Zane Grey

Starred review from December 1, 2005
Since most Americans associate the name Zane Grey with cheap paperback Westerns in a revolving metal rack behind the Coke machine at the local stationery store, this fascinating new biography (the first since Frank Gruber's 1970 "Zane Grey") is guaranteed to open some eyes. Pauly (English, Univ. of Delaware) has an admirably complete grasp of the various facets of his subject, e.g., Grey's connection to the nascent film industry, his consuming hunger for ever larger and swifter ships, the nature of his novels, and why they filled such an American need. Grey's childhood (in Zanesville, OH, where else?) was central. His stern, hard-working father, Lewis, was fast supplanted as a role model by poorhouse inhabitant Muddy Miser, who played a real-life Nigger Jim to the dashing but confused teenager. Enrolled in Penn State's dental school but playing semi-pro baseball, Zane was soon (and until the end of his days) embroiled in affairs of the heart and groin with the first of the numerous women who sometimes simultaneously played such a gigantic role in his life that they're part of this book's title. By age 30, he was a practicing dentist and an aspiring novelist whose trips west finally inspired him to try his hand at the then-unknown genre of Western. By the 1920s, he was the most popular writer in the country, regardless of literary critics' perpetual sniping. This absorbing biography is highly recommended for all collections." -Charles C. Nash, Cottey Coll., Nevada, MO"

Copyright 2005 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

November 15, 2005
These days, if readers know Zane Grey at all, they generally know him as the guy who wrote clunky but very popular paperback westerns. But eight decades ago or so, Grey, a former baseball player and dentist who turned to writing at the ripe old age of 30, was the hugely popular author of a string of best-sellers. This is the first full-length biography of him to appear since 1970, and according to Pauly, it's the first comprehensive account aimed at recording the facts. (Earlier efforts were aimed at creating a legend.) Grey was a man of many interests, an unabashed womanizer, a world traveler, and a champion of the American wilderness and the men and women who tamed the Old West. Pauly explores all facets of the novelist while avoiding devoting too much time to mining the man's novels for nuggets of his life. Grey's personal passions informed his novels, but his books were not mere fictionalized bits and pieces of his life. He was a man who stood apart from his work, and Pauly brings that man robustly to life.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2005, American Library Association.)