| Zane Grey (wuz here) |
by Catherine Krantz
Zane Grey (1872-1939) was an American fiction writer, a self-titled writer of historical romances, romantic in the sense of sweeping adventure tales. Of his penchant for romance, Grey stated, “To my mind, romance is only another name for idealism; . . . the spirit, not the letter, of life.” His chosen time period was the old west, the American frontier. He is credited with almost single-handedly shaping the mythology of the “Old West”, with its cowboy ethics amid harsh natural elements and the weathered and wise individuals inhabiting these wild lands. A legend in his own time he was the consummate adventurer, traveling the globe half the year then returning to his home in California to write his novels. And write he did, Grey was one of the most prolific American writers of the 20th century and became the best selling western writer of all time. He has over 90 books in print, among them: short story collections from his days as a magazine serialist, historical works about his family - his first western heroes, children’s books, books about baseball (he was a semi-professional baseball player in his youth), a biography of George Washington, 57 westerns that were always best sellers and 9 books about his great love of fishing. Fishing was perhaps his greatest passion second to writing, he would spend months every year roaming the world’s best game fishing spots and routinely set world records with his catches. At one time Grey held 14 world records in as many far flung locales. He traveled to Zihuatanejo in March of 1924 on his schooner and set a Pacific Sailfish record while here (135lbs), breaking his previous Pacific Sailfish record of the same year in Cabo San Lucas (132lbs) and seven years later broke it again in Vavau, Tonga Islands (170lbs). All his world records have since been broken but for a time he was very renowned for his fishing abilities and they say he was the first to fish these waters around Zihuatanejo with a rod and reel and is considered the first North American to discover our great fishery.
In addition to his books, over 100 films have been made from his writing with some of the most famous actors of the time participating, from silent films at the beginning of its era to the most recent in 1997. At the time of his death in October 1939 he left dozens of books unpublished and they continued to publish them posthumously to best selling results for almost 30 years after his death. At the height of his popularity, from around 1910 through the 1930’s, in addition to his magazine articles and short stories he would publish a novel practically every year. And during this time he almost always had a top 10 best selling novel every year. All this from a writer who once had a short sighted publisher tell him, after reading The Last of the Plainsmen — Grey’s first western novel, “I do not see anything in this to convince me you can write either narrative or fiction.”
Lucky for the millions of Zane Grey fans throughout the world, he ignored such criticism. But despite his successes the works of Zane Grey have often languished in the annals of folk art, widely condemned as kitsch popular and unrealistic. And by the 60’s Grey was considered a cliché of the over romanticized wild wild west. This popular appeal, which prompted critic T.K. Whipple to call Grey a natural “maker of the sagas of the folk,” was known even in his time and Grey himself embraced it, wanting to take his readers along for the adventure.
Zane Grey realized that the West was as much a state of mind as it was a historical phenomenon and Grey’s influence on the mythology of the American West is well documented. Courses about his influence on the world’s perception of America as related to this time period are offered in college universities and college professors write dissertations about his legend, how it not only shaped global perceptions of America but Amercians’ ideals about themselves. The common themes of western literature: the pioneering spirit, the rugged individualism and the gentlemen’s code of ethics in a law less land all point back to the novels of Zane Grey. Zane Grey was a master storyteller, an adventurer and lover of wild lands. One of those wild lands was Zihuatanejo, Mexico 78 years ago, and thus began a long history of adventurous spirits who have made a pilgrimage to this little piece of paradise on the Mexican pacific.
For more information on Zane Grey and his works, see the web site of the Zane Grey West Society at: www.zanegreysws.org
March 2002
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