The Legend of Thunder Moon

"The Thunder Moon" series represents some of Max Brand's best work, originally published in 1927-28 as a series of interlocking stories.

The University of Nebraska Press is now republishing these stories uncut and in the sequence Faust intended, with careful reference to the original typescripts.

In order, the works appear in four volumes as "The Legend of Thunder Moon", "Red Wind and Thunder Moon", "Thunder Moon and the Sky People", and "Farewell, Thunder Moon". "The Legend of Thunder Moon" is an intriguing and successful re-creation of the spirit of Cheyenne life during its golden age of nomadic hunting and superb horsemanship on the Great Plains.

A Cheyenne brave, Big Hard Face, lacking a son to reaffirm his status, journeys east and kidnaps a white boy.

The boy, raised as Thunder Moon, becomes immersed in Cheyenne culture and seeks honor through warfare and hunting to overcome the stigma of his lighter skin.

Yet Thunder Moon refuses the self-torture of the Sun Dance, the major passage to adult status for males.

Forced to prove himself through other means, Thunder Moon leads an audacious and successful raid against the fearsome Comanches. In this inaugural volume of the "Thunder Moon" tetralogy, we find Brand at his best, uniting a gripping tale of action with a shift from seeing the Native American as an implacably hostile menace to a more nuanced and sympathetic figure.

Edgar L Chapman is an associate professor of English at Bradley University.