The Water Hole, Zane Grey
The Water Hole, Zane Grey
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The Water Hole
A Western Story

Author: Zane Grey

Narrator: Christine Williams

Unabridged: 8 hr 33 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 01/22/2014

Categories: Fiction, Western


Synopsis

It would seem that the end of every war has been followed in the United States by social and moral changes, mostly for the worse. Zane Grey certainly felt that way about the effects of the Great War, and to show these changes and how to cope with them became the impulse behind what he called The Water Hole. However, before magazine publication, changes were made in his text, including the names of all the characters. Fortunately Greys original handwritten manuscript has survived, so now this story can be told with his characters named and presented as he intended them to be. In 1925 widowed businessman Elijah Winters brings his daughter, Cherry, from Long Island to stay at a trading post in a remote area some distance from Flagstaff, Arizona. Removed from the country clubs and speakeasies, Cherry is at first bored with simple ranch life, and to entertain herself she flirts with several of the cowboys, not realizing they are very different from the young men she knew back east. Also very different is Stephen Heftral, a young archaeologist who is searching for an ancient and lost kiva of a primitive Indian tribe that disappeared centuries before in what became the land of the Navajos. Heftral believes that this lost kiva is most probably in a desert fastness called Beckyshibeta, the Navajo word for water hole. Elijah colludes with Heftral to awaken Cherry to a new and healthier way of life by taking her, by force if necessary, to the site. Cherry resents being kidnapped but comes to forget the luxury of her past in the beauty and dangers of the canyonsand in the thrill of making an important archaeological discovery.

About Zane Grey

The prolific American writer Zane Grey was the pioneer of the Western literary genre. Grey produced well over 100 books, in which he presented the West as a moral battleground, where his characters were either destroyed or redeemed. His semi-outlaw heroes were his most enduring creation. He sold some 17 million books during his lifetime, and an estimated 100 Hollywood Western films have been based on his stories.

Born with the name Pearl Grey in Zanesville, Ohio, in 1872, Zane was the son of a farmer and part-time preacher. His mother was a second-generation Danish Quaker. He graduated from the University of Pennsylvania with a degree in dentistry in 1896 and practiced in New York City until 1904. That year, Grey wrote and self-published his first book, Betty Zane, after it was turned down by several publishers. The colorful frontier story was based on his mother's journal and eventually became a critical success. He married Lina Elise Roth, who encouraged him to become a full-time professional writer.

In 1908, Grey made a journey to the West with Colonel C. J. "Buffalo" Jones, who told him tales of adventure on the plains. This trip turned out to be a turning point in Grey's career. In 1912, Riders of the Purple Sage was published. It sold 2 million copies and was filmed three times. Grey's formula-in which a mysterious outlaw fights to protect the innocent and the good-shows up in many of his novels. In 1918, he moved to Altadena, California, where he lived for the rest of his life. Grey died on October 23, 1939.


Reviews

Goodreads review by Chuck on July 08, 2021

On November 30, 1927, my great-grandmother wrote a letter to her son. It contained the following passage: Say that new book by Willa Cather that you didn't get a chance to read is very interesting indeed. I was perfectly absorbed in it yesterday. It is most equal to the Zane Grey story I am reading i......more

Goodreads review by Susan on October 06, 2017

I have just finished a bio of Clara Bow, and while reading this, I kept thinking this would have been a good vehicle for her. It reads like a 1920s rom com. Enjoyable, light hearted entertainment if read in that spirit of the time.......more

Goodreads review by Susan on December 26, 2018

Good and bad. interesting and maddeningly stereotypical. Interesting period piece. Different from many of his stories.......more

Goodreads review by Eowynn1229 on December 14, 2016

He tells a good story, but his over use of one word cracks me up every time!......more