The Call of the Canyon

by Zane Grey

First published 1924

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2.5(5)

After the First World War, a wounded veteran retreats to Oak Creek Canyon in Arizona, seeking a life far removed from the eastern society he knew before the conflict. His fiancée follows, expecting the separation to be temporary, but discovers that the landscape and the work of recovery are changing him in ways she does not immediately understand.

Their relationship becomes a test of whether affection can survive radically different ideas about comfort, ambition and belonging. The novel contrasts post-war urban prosperity with the restorative appeal of western isolation, using the veteran’s physical and emotional recovery to explore the difficulty of returning to ordinary life after wartime experience.