I'm reading this story in the End of the Drive short story collection. Anybody know if the setting is real? LL seems to give a good bit of detail about the are where Finn Mahone lives, but none of the place names seem real. I guess he could have used a real area with fake names, or maybe he just completely made it up. Good story either way.

peter

I remember wondering the same thing. I don't think it's real.

I guess he saw some much of the West he could easily have made up an area that seemed real.

peter

It's a mistake to let the whole "Louis L'Amour" wrote about "real" places thing become too important. Yeah, Dad did use a lot of supposedly real locations, but he was a master of saying just enough to allow someone's memory or imagination to kick in. He really didn't describe them in any great detail, he got the reader to do that! That was his superpower.

As a writer, once you've left the "real" place it exists only in your imagination, anyway ... especially if you are writing about the past. His gift was making you feel it was real, whether it was real or not. It's just entertainment, and he was a great entertainer.