Reading Order
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams Reading Order
Butcher's Crossing (1960) by John Williams is his second novel — a spare, intense, and psychologically precise Western novel about Will Andrews, a young Harvard graduate in 1873 who goes west to experience nature and the frontier, and ends up joining a small group of buffalo hunters on a months-long expedition into an isolated Colorado valley. The novel is Williams's anti-Western: it uses the conventions of the Western genre — the frontier, the wilderness, the hunt, the test of manhood — to produce something very different from the conventional Western's celebration of the frontier spirit. The buffalo hunt is rendered with extraordinary physical precision and with a cold, clinical attention to the mechanics of killing that gradually strips away any romanticism the genre might supply. What Williams is interested in is the relationship between the hunt and the hunter — the way that the act of killing animals in large numbers changes the men who do it. Butcher's Crossing belongs alongside Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian and Norman Maclean's A River Runs Through It in the tradition of the American literary Western that takes nature seriously and the romantic mythology of the frontier critically. It is one of Williams's least-read novels and one of his most important — it shows a major American literary voice working out the anti-romantic vision that would eventually produce Stoner.
Where to start
Butcher's Crossing is best read as the second of Williams's four novels, after Nothing But the Night. Any Viking, NYRB, or Vintage edition works. Moderate length (332 pages) and propulsive despite its spare prose — the expedition structure drives the narrative forward.
Complete Butcher's Crossing by John Williams Book List
- 1Buy
Butcher's Crossing
John Williams·1960·Williams second novel anti-Western — Will Andrews Harvard graduate 1873; west experience nature frontier; small group buffalo hunters months-long expedition isolated Colorado valley; anti-Western conventions frontier wilderness hunt manhood; buffalo hunt physical precision cold clinical mechanics killing; romanticism stripped away; Viking NYRB Vintage; 332 pages; McCarthy Blood Meridian Maclean River Runs tradition; anti-romantic vision; least-read most important Williams; Stoner precursor. - 2Buy
Stoner
John Williams·1965·Williams's companion mature masterwork — the companion that shows where the anti-romantic vision of Butcher's Crossing arrived in its most celebrated and refined form. - 3Buy
Nothing But the Night
John Williams·1948·Williams's companion debut novel — the companion that shows the earlier, more psychologically intense form of Williams's spare literary vision. - 4Buy
Augustus
John Williams·1972·Williams's companion National Book Award — the companion that shows Williams's vision applied to historical fiction and the distant past. - 5Buy
Blood Meridian
Cormac McCarthy·1985·McCarthy's companion — the great American novel about the violence of the frontier; the companion in the tradition of the American literary Western that takes the mechanics of violence seriously and refuses romanticism. - 6Buy
A River Runs Through It
Norman Maclean·1976·Maclean's companion — the great American literary account of fly fishing and family in Montana; the companion in the tradition of the American literary work about the encounter with nature that is both deeply personal and deeply critical of the romantic mythology. - 7Buy
Death Comes for the Archbishop
Willa Cather·1927·Cather's companion — the great American novel about the Southwest; the companion in the tradition of the American literary novel that takes the Western landscape seriously as a spiritual and moral space rather than just a setting. - 8Buy
The Son
Philipp Meyer·2013·Meyer's companion — the great multigenerational Texas novel about the relationship between settlers and Comanche; the companion in the tradition of the contemporary American literary novel about the frontier and its moral costs.
Butcher's Crossing by John Williams — Frequently Asked Questions
What is the buffalo hunt?
The buffalo hunt is the novel's central action: Will Andrews joins Miller, an experienced hunter, and a small team in an expedition into a remote Colorado valley where Miller believes there is an enormous herd of buffalo that has never been hunted. The hunt takes months — they travel into the valley, find the herd, and kill hundreds of animals systematically, processing their hides for sale. Williams renders the killing with extraordinary physical precision — the mechanics of shooting, skinning, and processing buffalo are described in clinical detail — and the cumulative effect of this precision is a meditation on the relationship between the human capacity for organized destruction and the natural world that is destroyed.
Who is Will Andrews?
Will Andrews is a Harvard graduate who has left his studies to go west — motivated by a vague but powerful desire to experience something real, something that the civilization he has been educated in cannot provide. He is a figure familiar from American literature: the young idealist who goes west to find himself. What Williams does with this familiar figure is characteristic of his anti-romantic vision: Andrews does find an experience in the West, but it is not the transcendence he was looking for. The experience of the hunt changes him in ways he did not anticipate and cannot fully understand.
How is this an anti-Western?
Butcher's Crossing is an anti-Western in the sense that it uses the conventions of the Western genre — the frontier setting, the male group on a dangerous expedition, the test of manhood against the natural world — to produce a critique of the romantic mythology those conventions normally serve. Where the conventional Western celebrates the frontier spirit and the conquest of nature, Butcher's Crossing is cold about what the conquest actually involves: the systematic, industrial killing of animals, the commodification of nature for the hide market, and the psychological costs to the men who do it. Williams refuses the mythological frame that makes the Western hero admirable.
What happens to Miller?
Miller — the experienced hunter who leads the expedition — is the novel's most complex figure. He is completely competent at what he does: he is the best shot, the best tracker, the best leader. But his competence is in service of something that the novel gradually reveals as destructive and self-destructive. Miller's identification with the hunt — his sense that the hunt is what gives his life meaning — becomes increasingly pathological as the expedition continues, and his fate is one of the novel's most carefully prepared and devastating moments.
What should I read after Butcher's Crossing?
After Butcher's Crossing, Stoner by Williams is the companion mature masterwork. Nothing But the Night by Williams is the companion debut showing earlier Williams. Augustus by Williams is the companion National Book Award historical fiction. Blood Meridian by McCarthy is the companion great American literary Western refusing romanticism. A River Runs Through It by Maclean is the companion great literary account of the encounter with nature. Death Comes for the Archbishop by Cather is the companion great American novel about the Western landscape as spiritual space. The Son by Meyer is the companion contemporary American literary novel about the frontier's moral costs.
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