Maverick Autobiographies: Women Writers and
the American West, 1900-1936
Cathryn
Halverson
230 pages, hardcover: $45
The
University of Wisconsin Press, 2004.
Probably
you’ve never heard of the three Western women featured in
this book. But if you’re not put off by literary criticism or
footnotes, you’ll meet Mary MacLane, who lived in Butte,
Mont., and thought it “sordid, beastly … but withal full of
romance and poetry; Opal Whiteley in Oregon, a “queer child” who
recited poems to mice; and Juanita Harrison, a black woman from
California who traveled the world.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Maverick Autobiographies: Women Writers and the American West, 1900-1936.
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