Having grown up around Reno, Nevada, I have a built-in bias toward this book, despite the fact that it is an example of a treacly genre (the obligatory semi-autobiographical novel) that most authors wisely leave in manuscript in their desk drawers. However, Clark is a powerful writer (see "The Track of the Cat" and "The Ox-Bow Incident") and he does a very good job of evoking time and place, especially the 20's and 30's, which are written as Fitzgerald might have done if Gatsby had grown up in Reno. The latter part of the book contains descriptions of artistic troubled souls loose in the American West that will be familiar to readers of the novels of the Beat Generation (Kerouac's "The Dharma Bums" comes to mind). There is also a Steinbeckian flavor to the book, especially the relationships, possibly because they are etched against that larger-than-life Western sky.

This book is a refeince to the people in the ceative field of art wethere by music or art I think that Walter was showing the toment and agony of what the artistic people go though. Most of the world is in the mathmatical world; it is reffesing to read a book that discribes the artistic world. (I am a runner, and I enjoyed the track phase that he went through.)

While a resident of Reno, NV (1971-1980), I read the "City of Trembling Leaves" The book is a wonderfully nostalgic record of Reno, Nevada and the surrounding mountain and desert environs during the period of time that Clark lived there (i.e. 1920-1940's).

The author paints a colorful and accurate description of the "Biggest Little City in the World" when it actually fit that definition. Today, Reno is a rapidly expanding, land-gobbling monster of massive traffic jams, casinos, commercial strips, malls and ticky-tacky,cluttered housing developments much like Las Vegas (which is nothing more than another Los Angeles with slot machines).

I have lost my original copy, but am buying the new edition so that I can once again enjoy the life of a young, callow fellow and his friends growing up in a beautiful, small, friendly western town during simpler times.

In modern-day America it seems that people are constantly questioning authority. Law after law is challenged, or even disregarded, by Mr. and Mrs. John Doe. However, American citizens of today are no different from those of the Old West. "The Ox-Bow Incident" is a powerful story that explains what happens when the common man (or men) takes the law into his own hands. Centering around a supposed murder, and cattle thievery, a group of men form a posse to exact their own idea of retribution. Van Tilburg Clark lets the reader know how anger leads to irrational and hasty action by the way the characters' emotions shift from moment to moment. The posse fears that the law will not punish the criminals in a "just" way (death). Therefore, the posse sets out for a lynching. The story is told in a manner that never allows the reader a moment of rest, always wondering what will happen next. I highly recommend this book to anyone who appreciates a work of art.

This classic novel by Clark is a superb study of mob rule; of how normal men can allow their inner anger and authoritarianism to control their judgment and honesty. The story is told in the first person by Art Croft, a trailhand who rides into the small Nevada town of Bridger's Wells in 1885 with his friend Gil Carter. The first chapter (there are only five chapters) has all of the structure of a typical western novel (bar, poker game, fight), yet when a young rider arrives to say that some cattle have been stolen and a man killed, the story about how men let anger goad their actions sets the novel apart from other westerns. It is a true classic. In 1977 the Western Writers of America named it one of the top twenty-five western novels of all time (it was ranked second after Wister's "The Virginian"). The book was also made into a classic film starring Henry Fonda. I recommend this book highly. I really don't understand the comments of the reviewer from Massachusetts (of Jan. 10, 1999). The tale is very realistic.

I am an English teacher. I came across reviews of The Ox-Bow Incident while doing a search for a student. I have always regarded this as a book which should be required reading, both for its literary and social value; and when teaching 11th grade, I have used it as a class assignment. The first part of the book which some readers found slow is really quite necessary; it provides the background that shows the reader that these are quite ordinary people - people that one would meet everyday. It contrasts with the violence in which they later become involved. The lynching of three innocent men is really not the crux of the story but rather the pivotal incident which allows the author to lead the reader to see what happens when one abandons law and order and then, when there are tragic results, must come to terms with his own conscience. I would also recommend the film with Henry Fonda and Anthony Quinn which is well acted and true to the novel. I have generally found that once students get into the novel, the book generates a good deal of thoughtful writing and discussion.

Clark's follow-up to City of Trembling Leaves and Ox-Bow Incident is an ambitious but not totally successful attempt at conveying the cold indifference of the natural world and man's supreme isolation in the universe. Often melodramatic, this tale of a clasically dysfunctinal family of ranchers living in the Sierra Nevada is most notable for one extended tour-de-force sequence: Clark's detailed, snowflake-by-snowflake description of a man's disorientation and eventual descent into madness as he tries to find his way out of a mountain blizzard. This harrowing section of the book may be justification enough for reading Track of the Cat.