25 Western Books Everyone Needs to Read

Set on the Texas-Mexico border in the 1850s, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian is all about deconstructing the Wild West myth. While white residents saw the West as a land of promise, the truth was much darker for the indigenous people who already resided there. McCarthy faces that reality head on as a 14-year-old known only as the Kid is confronted with the thriving market for scalps that leads to the murder of countless Native Americans.