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May There Be a Road [Hardcover]

Louis L'Amour (Author)
4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)


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Book Description

May 1, 2001
In his extraordinary career Louis L'Amour captured the spirit of America as few writers ever have. A storyteller whose universal themes of bravery, pride, adventure, and self-reliance have echoed across generations, L'Amour set a standard that has yet to be matched. May There Be a Road brings together ten unforgettable stories previously uncollected and now offered for the first time in one extraordinary volume.

Ranging from the coasts of Brazil to the border of Tibet to the very heartland of America, May There Be a Road captures the magnificent scope and sense of epic adventure that flows throughout L'Amour's classic fiction. In these vivid settings Louis L'Amour takes us into those sudden moments when lives and futures are altered forever, when men and women face a deadly enemy, meet a kindred spirit, or confront their own mortality.

A hard-drinking, hard-living freighter captain with a plane and a penchant for flying discovers a cause worth fighting — and dying — for as a beautiful Brazilian woman helps him uncover a plot that could change the course of World War II. A lonely frontiersman unexpectedly finds himself the protector of two orphans in a desperate fight not just for land — or even survival — but for justice itself.

In the title story, "May There Be a Road," L'Amour weaves a powerful tale of a young Tibetan khan who leads a small band of horsemen on a daring escape with his betrothed across a treacherous mountain landscape of granite and ice. On their trail is a ruthless Chinese colonel and the might of the Red Army. At stake is the survival of a people and an ancient way of life.

From a boxer who accepts a gambler's payoff and then must fight to redeem himself, to a detective who is willing to believe a woman's unproven story about her brother's death in order to find one man's painful truth in the seamy underbelly of a small town, these stories are vintage Louis L'Amour.

A welcome addition to the libraries of his many avid fans or a spectacular introduction to the work of America's greatest storyteller, May There Be a Road exhibits the unbridled passion, the unsurpassed range, and the sheer genius of a true master working at the peak of his creative power.


Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

To most readers, Louis L'Amour is the quintessential writer of westerns; few know that among his 118 published volumes are stories set far from sagebrush country. In this volume of 10 previously uncollected short stories written early in his career and issued now, 13 years after his death, with an afterword by his son, Beau, L'Amour's broader interests are on display. Two of the tales, "Red Butte Showdown" and "The Cactus Kid" do indeed evoke the frontier settings L'Amour is best known for, but three of them, "Making It the Hard Way," "Fighter's Fiasco" and "The Ghost Fighter," are about prizefighting and indicate the influence of writers like Jack London and Ernest Hemingway. No less surprising in their modern California settings are "A Friend of a Hero" and "The Vanished Blonde," which echo Raymond Chandler and Dashiell Hammett; Hemingway's themes are again reflected in "May There Be a Road" and "Wings Over Brazil," two yarns set against the volatile backdrop of war and revolution far from the purple mountains of Montana or the desolate plains of the Dakotas. The title story (never before published) unfolds in a rough-riding Tibet. Though influenced by other writers, each story follows L'Amour's patented formula, evident already in this early work. A tense situation is revealed, brief characterization and background follow, then the tale is tied up in a sequence of hard-hitting action sequences. These are professionally written stories, minor gems collected from the dustier corners of L'Amour's oeuvre. (May 8)Forecast: Banking on the enduring appeal of L'Amour, the Book-of-the-Month Club, the Literary Guild and the Doubleday Book Club are making his latest posthumous offering an alternate selection, and sales should be strong. One more volume of stories is yet to come before the well runs dry.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Booklist

This is an eminently readable and enjoyable collection of 10 previously unpublished short stories by the late L'Amour. In"The Ghost Fighter," Bat McGowan is the world heavyweight boxing champion. He is also a drinker, womanizer, and carouser. His managers have a chance to make some money off the title by staging matches in small towns, and decide to employ look-alike Barney Malone as a stand-in. As the exhibitions progress, Malone proves that having the title of champ and actually being one are two different things. Other stories feature a detective searching for a missing woman; another fighter who takes a gambler's payoff; and a young Tibetan lord who battles treacherous terrain and the pursuing Red Army to save his love and also the legacy of his people's way of life. Many posthumous collections consist of substandard works that probably should never be blessed with publication, but such is not the case here. Wes Lukowsky
Copyright © American Library Association. All rights reserved

