two men with very different agendas push their endurance beyond all faith and hope to find a little girl captured by the Comanche.

So ends my yearly Western read.

3 stars-- for initiating a really good discussion on perception brilliantly.* It felt like a lot of older books do though, like [b:Random Harvest|413618|Random Harvest|James Hilton|https://images.gr-assets.com/books/1358758527s/413618.jpg|6860]. A good amount of the time nothing really happened. It was a lot of vignettes, strung together to make an experience. I wish it was shorter and easier to teach in schools.

Having grown up loving the film, through no one's fault but my own, I was naturally heart-broken at certain points of the story, and pleased with others. * I think, perhaps, that the film holds up better than the book.** But, again, I make that statement because I saw the film first and I projected it onto the text. But it was hard to escape the stark tension in the film.


*That belt buckle, though!?! And that final chapter!?!
** in everything but the racism. See previous *. ( )

Gritty western about the search for a Comanche captive ( )

I have loved the film for years now and wasn't disappointed by the book. Like a good story's it was richer in detail and more in depth character development than film. Recommend if you love Westerns. ( )

This is the classic novel on which the classic John Wayne novel is based. Amos Edwards and Martin Pauley as the two searchers were known in the novel bury the Edwards family after a Comanche raid but Debbie and her sister are missing. They follow the raiders' trail finding Laurie dead but Debbie is still missing. For more than six years the two men follow leads and rumours but always come up short. Eventually they do find where she is and Amos intends to kill her while Martin wants bring her home. Differing from the film, Amos is killed and Martin rescues Debbie although she is afraid to return to the white man's world.

While it is a novel, Le May passes on much about being a pioneer family in Texas after the War. He also gives many details about the many Native tribes in the southwest.

This edition of the novel comes with a special introduction by Harry Carey, Jr, who was a member of John Ford's stock company and had a role in the film version. He passes on many anecdotes about working with Wayne and Ford. ( )