Date: Mondays, June 6, 13, 20, & 27, 2022
Time: 2 - 4:30 PM (with a break)
Place: Vigo County Historical Museum Auditorium
929 Wabash Ave, Terre Haute, IN 47807
Cost: $20 (includes price of two books, details will be sent to those registered on other readings)

The course will examine the many genres of one of America’s most prolific authors, in addition to the Romantic Western novels for which he is so famous. Roots will be examined of the author’s patriotism reaching back to the author’s ancestral great-grandaunt, Betty Zane, a heroine in the last major battle of the American Revolution and to his Ohio River Valley ancestors, the subjects of the author’s famous trilogy. Participants will read the short story, “The Fisherman”, a touching autobiographical sketch which will remind many readers of their own childhood.

Readers will study the author’s descriptive novel of the unsavory reception given American soldiers returning from World War I, not unlike the reception given to veterans returning from Vietnam during the generation of many current OLLI members. Financial and business complexities and examples of the author’s shocking social behavior will also be examined, including the reasons why in his later years, he could not find anyone to accompany him on his well-publicized deep-sea fishing adventures, and why he feared his own actions may have been the largest threat faced by what he called the “Vanishing America”.

Participants will hear from Dr. Alan Pratt, Vice President of the Zane Grey West Society, an esteemed scholar familiar with contacts the author had with members of the Mormon church. Dr. Pratt will discuss Grey’s ideological conflicts with Zionism, conflicts which played a role in the two novels that will be read by the class, namely Riders of the Purple Sage and The Desert Crucible. Films of both novels will be viewed in class.

The importance of Grey’s wife “Dolly” will be studied in depth, because without her efforts, support, and perseverance against seemingly impossible challenges, the Zane Grey legacy 150 years following his birth would not exist.