An obituary for Major Reno

Format:

Book (regular print)

Title:

An obituary for Major Reno

Author:

Wheeler, Richard S.

ISBN:

9780765307088

9780765346353

Edition:

1st ed.

Publication Information:

New York : Forge, 2004.

Physical Description:

318 pages ; 22 cm

General Note:

"A Tom Doherty Associates book."

Summary:

Working to fulfill a deathbed request to restore the honor of a disgraced Little Big Horn officer held responsible for Custer's death, a newspaper reporter learns about how the major saved most of the troopers under his command.

Personal Subject:

Reno, Marcus A. (Marcus Albert), 1835-1889-Fiction.

Reno, Marcus A. (Marcus Albert), 1835-1889 (OCoLC)fst00102509

Subject(s):

Little Bighorn, Battle of the, Mont., 1876 -- Fiction.

Terminally ill -- Fiction.

Journalists -- Fiction.

Geographic Term:

Montana.

Genre:

Western stories.

Western fiction.

Biographical fiction.

Historical fiction.

Fiction.

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Call Number	Status
Searching... Silver Falls Library	W WHEELER	Searching... Unknown

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On Order

Summary

A master of the biographical novel provides a brilliant reconstruction of the Custer battle and Marcus Reno's subsequent courts martial for conduct unbecoming an officer and a gentleman. The novel brings to life a beleaguered man and his search to restore his lost honor.

Author Notes

Richard S. (Shaw) Wheeler was born in Milwaukee in 1935 and grew up in nearby Wauwatosa. Wheeler spent three years in Hollywood in the mid-50s, where he worked in a record store and took acting lessons while struggling as a screenwriter. He eventually returned home, and attended the University of Wisconsin at Madison.

He spent over a decade as a newspaperman, working as an editorial writer for the Phoenix Gazette, editorial page editor for the Oakland, California, Tribune, reporter on the Nevada Appeal in Carson City, and reporter and assistant city editor for the Billings, Montana, Gazette.

In 1972, he turned to book editing, working in all for four publishers through 1987. As an editor for Walker & Company he edited twelve Western novels a year. Sandwiched between editing stints, in the mid-70s he worked at the Rancho de la Osa dude ranch in Sasabe, Arizona, on the Mexican border. There, in the off season, he experimented with his own fiction and wrote his first novel, Bushwack, published by Doubleday in 1978.

Five more Western novels followed Bushwack before Wheeler was able to turn to writing full time: Beneath the Blue Mountain (1979), Winter Grass (1983), Sam Hook (1986), Richard Lamb (1987) and Dodging Red Cloud (1987).

(Bowker Author Biography)

Reviews (1)

Publisher's Weekly Review

Spur Award-winning western writer Wheeler (The Exile) once again takes a dramatic historical event and tells the story from an unusual and controversial viewpoint, this time chronicling Custer's last stand from the perspective of Maj. Marcus Reno, one of Custer's senior officers. History condemned Reno for failing to come to Custer's aid on the day of the massacre in Montana in 1876, although eyewitness accounts and an official court of inquiry proved the fault was Custer's, not Reno's. In 1889 Reno is dying of cancer, a disgraced and broken man who wants only to regain his honor. He grants a last interview to Joseph Richler, a newspaper reporter with the New York Herald, hoping to finally tell his side of the story. Richler doubts Reno will be able to add anything new to the well-publicized account and is surprised to find that he not only likes the unlikable Reno, but that he believes him, too. Richler then wonders why so many people vilified the man who actually saved half of Custer's company. His investigation reveals treachery, professional jealousy, scapegoating hysteria and an army culture of heroic death. Although some might call this revisionist history, it is also compelling fiction, a fresh, insightful and compassionate tale of a tragic figure. Agent, Robin Rue at Writers House. (Dec.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved