The northeastern quadrant of New Mexico, with a slice of Colorado, Oklahoma, and West Texas, is the area Max Evans has dubbed the Hi Lo Country. He bought a ranch there when he was seventeen, he painted it as a young artist, and has used the land as the setting for most of his well-known writings. His novels The Rounders and The Hi Lo Country were made into Hollywood movies. Jan Haley is also from the heart of Hi Lo Country, where she has documented in her photography the vanishing homesteads and ranches in this region anchored by four mountains: Eagle Tail, Sierra Grande, Capulin, and Rabbit Ears. Her pictures of the spectacular landscapes of northeast New Mexico will enthrall not just fans of Max Evans but anyone who wants to see the True West that still exists within a day's drive of the big cities that are now the population centers of the country. The Max Evans text written specifically for this book is in his unmatched storytelling style and full of entertaining anecdotes. His writing is rich in heartfelt emotion and, coupled with Haley's photos, is a tribute to a neglected part of the world we can now treasure forever. "Jan Haley's photographs show a place where the people were so tough the Depression felt right at home, and it never left. The rusting 1950 purple Hudson still sits on blocks where the owner left it, imagining shiny renovation someday. . . . Winds so strong, it seemed the outhouse blew over, and is still horizontal. . . . And many an old ranchhouse . . . lean[s] abandoned in the wind."--Richard Benke, Associated Press reporter and author of The Ghost Ocean (UNM Press)

The underground world of con men, winos, prostitutes, laborers, and artists has been an abundant source of material for great writers from Dickens to Bukowski. The underground world of Taos, New Mexico, is no different. In the late 1950s this mountain town was higher, brighter, poorer, and farther removed than London, Paris, or Los Angeles, but it was every bit as rich for the explorations of a young writer. Max Evans, the beloved New Mexican writer of such enduring classics of Western fiction as The Rounders and The Hi-Lo Country, returns to form with The King of Taos. Set in the late 1950s, the novel tells the stories of sharp-witted Zacharias Chacon, aspiring artist Shaw Spencer, and a circle of characters who drink, fight, love, argue, and—mostly—talk. Readers will enjoy this witty and moving evocation of unforgettable characters as they look for work, love, comfort, dignity, and bottomless oblivion.

This is the story of the friendship between two men, their mutual love for one woman, and their bone-deep allegiance to the harsh, dry New Mexican land. Pete hells around with his closest friend Big Boy Matson. Together they drink, gamble, fight, rodeo and both fall in love with an attractive and dangerous married woman.

At its heart, The Hi Lo Country is the story of the friendship between two men, their mutual love of a woman, and their allegiance to the harsh, dry, achingly beautiful New Mexico high-desert grassland. The story is told by Pete, a young ranch hand, whose best friend is Big Boy Matson. Together they drink, gamble, fight, work, and rodeo. They both fall hard for a married woman—the attractive, bored, and dangerous Mona. When it was first published in 1961, the novel was both a celebration and an elegy. It captured something jagged and authentic in the West, and it caught the attention of Hollywood—notably Sam Peckinpah, who spent twenty years trying to make a movie of this multilayered and plainspoken novel. It would take another twenty years for Martin Scorsese and Stephen Frears to finally do it. Now in a special 60th anniversary edition, The Hi Lo Country continues to tell a quintessential story of the people and the land found in the American West.

This is the 50th anniversary edition of the western that made Max Evans famous.

Legendary western author Max Evans has spent his entire life working with cows and horses. These rangeland animals, and other creatures both domestic and wild, play pivotal roles in his stories. This magnificent collection, beautifully illustrated by cowboy artist Keith Walters, showcases twenty-six animal tales penned by Evans during his long and celebrated career. Both fiction and nonfiction, the stories in this collection get us inside the heads and hearts of numerous four-legged critters—dogs, horses, burros, goats, cattle, deer, coyotes, and more. “The Old One,” for example, shows us the world through the eyes of a prairie dog as she watches her latest litter of pups rolling and tumbling around the mound and thinks of all the things she will need to teach them. And in “The One-Eyed Sky,” an aging cow with a new calf and an old coyote with a litter to feed circle each other warily, trying to protect their young, until a rancher intervenes. Not one to shy away from difficult subjects, Evans also delves into the “animal nature” of human beings, as in “The Heart of the Matter,” where two Vietnam vets and friends kill a deer and then turn their rifles on each other. These captivating tales display Evans’s trademark mix of raucous humor and vivid, poetic descriptions of the high plains of West Texas and his beloved Hi-Lo Country in northeastern New Mexico. He reminds his readers of simpler times and more honorable people even as he evokes the merciless environment in which his characters, both animal and human, struggle to survive.

