Max Evans is the real deal.

Max Evans

I've recently been doing research on a western writer name of Max Evans. I'd heard the name of course, and knew he was one of the legends, but that was about all. After reading about him, I realized I knew more than I thought. He wrote books that I saw on the silver screen. Books that when they ended up as movies starred some of my favorite actors. And I'm sure you have caught on by now that movies are my thing, especially westerns. I'll do my John Wayne immitation for you if you ask. Please ask.

Anyway...back to Max Evans. Wow. What a writer. And he is truly one of those western wordsmiths that make you see the west up close and personal.  Some of Max's stories are set in more contemporary times, but they all deal with what the life of a cowboy is like. And through the eyes of a great writer, we can all be there.

There is a 1999 article about a movie called The Hi-Lo Country. It's made from a Max Evans book.
L.A. Times article about The Hi-Lo Country, 1999.
Watch this interview with Max.
http://www.youtube.com/watch?feature=player_detailpage&v=FixQwse20hM
The Rounders was one of my favorite movies. I loved Glen Ford in anything and Henry Fonda did some of his best work in westerns.

Max is also an artist. Here is one of his paintings. "Late For Supper."  Click on the link below to see more of his work.

Late For Supper

Ol Max Evans tells literary stories in paintings and drawings.

I ordered this book from Amazon today. I'll let you know how much I love it.

Max Evans (1990)

        Cowboy, rancher, trapper, prospector, artist, and for over forty years an eminent figure in Southwestern letters, Max Evans was born in Ropes, Texas, in 1925. He served in the infantry in Europe in WWII and published his first book, Long John Dunn of Taos, in 1959. Evans’s The Rounders (1965) and the film made from it, introduced him to Hollywood and associations with such directors as Sam Peckinpah, about whom Evans has written two seminal books. The author’s The Hi-Lo Country, 1961, also became a beautifully rendered movie in 1998.

        Evans is also author of The Mountain of Gold (1965), Bobby Jack Smith, You Dirty Coward! (1974), Bluefeather Fellini (1993), Faraway Blue (1999), and most recently Madam Millie (2002), a no-holds-barred biography of a Silver City, New Mexico, bordello keeper. He is co-editor of a book of short stories written by ranchwomen and cowboys, Hot Biscuits, (2002) that he worked for twenty years to collect.

        Max Evans lives with his wife Pat in Albuquerque, New Mexico. And if you want to meet this great artist and writer, he'll be at the WWA convention in June of 2012 held in Albuquerque this year.

New Mexico

Several years ago, my husband and I were lucky enough to take a tour of the West with famous Western Writer, Dusty Richards. When we drove through New Mexico, Dusty circled around the Santa Fe area to show us the land he had fallen in love with on his many trips through the state researching his novels. We spent one night in a small little town called Santa Rosa. They had a weird body of water there called a Blue Hole. Although I grew up a river gal and will swim almost anywhere, that blue circle of 80 foot deep water scared the you-know-what right outta me. How do you know what monsters lurk under you when the water is that deep? We just sat and watched from a park bench while kids jumped off a natural waterfall into the beautiful Blue Hole. But I kept thinking of how the pioneers must have felt when they ran across the pool.

The Blue Hole in Santa Rosa

Also in Santa Rosa was an old abandoned mission. The tombstones out front had dates that went back to the early 1800's. Most of the walls were gone, the roof had fallen in decades ago, and there was nothing left inside except a tree that had taken root and grown to nearly ten feet. I took pictures at sunset and the light that shone inside the adobe walls looked like gold. It was truly a miraculous place and it made me fall in love with New Mexico. It truly is the Land of Enchantment.

That trip west was the one that made me see the land like it was before towns and highways marred its deserts and mountains. Before the sound of car horns and tractors covered the peaceful wind through the trees. And before red aluminum canoes dotted the Rio Grande River.

The Rio Grande going through New Mexico.

Hills around the Taos area in the late nineteenth century.

Santa Fe in the early 20th century.