A journey to the high plains of the northern United States captures the essence of the true west, depicting the ranchers, the Native Americans, and the majesty of the natural world.

For most North Americans--Canadians as well as Americans--the term "Western" evokes images of the frontier, brave sheriffs and ruthless outlaws, good cowboys and bad Indians. As Arnold E. Davidson shows in this groundbreaking study, a number of Canada's most interesting and experimental Western writers parody, reverse, or otherwise defuse the paraphernalia of the classic U.S. Western. Lacking both a real and imagined frontier--Canadian settlers rode trains into the new territory, already policed by Mounties--the writers of Canadian Westerns were set a different task from their American counterparts and were subsequently freed to create some of the most complex and engrossing fiction yet produced in Canada. Davidson details the evolution of the U.S. and Canadian Western forms, tracing the divergence between the two as Canadian writers responded to their unique historical circumstances by reinventing the West as well as the Western and establishing a new literary landscape where author and reader could work out new possibilities of being. Surveying a range of texts by Canada's most innovative writers, with special attention to women writers and Native stories of Coyote, he provides close readings of novels by Howard O'Hagan, Sheila Watson, Robert Kroetsch, Aritha van Herk, Anne Cameron, Peter Such, W. O. Mitchell, Beatrice Culleton, and Thomas King. A unique study, Coyote Country offers at one and the same time a theory of Canadian Western fiction, a history of crosscultural paradigms of the West as manifested in novels, and an intensive reading of some of Canada's best literature.

Like four of my previous books, these are collected tales of the Spirits. These stories are shared with me by the Spirits to be, in turn, shared with any and all. Other than being short stories, they have no framework, no rack upon which to hang a hat. They are inter-dimensional, timeless, real and unreal. They cross the boundaries of myth, religion, history, and space. Some may seem simplistic, others convoluted; all are recorded as given to me. All are for the readers entertainment. If more is gained and judging by many responses, this is the case then, I feel, that is why they were given to me and why said reader is reading them. I think, and I hope others agree, that they can be very funny. Again, as in the previous volumes, Raven and Coyote, more often than not, take the lead; however, there are some others, herein, lending their voice. In the back of the book, a bakers dozen poems appear. I usually shy from mixing prose and poetry yet I noticed a number of the stores dealt with music and, in any event, I was led to include the poems. As in my previous books, save the first one, I have tried to illustrate the way with, what I think are, pertinent images. The world of these tales is miraculous, mysterious, wonderful, surprising, shocking, and some times confusing. It is a world that I have grown fond of and forget it may seem strange to the new reader. I suggest one just jumps in. All the stores from all the volumes stand on their own. If the reader enjoys this particular book, I recommend the others. Within, there is a story, a word, an image for everyone.

"Not real?" Coyote howled. "A filthy lie." He grabbed a wiener and shoved the end of a willow stick through its middle. The Nowherians were deployed around a rusty wheelbarrow used as a grill for their annual Fourth of July weenie roast. Jackrabbit examined the puffy black wiener on the end of his stick. "You still upset about Frijoles saying that Funnies from Nowhere is fiction?" Coyote jabbed the coals, creating an explosion of sparks and coating his wiener in ash. "You bet I am. If we're not real, then neither is Nowhere, and the cartoon character who was boner-fidee elected President of the United States isn't either." He rapped his stick to knock off the ash, and his wiener fell into the fire. "If your wiener were parallel to the stick instead of perpendicular, that wouldn't happen," offered Pearl. He stared at her until the answer came to him. "Parallel is safer but limits you to one wiener." He seized a handful, mounted a row of six, and suspended the drooping load over the fire. "My only limitations are the length of my stick and the size of the fire."

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