Go west with truly colorful personalities

Morgan says writing novels has helped the writing of nonfiction, including his monumental biography of Daniel Boone.

“I think my background in writing fiction helps me in storytelling, which is what history is and biography as well,” he said in a phone interview from his home in Ithaca, N.Y., where he is Kappa Alpha Professor of English at Cornell University.

	“Lions of the West, Heroes and Villains of the Westward Expansion” by Robert Morgan Algonquin Books, $19.95, 411 pp.

His most recent nonfiction work is “Lions of the West,” a collection of short biographies of men – heroes and villains – in America’s westward expansion.

One of those heroes is John Chapman, better known as Johnny Appleseed. Over 23 pages Morgan tells the history of the apple, Chapman’s legendary planting, selling and giving away trees but, too, a deeper reason for his nomadic life: ” … he was implicitly preaching … an ultimate freedom to just be yourself, unconcerned with status, fashion, excess possessions or comforts.”

A personality in the book that the author said he became most fascinated with is Kit Carson, who ranks as hero and villain.

Carson, Morgan writes, had an exceptional memory for the landscape and peoples he observed, was fluent in nine Indian languages as well as Spanish, Canadian French and sign language. The author favorably compares Carson, “the practitioner,” to Thomas Jefferson, “the theorist,” in the understanding of geography and ethnography, Morgan notes.

“(Carson) was a sympathetic Indian agent and a tireless spokesman for Indian rights,” Morgan writes. “One of the major ironies of Carson’s life was that he brutally rounded up the Navajos to force them onto the Bosque Redondo reservation … and then became a forceful advocate for the return of the same Diné people to their traditional homeland.”

Among the other biographical sketches are those of Jefferson, Andrew Jackson, David Crockett and Gen. Winfield Scott.

Morgan’s manuscript for “Lions of the West” had contained chapters on three women. The chapters were excised because he said the publisher told him the book would be too large.

The recent publication of the paperback edition of “Lions of the West” coincided with the new paperback edition of his novel “Gap Creek.” Morgan just finished writing “Road From Gap Creek,” which is due out next year.

As for history projects, the author said, “It’s up in the air. I have to let the dust settle. I’m very interested in Kit Carson … but I’m interested in other figures like Tecumseh,” the Shawnee leader and iconic folk hero.

Robert Morgan discusses, signs “Lions of the West” at 7 p.m. Thursday, Sept. 20, at Bookworks, 4022 Rio Grande NW.