From among his numerous publications, award-winning author Max Evans has selected his personal favorites. The more than thirty pieces include short novels, essays, short stories, introductions to other works, and magazine articles spanning several genres and most of his writing career. Through them all runs a common thread: the understanding of and love Evans has for the West and its peoples, and his ability to convey that understanding with humor and compassion. Included works: Short novels Xavier's Folly One Eyed Sky The Wild One Old Bum My Pardner Essays "Sam Peckinpah: A Very Personal Remembrance" "King John" "Long John Dunn" "Dinner with Frank Waters" "Riding the Outside Circle in Hollywood" "Many Deaths, Many Lives" "Song of the West" Short Stories "The Ultimate Giver" "Blizzard" "Don't Kill My Dog" "The Far Cry" "The Wooden Cove" "The Third Grade Reunion" "Sky of Gold" "A Man Who Never Missed" "Big Shad's Bridge" "The Call" Introductions and Forewords "Patricino Barela" "Some Sweet Day" "The Hi Lo Country" "Final Harvest and other Convictions and Opinions" "Rounders 3" Magazine Articles "The Cowboy and the Professor" "A Horse to Brag About" "Showdown at Hollywood Park" "The Wild Bunch" "The World's Strangest Creature" "Super Bull"

Madam Millie contains sordid details and frank language that will make many readers blush. It is unvarnished language, as recorded directly from Millie by Max Evans over a period of almost twenty years. It presents a complete picture of the business of prostitution as it was practiced in the west from the late 1920s to the mid 1970s, told by the most successful madam in the business.

This book pays homage to the counterculture movement through the words and photographs of a select gathering of people who lived it. At its height in the late 1960s and early 1970s, the counterculture movement permeated every region of America as thousands of activists took on the establishment. Although counterculture has often been trivialized as “dirty hippies” and “sex, drugs, and rock ‘n’ roll,” committed activists formed powerful strands of resistance to the political/military/industrial complex. American Indians, Hispanos, Blacks, and Anglos joined in marches and protests—often at their peril. Veterans of Haight-Ashbury in San Francisco, communards in northern New Mexico, practitioners of drug-induced mysticism, disciplined seekers of spiritual awakening, back-to-the-landers, defenders of wilderness—counterculturalists all—questioned, reframed, and redefined American and global perspectives that remain to this day. The American Southwest became a haven for individuals from both coasts seeking refuge in this vast landscape. Many found an affinity with the native cultures and local inhabitants who were already here. Others joined forces to combat the Vietnam War, racial discrimination, and pillaging of the environment. Still others founded communes based on diverse cultures of practice. Movement leaders organized community events, protests, and spoke for their generation; many used their talents as writers, musicians, artists, and photographers to express their angst and promote change. Jack Loeffler draws from his extensive archive of recorded interviews and transcribed conversations with contemporaries—among them writers, artists, elders, activists, and scholars—including Philip Whalen, Gary Snyder, Edward Abbey, Shonto Begay, Camillus Lopez, Tara Evonne Trudell, Roberta Blackgoat, Richard Grow, Alvin Josephy, David Brower, Dave Foreman, Elinor Ostrom, Fritjof Capra, and Melissa Savage. The book includes personal essays by Yvonne Bond, Peter Coyote, Lisa Law, Peter Rowan, Siddiq Hans von Briesen, Art Kopecky, Bill Steen, Sylvia Rodríguez, Enrique R. Lamadrid, Levi Romero, Rina Swentzell, Gary Paul Nabhan, Meredith Davidson, and Jack Loeffler. It includes photographs by Lisa Law, Seth Roffman, Terrence Moore, and others.

Born in New Mexico at the end of World War I, Bluefeather Fellini is half-Pueblo Indian and half-Italian. Throughout his life, Bluefeather enjoys roaming and seeking his fortunes elsewhere, but he is always drawn back to Taos, the home of his Indian mother. During times of danger, he is visited by Dancing Bear, his spirit guide, who interjects ageless humor into situations when needed. And his Aunt Tulip Everhaven usually has a brew made from sagebrush that helps Bluefeather put his troubles into perspective. "[Max Evans is] a sage voice of the West."--The New York Times The narrative tone changes dramatically to describe Bluefeather's participation in D-Day and the subsequent push into Germany in harrowing, unsentimental detail; these nearly surreal passages are war writing at its best. . . . a highly engaging epic."--Publishers Weekly "A strong sense of place permeates the text; the high-desert world of northern New Mexico provides realistic and spiritual elements that add mythic quality to a leisurely-told tale wi