Customer Reviews

Dolly And Zane Grey: Letters From A Marriage (Western Literature Series)

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Dolly's and Zane's letters were the emails of their day, a continous series of communications that kept them in touch and kept their rocky but tenacious relationship intact during Zane's many absences.

My heart went out to Dolly as she poured her anguish, loneliness, embarrassment, and finally acceptance, realistic appraisal of Zane, and through it all, her continued caring for Zane, tinged with resignation due to his infidelities.

As I read more and more of the letters over periods of years, I began to cheer for Dolly as she conquered in turn each of the hardships and obstacles brought to life with Zane's insensitivities and artistic dreamy view of what he deserved in life. I admired her practical nature and her gradual but determined growth outside her comfort zone.

The letters also reveal how much Zane's life was entwined with his art: he wrote of the romances in the wild beautiful places that he lived. He rarely had writer's block--a very dedicated writer indeed. I sensed a rebel, with his comment once that he dispised those folk who go to church and steal their neighbor's wife; but he rarely saw the irony of his open marriage and how hurtful his own choices were. But when he did wish he had been a better husband and more present father, he felt that deeply, especially towards the end of his life.

The letters are a fascinating history of that period of time, 1900-1939, with many details of custom, business, and life that take you right back to those places and that time.

Not having known much about Dolly, I was impressed and inspired by her spunky grit and intelligence, and also touched by how Zane was her star by which she set her course. Having enjoyed Zane's books while growing up in the 1950-1960's, I found his letters very interesting, finding someone who was truly an artist, who lived by his own design, yet in doing so caused much suffering of which he never fully was aware.

I recommend this book to all who love history, love literature, and who are intrigued by a relationship that survived despite great odds, due to two people who certainly made the best of it.

A memorable insight into a strange, but functional and fascinating, marriage with three children involved, and many mistresses. Dolly knew going in that Zane was a writer, traveller, adventurer, and a womanizer. From his early days as a dentist and then a struggling writer, to becoming one of the most successful American writers of all times, the letters take you along on their life together. I was not always happy with him, or her, but somehow they held it together. In modern times, I suppose we call it "giving him space" to do his hunting and fishing, finding sources and inspiration for his writing, and of course to get off with his ladies, at times two or three together. The couple had their rough spots, and I thought some of the humorous entries were where Zane was trying to keep his women separated and not bickering, and Dolly was trying to help him sort it out. Zane was good at philandering, wasting money, etc., but Dolly held it together. I liked them both, but being a father, I can only imagine the confusion and anxiety of the children. Good information about early publishing days and the film industry. Well edited with commentary by the author and mahalo to the Nevada University Press for getting the letters out for a more complete understanding of a great Western writer.

This book is a must read for all Zane Grey fans. It exposes the dynamics of the unusual relationship he had with his life long wife, Dolly. Their intimate thoughts and feelings are revealed. The letters paint a stunning picture of the events in their married life, and also in the outstanding career of this famous author. His wife's contribution to his success is revealed in these letters. It is an intimate biography of Zane Grey and a tribute to the faithfullness of Dolly, in spite of his numerous infidelities. It is well written, and the background given by the author is priceless.

I grew up reading Zane Grey's Western novels. I later learned about his womanizing and infidelity, but the letters in this book brought it into so much more focus. I wonder when I next pick up one of his novels--I have copies of them all--if my reading will be different knowing the "subtext." His rationalization of his affairs, his inability to curb outrageous spending, his accusations toward Dolly--very frustrating. At times I wanted Dolly to tell him to go to h---. I wanted Dolly to find a true lover and friend. I do believe ZG had genius and amazing creativity--and yes it was because of his novels that I moved to Arizona, etc.--but the inconsistency and hypocrisy is indeed hard to swallow.

Regarding the book itself, I found some of the editorial comments, the intros and outtros, to be confusing and did not always seem relevant to the letter that immediately followed or immediately preceded. Sometimes they seemed coy or facetious rather than informative. The various persons were not always adequately identified in the text; was Ida a lover or a relative? I saw later that sometimes people were identified in the footnotes, but footnotes are for ancillary information or attribution of sources, not for information critical to understanding the text. I dislike flipping from body text to the back of the book to look at footnotes because 80% of the time it's attribution of a source and thus adds nothing insightful at the time and because it interrupts the flow of my reading. [Maybe if I were reading on a Kindle and could have just clicked on the footnote numbers... ;)] So who people are and information critical to understanding the text (eg, that he had gotten into Christian Science, not just "Science"), put in the body, not the footnotes. Provide better intros and outtros, and skip the appearance of facetiousness in the editorial comments. Let us decide how to think about it.

Nonetheless, this is excellent material to make available--something I had been intensely interested in since the publication of some letters in the Missouri Review in 1995--and I thank you for that.