A few weeks back, I sat in my Monday afternoon contemporary American literature class while we discussed the current renaissance of love for the American West in film and literature. The class is small, required for my major, and I’m a junior in college, so everyone knows me as that “guy who writes about fish and killing elk.”

I protest that I only hunt elk; killing one is lucky.

So, the class deferred discussion to me when our professor said, “Give me some examples of your favorite contemporary Western literature.”

One night a few years ago John Klus walked into his home on Lake Waubesa, Wisconsin, and thought, "Why is there a mouse running around in my living room?" The next thing Klus knew his wife, Sarah, was scooping up the mouse in her arms, a mouse that upon closer inspection turned out to be a dachshund puppy.