Captives of the Desert

This novel when I first read it years ago I put back on the shelf giving it no higher than a three rating. It was readable. But subsequent readings have upped my rating to five stars, as either my taste in literature has changed, or I have come to appreciate Zane Grey more as a writer. I think perhaps it is the latter. In most of his novels, Zane Grey has something he wanted to say, be it environmental, or social commentary, or a plea for the returning WW1 veterans. Captives of the Desert has its social commentary on the sacredness of marriage, and its religious undertones--how the desert can take hold of a person and fashion them into its own image, or can exert a force, of an inexplicable kind, to bring peace and contentment over the soul--a communing with God, so to speak. These are the concepts for which Zane Grey based most of his novels, and it has taken me years to figure this out and understand why he sometimes used the plot devices he used. "Desert Bound" was the magazine title for this novel and that title is even more appropriate. This is a complex novel. The ensemble of characters--a mixture of westerners, native Americans, and easterners coming for health reasons--and the principles' stories are laid bare for the reader to either sympathize with, or assuredly hate; there is little or no middle ground. Zane Grey writes with a woman's voice, a woman's point of view, as he does in other works. This book deserves to be read and more highly respected.