Other editions of book Wanderer of the Wasteland

From the master of the western comes a novel full of romance and adventure. The story begins: Adam Larey gazed with hard and wondering eyes down the silent current of the red river upon which he meant to drift away into the desert. The Rio Colorado was no river to trust. It chafed at its banks as if to engulf them; muddy and thick it swirled and glided along in flood, sweeping in curves back and forth from Arizona to California shore. Majestic and gleaming under the hot sky, it swung southward between wide green borders of willow and cottonwood toward a stark and naked upflung wilderness of mountain peaks, the red ramparts of the unknown and trackless desert. (Goodreads)

A western adventure becomes a journey of expiation and redemption. Adam flees to the desert to save his life, and discovers the need to save his soul. In the searing heat of Death Valley, lonely land of prospectors and hermits, he confronts his baser instincts as he struggles to survive, striving to rise above them. Wanderer of the Wasteland is Zane Grey’s most personal novel: a thinly veiled autobiography written in remarkably poetic language. Filled with colorful characters, and vibrant descriptions of the southwestern desert landscape he so loved, this is the story of one man’s internal battle to save his better self, or die trying.