The Shepherd of Guadaloupe

By: Zane Grey

Narrated by: John Traven

A soldier returns home to find his parents displaced and their property stolen in this classic Western.

He leaned propped against the rail of the great ship, in an obscure place aft, shadowed by the life-boats. It was the second night out of Cherbourg and the first time for him to be on deck. The ridged and waved Atlantic, but for its turbulence, looked like the desert undulating away to the uneven horizon. The roar of the wind in the rigging bore faint resemblance to the wind in the cottonwoods at home - a sound that had haunted him for all the long years of his absence. There was the same mystery in the black hollows of the sea as from boyhood he had seen and feared in the gloomy gulches of the foothills.

So begins Zane Grey's The Shepherd of Guadaloupe. After surviving the brutality of the First World War, Clifton Forrest returns home to find that his childhood home was stolen from his family. With his parents robbed of their property and the area under the firm control of his old acquaintance, Lundeen, Cliff must fight both his enemy and his ailing body to regain the right to a peaceful life on the land he once called home. The Shepherd of Guadaloupe tells of Cliff's heroic journey as he battles Lundeen while juggling his love for his parents and the love of Lundeen's daughter, Virginia.

©1930 Zane Grey (P)2019 Blackstone Audio, Inc.

Good post WWI western love story

I’m a fan of western films that are set in the period when the frontier was disappearing. Taking place presumably in 1919 cars and automatic weapons figure prominently in this tale. One of my favorite aspects of the Zane Grey novels I’ve listened to is the writing style and the “old fashioned” love stories. There’s an innocence to the romance in this story which I prefer to modern books. Although I’ll admit by the last hour I was thinking “just say you love each other already!” How Grey writes dialogue also appeals to me. There’s again an old fashioned style that for the time wouldn’t have been as noticeable, but gives the story more of an authentic feel when compared to westerns today. For instance, characters apologize when they swear... who would think to write characters like that today?

Señor Malpass!

Clifton Forrest was on his way home, following the horrors of WWI. His body had endured much pain and injury, his endurance near extinct. On the ship to New York, he exchanged a brief conversation with a girl. The girl was sympathetic and very polite. On the train from New York to Las Vegas, Nevada he met the girl again. She comforted him and cared for him when he hurried to the train, exhausted, and passed out in his compartment. Forrest’s spirit was raised as it had not been in the past two years. Then her mood changed and she became cold to him. Arriving in Las Vegas, he discovered that his home no longer belonged to him and he fainted away. The girl took him to his parent’s home which was now a complete reversal of what he had known before he left six years ago. The Lundeen’s now lived in Cottonwoods, the big house on the hill, and the Forrest’s lived in the small adobe house at the base of the hill. The girl is Virginia Lundeen, who grew up in the adobe house until she was twelve, then left for school, and later overseas for two years. She had no idea what had happened back home between the Forrest’s and Lundeen’s, identical to Clifton. As Virginia investigated her surroundings and what had taken place in her absence, she became angry and suspicious of her father and his business partner, Malpass. Clifton was in a deep depression and denial of Virginia’s honesty and intentions. The love between Virginia and Clifton had existed since they were youngsters but they had been raised experiencing so much hate between the families that their love was forbidden. Will they ever be able to admit their love and share their lives? The story continues as a diabolical triangle between Forrest, Lundeen, and Malpass. The two young lovers are involuntarily, and to some degree unknowingly, controlled and guided by the actions of the triangle. I like this story very much. It’s an authentic and heart-warming tale of lost love, reunited. Beautiful.

Enraptured

I fell in love with her... and him. You will too! And the story is timeless, filled with sweetest love and bitterest of tragedy in precisely correct proportion.

Beauty of the western desert.

Great western yarn-action and romance. Ranks right up there with Riders of the Purple Sage.

Great book

This is one of my favorite books though I have many from this author. My only issue was with the way the storyteller said certain words.