Line of Fall by Miles Wilson

Abstract

Reviews 275 The dialogue continues in this superb collection of letters from his forma­ tive period, to the great benefit of students not only of Manfred’s work and of western literature, but of American culture in general. The letters span the period from his college years through his struggle with tuberculosis, his early loves and marriage, his development as a writer, to the appearance of his masterpiece, Lord Grizzly. In 1946, in a project initiated by Sinclair Lewis, Manfred began deposit­ ing his papers at the University of Minnesota, and in 1982, prompted by fears of nuclear destruction, he designated Augustana College, in Sioux Falls, South Dakota, as a repository for duplicate copies of many of his papers. The collec­ tion has grown to some three thousand letters, virtually all of which are open to research. For this collection, the editors, with Manfred’s invaluable assist­ ance, have selected 161 which seem best to document his personal and intel­ lectual development. Manfred’s correspondents run the gamut from family members and col­ lege friends to editors and prominent writers and critics like Mark Schorer, Robert Penn Warren, John Crowe Ransom, and Van Wyck Brooks. Only Manfred’sletters, of course, are included;giving the other side of the dialogues would present intimidating logistical and legal difficulties. Still, one glimpses only with tantalizing incompleteness what people like Brooks and Warren thought of Manfred and his books. And one wishes the editors had included much more personal detail on people like Manfred’s college chum John Huizenga, to whom some of the most introspective letters in the entire collec­ tion are directed. Insights such as those remain alone for those fortunate scholars whose research takes them to the Manfred manuscript collections and to Manfred himself. GARY TOPPING Utah State Historical Society Line of Fall. By Miles Wilson. (Iowa City: University of Iowa Press, 1989. 180 pages, $17.95.) Although westering most characteristically lends itself to epic accountings it also invites portrayal in shorter narratives. Whether in letter or diary, tale or short story the larger themes and myths of the West always color the action and characters and provide historical and geographical/geological backgrounding for both the author’s and the reader’s expectations. In Line of Fall Miles Wilson’ssundry short stories all fall decidedly in the direction of the modern West—whether that be the Southwest, the Mountain West, California, or the Pacific Northwest. And although the characters which 276 Western American Literature make the most common appearance are professors, writers, and U.S. Forest Service personnel, they are shadowed by older archetypal travelers headed west either to make a name or lose it, find or forget themselves:the drifter, the “prospector,” the worker, the runaway, the tourist, the explorer, the reporter, et al. In this respect what Wilson’snarratives prove is that the old West lives on in the new—and helps determine it. But it is not just this point—important as it may be—which makes Wilson’sstories socompelling;rather it ishis imagina­ tive and varied dramatizations of new and imagined Wests rising. “On Tour with Max” is a delightful variation of the familiar story of sidekicks on the trail of the good and the beautiful with luck and chance. Here the Quixote-like character, Max, is a has-been poet on the reading circuit and headed not for New York but for New Mexico Tech in Socorro. His Panza-like pal (and narrator) is an aspiring poet who needs the “networking.” Only Max’s ability to recite everyone’s poetry but his own saves them both from barroom brawlers. In “Wyoming” it is a benevolent hitchhiker, an Ariel-like lover, Abby from “Abora Wells,” whose mute encouragements (written on a frosty windshield) see Professor McGrath and his Volvo through a Wyoming blizzard and on to a possible job at Long Beach State. The middle-age crisis of Mr. Parker in “Going Away” is only temporarily halted in its downward spin by a series of “memos” he writes about his runaway life and his few months’ sexual interlude in Firs, Oregon with an equally curious lost soul named Adrian. Soon, however, Parker’s menopausal rekindling of the...