Set in 1885 The Ox-Bow Incident is a searing and realistic portrait of frontier life and mob violence in the American West. First published in 1940 it focuses on the lynching of three innocent men and the tragedy that ensues when law and order are abandoned. The result is an emotionally powerful vivid and unforgettable re-creation of the Western novel which Clark transmuted into a universal story about good and evil individual and community justice and human nature. As Wallace Stegner writes [Clark's] theme was civilization and he recorded indelibly its first steps in a new country.
