"Walter Van Tilburg Clark was one of the West's most important literary figures. Author of the classic novel The Ox-Bow Incident, he helped to change American literature by making the West a legitimate subject for serious fiction. As a comparatively young man, he published three novels and an acclaimed collection of short stories, then remained almost silent for the rest of his life, the victim of a paralyzing case of writer's block. Now Jackson J. Benson has produced the first full-length biography of this enigmatic, and ultimately tragic figure." "Based on widely scattered sources - personal papers and correspondence; Clark's unpublished stories and poems; and interviews with family members, friends, and others - Benson focuses on Clark's intellectual and literary life as a writer, teacher, and westerner, balancing his account of the experiences, people, and settings of Clark's life with an examination of Clark's complex psyche and the crippling perfectionism that virtually ended his career. He also offers an assessment of Clark's place in Western writing."--BOOK JACKET.