An evocative portrait of the state that "didn't deserve to be" but became one anyway. First published in 1977, this edition includes a new preface that reexamines Laxalt's predictions for Nevada made almost 20 years ago and reflects on the changes that have occurred in the state: the urban plight of Las Vegas and Reno, the renewed appreciation of the land by conservationists and opportunists, and the explosive growth of tourism and gaming.

This book is American in all its implications - big, full of beauty and of hope. It is the record of an American boy's torments and thrills, his slow maturing, his inhibitions, his aspirations. It is a story of adolescent love and of creative activity in America.

The first volume in Laxalt's Basque family trilogy, is the coming of age story of a boy named Pete. Too prone to dreams, Pete undergoes his rites of passage - cruelty and kindness, disillusionment, love and terror, pathos and hilarious adventure - and finally, a cautious understanding of his world.

In this collection of sixteen short stories, Robert Laxalt illuminates the Nevada of the 1950s. Written when Laxalt was in his twenties, the stories are as fresh as if they were penned yesterday. Humanity good and bad, humor and cruelty, satire and adventure are found in these early stories of a Nevada poised on the brink of change.

In the lead story, Cowboy Clint Hamilton laments that the town is getting more like a big city every day as the traditional gambling joints of earlier times give way to the gaudy casinos that will soon become modern glitz.

Sobering experiences from his...

The third volume of Robert Laxalt's trilogy, concluding the story from The Basque Hotel and Child of the Holy Ghost. Leon - the eldest son of immigrant parents - ponders the decision to enter American politics.

An action-packed story set during the violent and conflict-ridden days of the early 20th century, Dust Devilstakes place in the rugged mountains and deserts of Eastern California and Northern Nevada. Ira Hamilton, the teenage son of rugged Indian-hating rancher John D. Hamilton, wins the bronc-riding competition at a local rodeo and comes away with a special prize: a beautiful Arabian colt. But the horse is soon stolen by Hawkeye, a notorious local rustler. Accompanied by Cricket, a young Paiute who has been his closest companion since infancy, Ira vows to retrieve his prize. On the...

This memoir recalls Robert Laxalt's services in a remote jungle outpost, in the Belgian Congo. The Allies and the Germans were struggling to control a mine, it lay deep in the Congo and produced a little-known mineral called uranium. It is also shows Laxalt's personal battle with himself.

The son of a Basque emigrant, Robert Laxalt moved himself and his family to a Basque village in the French Pyrenees in 1960. Based on this visit and a later sojourn in 1965, this is a record of a people, their homeland and culture, seen through Laxalt's text and his wife's photographs.

During the 1920s, a rabies epidemic swept across northern Nevada, decimating wildlife and livestock herds. This historic event is the background for acclaimed writer Robert Laxalt s brilliant new novella. Set on a sheep ranch in the desert foothills near Carson City, Time of the Rabiesfollows owner Pete Lorda and his family and ranch hands as the epidemic swirls around them, pulling humans and animals into a battle against an invisible but deadly foe. Beginning when a roving coyote is bitten by a rabid bat, the epidemic spreads like wildfire through the local coyote population, and...

Renowned Nevada writer Robert Laxalt has embraced a wide range of subjects in his nearly half-century career. In this candid memoir, he explores what is perhaps his most difficult subject ever himself and his life as a writer.
The book opens with a series of vignettes about his youth in Carson City as the second son of an immigrant Basque family and his later experiences as a student at the University of Nevada in Reno.
The second part of the book tells of Laxalt's career as a writer his early days as a reporter when his assignments included interviews with gangsters and obligatory...