From among his numerous publications, award-winning author Max Evans has selected his personal favorites. The more than thirty pieces include short novels, essays, short stories, introductions to other works, and magazine articles spanning several genres and most of his writing career. Through them all runs a common thread: the understanding of and love Evans has for the West and its peoples, and his ability to convey that understanding with humor and compassion. Included works: Short novels Xavier's Folly One Eyed Sky The Wild One Old Bum My Pardner Essays "Sam Peckinpah: A Very Personal Remembrance" "King John" "Long John Dunn" "Dinner with Frank Waters" "Riding the Outside Circle in Hollywood" "Many Deaths, Many Lives" "Song of the West" Short Stories "The Ultimate Giver" "Blizzard" "Don't Kill My Dog" "The Far Cry" "The Wooden Cove" "The Third Grade Reunion" "Sky of Gold" "A Man Who Never Missed" "Big Shad's Bridge" "The Call" Introductions and Forewords "Patricino Barela" "Some Sweet Day" "The Hi Lo Country" "Final Harvest and other Convictions and Opinions" "Rounders 3" Magazine Articles "The Cowboy and the Professor" "A Horse to Brag About" "Showdown at Hollywood Park" "The Wild Bunch" "The World's Strangest Creature" "Super Bull
Legendary western author Max Evans has spent his entire life working with cows and horses. These rangeland animals, and other creatures both domestic and wild, play pivotal roles in his stories. This magnificent collection, beautifully illustrated by cowboy artist Keith Walters, showcases twenty-six animal tales penned by Evans during his long and celebrated career. Both fiction and nonfiction, the stories in this collection get us inside the heads and hearts of numerous four-legged critters—dogs, horses, burros, goats, cattle, deer, coyotes, and more. “The Old One,” for example, shows us the world through the eyes of a prairie dog as she watches her latest litter of pups rolling and tumbling around the mound and thinks of all the things she will need to teach them. And in “The One-Eyed Sky,” an aging cow with a new calf and an old coyote with a litter to feed circle each other warily, trying to protect their young, until a rancher intervenes. Not one to shy away from difficult subjects, Evans also delves into the “animal nature” of human beings, as in “The Heart of the Matter,” where two Vietnam vets and friends kill a deer and then turn their rifles on each other. These captivating tales display Evans’s trademark mix of raucous humor and vivid, poetic descriptions of the high plains of West Texas and his beloved Hi-Lo Country in northeastern New Mexico. He reminds his readers of simpler times and more honorable people even as he evokes the merciless environment in which his characters, both animal and human, struggle to survive.
Two very close life-long friends graduate from the School of Mines and are immediately caught up in the great uranium boom of the 1950s that was centered on Grants, New Mexico. The boom changed the state--and the world--now and forever, and it changes the two young mining engineers. T.C. Young's closest friend, Ray Morris, is tormented by T.C.'s deep love for Julie Goodman who shares with T.C. a love of Anasazi ruins, art galleries, and the mountain streams of Taos. The shining adventures of that mighty historical period turn into a deadly love triangle of murderous thoughts and actions, and the perpetual reincarnation of love, which reach a climax in a mountain cabin and a nearby ancient tunnel inhabited by mysterious mystical powers that jeopardize the lives of all. Max Evans's most recent books are Hot Biscuits, coedited with Candy Moulton, and Madam Millie, both available from UNM Press. He resides in Albuquerque, New Mexico.
This is the story of the friendship between two men, their mutual love for one woman, and their bone-deep allegiance to the harsh, dry New Mexican land. Pete hells around with his closest friend Big Boy Matson. Together they drink, gamble, fight, rodeo and both fall in love with an attractive and dangerous married woman.
At its heart, The Hi Lo Country is the story of the friendship between two men, their mutual love of a woman, and their allegiance to the harsh, dry, achingly beautiful New Mexico high-desert grassland. The story is told by Pete, a young ranch hand, whose best friend is Big Boy Matson. Together they drink, gamble, fight, work, and rodeo. They both fall hard for a married woman—the attractive, bored, and dangerous Mona. When it was first published in 1961, the novel was both a celebration and an elegy. It captured something jagged and authentic in the West, and it caught the attention of Hollywood—notably Sam Peckinpah, who spent twenty years trying to make a movie of this multilayered and plainspoken novel. It would take another twenty years for Martin Scorsese and Stephen Frears to finally do it. Now in a special 60th anniversary edition, The Hi Lo Country continues to tell a quintessential story of the people and the land found in the American West.
