Redefining the American West and/or the Western in the 1960s

1960s are best noted as turbulent years when an amount of accumulated and repressed energy broke loose to “flood” all the preconceived absolutes and media-based mentalities. However, the commonly labeled “age of suspicion,” has been more acclaimed for its aftermath and lasting impact than for what the so-called “counter-culture revolution” really accomplished during those years. Therefore, the apparently strikingly Western novels, that is, Thomas Berger’s Little Big Man (1964), Ishmael Reed’s Yellow Back Radio Broke-Down (1969) and E. L. Doctorow’s Welcome to Hard Times (1960) exemplify outstanding examples of the New Western or Post-Western launched in the 1960s. As such, each in its own way and yet on similar terms, the above-mentioned works blend both Western and metafictional elements into a more sustainable fictional and mythical entities thus revealing alternative and more intriguing Western histories (lower case). Above all, they revitalize the “literature of exhaustion” and “silence,” as John Barth and Ihab Hassan respectively labeled it in the 1960s, by creating real fiction out of the remnants of the out-dated genre.