Sea of Grass

This week I read another Conrad Richter called Sea of Grass. It's a poignant story about the settling of the Southwest. Although there are several interesting characters, the land, or "sea of grass" itself, is perhaps the most compelling. The idea of creating a character out of the landscape reminds of the the great Willa Cather novels O Pioneers and Death Comes for the Archbishop.

I highly recommend this book -- it's not long, but speaks volumes about the process of converting cattle land to farming land... a process that wasn't highly successful, at least according to this story.

I am struck by Richter's style of writing. The details that he leaves out leave much to the imagination and I find myself reflecting often on the possibilities of how the backstory might go.

I can't quite figure out how I got to be almost 50 without discovering this marvelous writer.