Book Review: Galloway by Louis L'amour

 So I needed to read a book from the 1970's  for a reading challenge. 

This is indeed the first time that my library has sort of let me down.  My friend and I decided we wanted to read some of the old Harlequin romances from that era, just to compare them to contemporary ones. 

Did I find anything from that era in the library?  No.  No I did not. 

I did find several Classics  of good literature written in 1970, but I really didn't any of the more "popular" style literature, except for... Louis L'Amour. 

So I thought, Cowboy romance has been kind of a favorite of mine, so I might enjoy Louis L'Amour.  

As a kid, my Dad made fun of this writer quite a bit and so I of course shunned him, but here we are, its a new era and a new day, AND I needed to finish my January reading challenge.  It turns out Libraries don't really preserve this type of pop fiction, and of course there are space concerns and no one really wants to read what used to be contemporary fiction that often. 

   SO I read Galloway. 

I didn't really like it.  I did enjoy L'Amour's folksy writing style as it was kind of easy to read and enjoyable. 

Galloway tells the tale of two brothers who head West to start up some cattle ranching, but somehow along the way, one is captured by Native Americans, and just manages to escape with no clothing whatsoever.  Through his wits, he somehow steals an Elk kill from some wolves, wisely shares some of the kill with the wolves, and then proceeds to make multiple pairs of moccasin type shoes which he can magically make overnight.  Eventually he comes upon a town, and makes his way back to his brother.  There they encounter the Dunns who are hell bent on running them out of town as they want to have a cattle empire. The Dunns and Sackitt's battle it out a bit and of course Galloway and his brother come out on top.  L'Amour does employ a cool literary  device where the wolf continues to appear here and there throughout the novel, and in the end saves the brother's life. 

    I am unsure why I disliked this so much.  In part it might have been because I HAD TO FIND A BOOK FROM THAT ERA.  It also may be that it was a book from the middle of the series.

So my foray into Louis L'Amour is now definitely over. Nothing particularly wrong, but also nothing particularly compelling to keep me interested in going back.  

Read at your own discretion! 

 STATS

First Published : 1970

Pages: 176

Available as an Audio Book : YES  (~ 5HRS) 

Trigger Warnings: violence, poor representation of Native American persons  (not a complete list- be responsible!)