In his eighty-plus years, Max Evans has known, owned, ridden, and been thrown by quite a number of horses. In For the Love of a Horse, Evans shares his favorite horse stories for all to enjoy. As Max explains, "I wanted a wide range of adventures from another time, with different horses, of different breeds, and a sense of history of those special days." Max begins with his first horse, Cricket, which he received when he was four years old. At the age of ten, he helped with a horse-drive from far southeast New Mexico, through west Texas, and on to the final destination in Guymon, Oklahoma. Later, PDQ was a horse that seemed very gentle and laid-back, until someone rode him. And then there was Molly, who liked to fly through and around obstacles on coyote hunts. This book is for all those who enjoy reading horse stories as much as Max loves telling them. Saddle up! "The recognition is long overdue. (Max Evans is) sui generis. He understands the present West better than anyone else, what it's like to be there now living in two worlds of the pickup truck and the bronco."--Charles Champlin, former Denver bureau chief of Time and retired arts editor of The Los Angeles Times, quoted in The New York Times
The northeastern quadrant of New Mexico, with a slice of Colorado, Oklahoma, and West Texas, is the area Max Evans has dubbed the Hi Lo Country. He bought a ranch there when he was seventeen, he painted it as a young artist, and has used the land as the setting for most of his well-known writings. His novels The Rounders and The Hi Lo Country were made into Hollywood movies. Jan Haley is also from the heart of Hi Lo Country, where she has documented in her photography the vanishing homesteads and ranches in this region anchored by four mountains: Eagle Tail, Sierra Grande, Capulin, and Rabbit Ears. Her pictures of the spectacular landscapes of northeast New Mexico will enthrall not just fans of Max Evans but anyone who wants to see the True West that still exists within a day's drive of the big cities that are now the population centers of the country. The Max Evans text written specifically for this book is in his unmatched storytelling style and full of entertaining anecdotes. His writing is rich in heartfelt emotion and, coupled with Haley's photos, is a tribute to a neglected part of the world we can now treasure forever. "Jan Haley's photographs show a place where the people were so tough the Depression felt right at home, and it never left. The rusting 1950 purple Hudson still sits on blocks where the owner left it, imagining shiny renovation someday. . . . Winds so strong, it seemed the outhouse blew over, and is still horizontal. . . . And many an old ranchhouse . . . lean[s] abandoned in the wind."--Richard Benke, Associated Press reporter and author of The Ghost Ocean (UNM Press)
First published in 1999, Faraway Blue is based on the real-life exploits of Sergeant Moses Williams, former slave, Civil War veteran, and Buffalo Soldier in the Ninth Cavalry Regiment. Included in Moses's story are four women and two men representing the ethnic groups and economic levels found in the late 1800s American Southwest. At the story's opening, Williams's cavalry unit has one assignment: kill Apaches in the "faraway blue" mountains of southwestern New Mexico Territory, also known as the Black Range. As a fighter in the white man's campaign to obliterate the Indians and take over their lands, Williams finds a nemesis in Nana, an old Warm Springs Apache warrior who is a tactical genius. Nana leads his small band of followers to repeatedly strike area mining camps and settlements. Both men know they must meet before the end of the war and a maddening cat-and-mouse pursuit ensues. ; Williams is sustained by his love for Sheela Jones, a mulatto whom he wants to marry when the army will allow it. But Sheela's love for him guides her to take an immense risk just as Williams and Nana ride out to settle their score. "Evans paints marvelous word pictures of a land and people he knows extremely well." - Booklist "As always with Evans, written with a good sense of the times and place." - Kirkus
The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.
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Where's Pops?" is a short story collection about Dads-the good, the bad, and the rest in-between. Regardless of where these men land on the spectrum of fatherhood, they each face challenges that every parent can relate to-relationship tests, financial hardships, and cooking dinner on time. Max Evans is currently donating proceeds to the Most Valuable Pops Award, a scholarship fund he created for a deserving father at Compton College where he teaches. www.WheresPop.com
Escape to Butterfly Ave is coming-of-age dramedy highlights a skateboarder-turned-father striving to maintain a bond with his teething infant during the Covid pandemic. Throughout this fateful weekend, challenges ramp for Al, inlcuding a brawl against his drug-dealing neighbor to a fish fry showdown with his baby's momma's momma--the infamous, Miss Jackson. Will he witness the bloom of his daugther from another jail cel, or will he slide past the drama? Even if he must skateboard through the streets of Long Beach, California, with his daughter in tow, nothing will shut down his hustle for his daughter. Not even a worldwide pandemic.
Part Taos Indian and part Italian, Bluefeather Fellini walked in two worlds, with occasional direction from an enigmatic spirit guide. His search for life's greatest gifts takes the reader from the mines of the American Southwest to the trenches of World War II Europe in this magical, savage and passionate novel.
Almost as famous for the legendary excesses of his personal life as for his films, Sam Peckinpah (1925–1984) cemented his reputation as one of the great American directors with movies such as The Wild Bunch and Pat Garrett and Billy the Kid. Max Evans, one of Peckinpah’s best friends, experienced the director’s mercurial character and personal demons firsthand. In this enthralling memoir we follow Evans and Peckinpah through conversations in bars, family gatherings, binges on drugs and alcohol, struggles with film producers and executives, and Peckinpah’s abusive behavior—sometimes directed at Evans himself. Evans’s stories—most previously unpublished—provide a uniquely intimate look at Peckinpah, their famous friends (including Lee Marvin, Brian Keith, Joel McCrea, and James Coburn), and the business of Hollywood in the 1960s and 1970s.
