Honor Thy Father

By Robert A. Roripaugh

Book Overview

One of the most acclaimed Western novels of the past fifty years, Robert A. Roripaugh's masterful story of range war and its victims on both sides of the fence transports readers back to 1889 Wyoming with a rare power, richness, and truth. It is a gripping tale of ranchers and homesteaders; of honored tradition holding brutally firm against the onslaught of changing times; and of a family torn to pieces by opposing visions of what is right. Brimming with intense action and characters who will live on in memory, Honor Thy Father is an evocative depiction of a place and time when greed and pride helped stain the land red, when principles were defended to the death, and when a man's most dangerous enemy could be his own flesh and blood.

• Format: Mass Market Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0060590629
• ISBN13: 9780060590628
• Release Date: April 2004
• Publisher: HarperTorch
• Length: 287 Pages
• Weight: 0.30 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.7" x 4.2" x 6.8"

Customer Reviews

Try to understand . . .

Roripaugh is one of the new post-L'Amour authors of western fiction who hark back to the Max Brand tradition of characters who reflect and feel, not just careen from one action-filled adventure to another. Very much a coming-of-age story of Martin Jr. trying to cope with an emotionally distant father and a brother whose horizons are much broader than cattle and ranching. If you are a youth struggling to find yourself and the two most important men in your life (father and older brother) are not people you find yourself trying to be like, then you have to find your own way, make your own path. Eventually Martin Jr. does. Honor Thy Father has a complex plot but simple characters who are niether stereotypes nor overdrawn and who do not spend an inordinate amount of time questioning themselves, their motives, and their actions. There is enough romantic interest in the form of Leah, daughter of a neighboring rancher, and Mary, the part Arapaho daughter of a nearby retired trapper, to hold the interest of female readers. A lot of youthful males will identify with Martin Jr., whose first sexual experience is not at all what he had imagined. A good read and an author to go to again and again.