Product Details

  • Hardcover: 288 pages
  • Publisher: Bantam; First Edition edition (May 1, 2001)
  • Language: English
  • ISBN-10: 0553802135
  • ISBN-13: 978-0553802139
  • Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.7 x 0.9 inches
  • Shipping Weight: 13.6 ounces
  • Average Customer Review: 4.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (9 customer reviews)
  • Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,157,041 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

 

Customer Reviews

9 Reviews
5 star:
 (6)
4 star:
 (1)
3 star:    (0)
2 star:    (0)
1 star:
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Average Customer Review
4.0 out of 5 stars (9 customer reviews)
 
 
 
 
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews

12 of 12 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars This author is geat even out of his usual genre, May 5, 2001
This review is from: May There Be a Road (Hardcover)
In spite of some powerful western novels written during the nineties, Louis L'Amour, who died in 1988, remains the king of the genre. "May There Be a Road" showcases Mr. L'Amour's incredible skill as an author, but not in the genre that has made him a household name. Instead this ten-story collection spans the globe and the genres. From the Himalayas to Alaska to Brazil, the stories take readers on a global tour. From a hard-boiled detective story to a war between Tibetan peasants and Chinese soldiers to a boxer seeking a second chance, etc., the tales encompass literature as a whole. This is my first look at a Mr. L'Amour story outside the West and I found each tale well-written, exciting, and keeping with his famous theme of people in conflict trying to overcome the odds. This is an excellent collection that fans of the awe-inspiring writer will want to read as well anyone who enjoys a variety anthology.

Harriet Klausner

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars Hardy Boys for Adults, September 21, 2001
By 
Kenneth Blum (Orrville, Ohio USA) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   
This review is from: May There Be a Road (Hardcover)
Louis L'Amour is never going to be considered one of the great literary geniuses of our time, but the man does know how to tell a story and pull a reader into a story.

So you don't need to stretch your mental powers or keep a thesaurus handy to enjoy his work. Consider the stories from this collection as the Hardy Boys on an adult level. This is thin writing but fun nevertheless.

There are ten stories in this book, and the quality varies. It gets off to a weak start with "A Friend of a Hero", a yarn about a detective who investigates the murder of a buddy from the Korean War. It picks up with some good tales about boxers on the fix - "Fighter's Fiasco and "The Ghost Fighter" - if you can believe in the latter case that one boxer so closely resembles the other that he can take his place in the ring. The best piece is "Wings Over Brazil" in which soldier of fortune Ponga Jim Mayo discovers some nasty Nazis have stolen his cargo ship and plan to overthrow the government of Brazil.

In all cases, however, the stories entertain. If you have a need to think, read Steinbeck or Hemingway. If you have a need to take a mental vacation, you'll love L'Amour.

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5 of 5 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars Great Summertime Reading, May 26, 2001
This review is from: May There Be a Road (Hardcover)
I have long been a fan of the western adventure stories of Louis L'Amour, especially the series chronicling the Sackett family, so I picked up this collection of short stories in eager anticipation. While this collection includes only three stories set in the old west, I was certainly not in any way disappointed. These ten stories include, as Beau L'Amour points out, some of the author's earliest writings. "Ghost Fighter" and "Fighter's Fiasco" were the second and third short stories that Louis L'Amour ever sold, while "Wings Over Brazil" was one of the last two short stories in the Ponga Jim Mayo Series. The characters and locales are a varied lot which range from groom-to-be Tohkta in the Kunlum Mountains of northern Tibet to the hulking brawling boxer Bambo Bamoulian in New York City. Regardless of location, what these stories have in common is L'Amour's consummate story telling skills. That alone should suffice as an incentive to give the book a try. It is a collection full of action, adventure, unexpected twists and turns, and characters rising to meet challenges and overcome great odds. It's just what the doctor ordered (pardon the cliche')for some great summertime reading.
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