent mother's house, Lee employs himself as a door-to-door burglar before killing his brother's film idea by pitching his own to Austin's producer. But Lee is no writer and the brothers must strike a deal, escalating sibling rivalry to fever pitch in the blazing Californian heat. Sam Shephard's True West was first performed at the Magic Theatre, San Francisco, in 1980 and has since become recognised as an American classic.

In no other region of the United States has the notion of authenticity played such an important yet elusive role as it has in the West. Though pervasive in literature,øpopular culture, and history, assumptions about western authenticity have not received adequate critical attention. Given the ongoing economic and social transformations in this vast region, the persistent nostalgia and desire for the ?real? authentic West suggest regional and national identities at odds with themselves. True West explores the concept of authenticity as it is used to invent, test, advertise, and read the West. The fifteen essays collected here apply contemporary critical and cultural theory to western literary history, Native American literature and identities, the visual West, and the imagining of place. Ranging geographically from the Canadian Prairies to Buena Park?s Entertainment Corridor in Southern California, and chronologically from early tourist narratives to contemporary environmental writing, True West challenges many assumptions we make about western writing and opens the door to an important new chapter in western literary history and cultural criticism.

Western Australia, 1988. After betraying the Knights bikie gang, 17-year-old Lee Southern flees to the city with nothing left to lose. Working as a rogue tow truck driver in Perth, he is captured by right-wing extremists whose combination of seduction and blackmail keeps him on the wrong side of the law and under their control.As the true nature of what is driving his captors unfolds, Lee becomes an unwilling participant in a breathtakingly ambitious plot &– and a cold-blooded crime that will show just how much he, and everyone else, still has to lose.A noir crime novel, True West is full of white-knuckle suspense perfect for readers who like thrilling, gritty fiction.PRAISE FOR THE BOOK&‘ But for all of Whish-Wilson' s skill with impactful action and white-knuckle suspense, True West ultimately reveals itself as a complex morality tale about the tenacious spread of prejudice.' Books+Publishing&‘ This is compelling, thrilling, and still feels like it could be played out today ...' Readings

Text and illustrations look at some of the unsung heroes of the American West including Buffalo soldiers, Mexican cowboys, Chinese railroad workers, and more.

Return with us to yesteryear, when cowboys were cowboys and gunslingers lurked around every corner. Today that colorful period continues to resonate in the collective imagination of red-blooded Americans everywhere--and now we have True West, which illustrates, in hundreds of full-color illustrations, how America's mass media stamped that vision so indelibly on our collective unconscious over the past century, into today. Boasting hundreds of rare and colorful movie posters, pulp magazines, television memorabilia, advertisements, paperback books, record album jackets, toys, and clothing, True West covers such hugely popular television series as Gunsmoke, The Lone Ranger, and Bonanza, along with classic Western novels, including Shane, The Searchers, Welcome to Hard Times and that epic of all epics, Lonesome Dove. True West bows to the icons who ruled the silver screen--Tom Mix, Gene Autry, Roy Rogers, John Wayne, and Clint Eastwood, to name a few, while offering up such indelible movie triumphs as Red River, The Searchers, Hud, The Wild Bunch, and Unforgiven. It also showcases the great Western comic books and comic strips--Colt, Red Ryder, Straight Arrow, and Jonah Hex--along with all those nifty toys and other ephemera that helped link kids to celluloid heroes like Hopalong Cassidy, Roy and Dale, and the ubiquitous Gene Autry. And what would the Wild West be without an accompanying soundtrack? True West reproduces the sublime album covers and sheet music that served up classic odes like "Streets of Laredo" and "Cool Water," narrative ballads like "El Paso" (with Marty Robbins bedecked in his black gunfighter togs on the cover!), and "High Noon."

Based on a true story, this edition of Devil's Knot will tie-in to a major motion picture starring Academy Award winners Reese Witherspoon and Colin Firth. This riveting portrait of a small Arkansas town recounts the all-too-true story of a brutal triple murder and the eighteen-year imprisonment of three innocent teenagers. For weeks in 1993, after the grisly murders of three eight-year-old boys, police in West Memphis, Arkansas, seemed stumped. Then suddenly, detectives charged three teenagers - alleged members of a satanic cult - with the killings. Despite the witch-hunt atmosphere of the trials and a case that included stunning investigative blunders, the teenagers, who became known as the West Memphis Three, were convicted. Jurors sentenced Jason Baldwin and Jessie Misskelley to life in prison and Damien Echols, the accused ringleader, to death. The guilty verdicts were popular in their home state - even upheld on appeal - and all three remained in prison until their unprecedented release in August 2011. In Devil's Knot, award-winning investigative journalist Mara Leveritt presents the most comprehensive, insightful reporting ever done on this story - one of the greatest miscarriages of justice in American legal history. In-depth research, meticulous reconstruction of the investigation and close-up views of its key participants unravel the many tangled knots of this endlessly shocking case.

The legend of Doc Holliday is now well past a century old. While his time on earth was brief, troubled and filled with pain, his legend took wings and flew. Beginning with his part in the now famous gunfight at the O.K. Corral, Denver newspapers first told his story in the late 19th century. They, followed by words of Wyatt Earp, grasped the glimmer of his tale. So enamored was the public that by 1939 he was a literary icon and his character had appeared in eight films. Historians, authors, screenwriters and eventually television refined the legend, which reached its apex perhaps with the 1993 film Tombstone. Doc Holliday's image has neither dimmed nor wavered in the 21st century. Broadway, country music and art join with literature and film to continue his mystique as the personification of a surviving legend of the U.S. West.

For 65 years, True West magazine has inspired travelers to take the road less traveled and explore the historic sites and towns of the American West. Now, in honor of its 65th anniversary, the publishers of True West have compiled the essential Old West guidebook, which takes the traveler to where Old West history happened in 22 Western states.