"The John J. Hunt Reader" is a full volume that offers stories and historical sketches, as well as what can only be called polemics on a wide set of topics, and has been collected over a period of nearly half a century and represents the writer's collected works. John's essays cover various parts of our culture, from films to the Statue of Liberty, from topics of psychoanalytical cultural analysis to Washington Irving, Edward Abbey, and Pancho Villa. There are a number of Historical Sketches that are pure Americana: Kit Carson, Billy the Kid, Bill Bradshaw, and John L. Sullivan. Mr. Hunt's topics are eclectic, from Nikola Tesla to Robert Pete Williams, a legendary bluesman, as well as Henry Miller ("Tropic of Cancer"), who Mr. Hunt got to know before the author's death in 1979. Georgia O'Keeffe, Ansel Adams, D.H. Lawrence, and Mabel Luhan, all of whom contributed to the popularity of New Mexico as a place that attracted artists, are featured in portraits that uncover the warts and all of his subjects. His short stories are about love, and retribution, and murder; the culture wars that split America in the sixties. Capital punishment. And about fighting back. There is a Remembrance of his Great, great uncle, who died in the Civil War as well as a touching account of John's last time spent with his father as he helped him die. It only reminds us all that we should have recorded this event in our own family's history. This book allows the reader to choose which pieces to read; although novels these days tend to be slim, this nearly 500-page volume can be savored over a long period of time. And every discerning reader will garner some enjoyment of the various slices of the American cultural pie.