First published in 1960, The Rounders, a best-selling western novel, inspired a movie and television series. This edition collects all three of the author's classic rounders tales, the title story, The Great Wedding, and The Orange County Cowboys, accompanied by bandw pencil drawings by cowboy artist Grem Lee. Stories are peppered with ridin', drinkin', lovin', and humor. No index. Annotation copyrighted by Book News, Inc., Portland, OR
Mildred Clark Cusey was a whore, a madam, an entrepreneur, and above all, a survivor. The story of Silver City Millie, as she referred to herself, is the story of one woman's personal tragedies and triumphs as an orphan, a Harvey Girl waitress on the Santa Fe railroad, a prostitute with innumerable paramours, and a highly successful bordello businesswoman. Millie broke the mold in so many ways, and yet her life's story of survival was not unlike that of thousands of women who went West only to find that their most valuable assets were their physical beauty and their personality. Petite at five feet tall with piercing blue eyes, Millie captured men's attention by her very essence and her unmistakable joie de vivre. Born to Italian immigrant parents near Kansas City, she and her sister were orphaned early and separated from each other. Millie learned hard lessons on the streets, but she never gave up and she vowed to protect and support her ailing older sister. Caught in a domestic squabble in her foster home, Millie wound up in juvenile court with Harry Truman as her judge. This would be only the first of many brushes in her life with prominent politicians. When physicians diagnosed her sister with tuberculosis and recommended she move West to a Catholic home in Deming, New Mexico, Millie moved with her. Expenses ran high and after a brief stint waiting tables as a Harvey Girl, Millie found that her meager tips could easily be augmented by turning tricks. Thus, out of financial need and devotion to her sister, Mildred Cusey turned to a life of prostitution and a career at which she soon excelled and became both rich and famous.
Part Taos Indian and part Italian, Bluefeather Fellini walked in two worlds, with occasional direction from an enigmatic spirit guide. His search for life's greatest gifts takes the reader from the mines of the American Southwest to the trenches of World War II Europe in this magical, savage and passionate novel.
Accompanied by a deceitful cowboy who teaches him some ingenious methods of survival, a twelve-year-old Texas boy drives his father's horses to Oklahoma in the 1930's.
In "The Hi Lo Country," two best friends work side-by-side as rugged cowpunchers until they fall in love with the same woman, while in "Bobby Jack Smith You Dirty Coward!" a power-hungry cowboy studies the Napoleonic art of taking over the world. Original.
A new edition of the classic novel of post-WWII cowboys ranching in the Ho Lo country of north eastern New Mexico. The death of Evan's best friend, Big Boy Hittson by his brother who filled him with five .38 slugs, inspired him to write The Hi Lo Country. The story centers on a tumultuous and tangled love triangle, unrequited love, and adultery. It laments the coming of the pick up truck replacing horses and big ranching squeezing out independent outfits. Full of drama as well as the humor and wild stories of characters living in the Hi Lo country. The book was made into a major motion picture in 1998 starring Woody Harrelson, Penolpe Cruz in her first major American film, and Billy Crudup.
Striking photos and personal, experiential stories lure park rookies and obsessives alike to the rustic charm of America’s National Park lodges. Max Humphrey shines a light on 10 rustic National Park lodges in all their airy, timeworn splendor. No historic photos here; the images of the architecture and interiors are as they look today, highlighting these storied places in a fresh, alluring way. Sure, the lobbies are the main stage, but Humphrey touches on grand dining rooms, guest rooms, and rustic canteens alike. He writes about the buildings themselves in terms of the historical goings-on at the time, why they were built, and the players involved, highlighting notable architectural moments and period-specific furnishings. A smattering of pop culture history adds extra bursts of levity throughout. Lodges and national parks included: The Ahwahnee, Yosemite National Park, California Crater Lake Lodge, Crater Lake National Park, Oregon Curry Village, Yosemite National Park, California El Tovar, Grand Canyon National Park, Arizona Lake McDonald lodge, Glacier National Park, Montana Lake Quinault Lodge, Olympic National Park, Washington The Oasis, Death Valley NP, California Old Faithful Inn, Yellowstone National Park, Wyoming Paradise Inn, Mount Rainier National Park, Washington Zion Lodge, Zion National Park, Utah
In recent years, more people are calling for an independent, values-based foreign policy – and parties of all political stripes are looking for new ideas to achieve that. Edited by Nina Hall, this book brings together a diverse group of New Zealanders to outline their visions for New Zealand’s role in the world. It sparks a conversation about how we can exercise leadership and influence in the international arena.
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