Los Angeles Times Book Review, October 3, 2004
"[A] work of highly disciplined scholarship. . . .

Book Description
"[E]ditors William R. Handley and Nathaniel Lewis [write an] astute introduction to this new collection of essays. . . . At the core of True Westis a cluster of essays on the troubled encounters between those who fancied themselves to be the discoverers of the West and those who were already there. Here, too, the touchstone is the search for nuggets of authenticity amid the claptrap of propaganda, pop culture and pseudo-history. . . . [A] work of highly disciplined scholarship. . . . Again and again, True West reminds us that the relentless search for authenticity is a quest for something that is elusive--and perhaps wholly illusory."--Jonathan Kirsch, Los Angeles Times Book Review In no other region of the United States has the notion of authenticity played such an important yet elusive role as it has in the West. Though pervasive in literature, popular culture, and history, assumptions about western authenticity have not received adequate critical attention. Given the ongoing economic and social transformations in this vast region, the persistent nostalgia and desire for the "real" authentic West suggest regional and national identities at odds with themselves. True West explores the concept of authenticity as it is used to invent, test, advertise, and read the West. The fifteen essays collected here apply contemporary critical and cultural theory to western literary history, Native American literature and identities, the visual West, and the imagining of place. Ranging geographically from the Canadian Prairies to Buena Park’s Entertainment Corridor in Southern California, and chronologically from early tourist narratives to contemporary environmental writing, True West challenges many assumptions we make about western writing and opens the door to an important new chapter in western literary history and cultural criticism William R. Handley is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Marriage, Violence, and Nation in the American Literary West. Nathaniel Lewis is an associate professor of English at Saint Michael’s College and the author of Unsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship.(Nebraska 2003).

From the Inside Flap
In no other region of the United States has the notion of authenticity played such an important yet elusive role as it has in the West. Though pervasive in literature, popular culture, and history, assumptions about western authenticity have not received adequate critical attention. Given the ongoing economic and social transformations in this vast region, the persistent nostalgia and desire for the "real" authentic West suggest regional and national identities at odds with themselves. True West explores the concept of authenticity as it is used to invent, test, advertise, and read the West. The fifteen essays collected here apply contemporary critical and cultural theory to western literary history, Native American literature and identities, the visual West, and the imagining of place. Ranging geographically from the Canadian Prairies to Buena Park’s Entertainment Corridor in Southern California, and chronologically from early tourist narratives to contemporary environmental writing, True West challenges many assumptions we make about western writing and opens the door to an important new chapter in western literary history and cultural criticism.

About the Author
William R. Handley is an associate professor of English at the University of Southern California. He is the author of Marriage, Violence, and Nation in the American Literary West. Nathaniel Lewis is an associate professor of English at Saint Michael’s College and the author of Unsettling the Literary West: Authenticity and Authorship (Nebraska 2003).