Susan Kollin is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and the director of the American Studies Program at Montana State University, where she teaches courses in Western fiction and film. She is a past president of the Western Literature Association and the editor of A History of Western American Literature.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One. Gender, Sexuality, and the WesternChapter Two. "A Love Letter to the West"Chapter Three. "We're Fugitives Now": Women, Guns, and ViolenceConclusion. Beyond the AbyssNotesBibliography

Susan Kollin's use of the Western genre to reexamine Thelma & Louise is timely, relevant, and very welcome. Kollin has crafted a very thoughtful analysis that resists easy answers and allows the film's full complexity to shine through, leading to even deeper conversations and new questions."—Cynthia Miller, author of The Encylopedia of B Westerns"Kollin's crucial innovation (in Thelma & Louise) is to move us beyond considerations of how the genre alludes to conventions of Western fiction to a much more sophisticated analysis in which the Western emerges as the key to understanding not only the film itself, but why it so resonated, and continues to resonate, with audiences."—Andrew Patrick Nelson, author of Still in the Saddle: The Hollywood Western, 1969-1980

Susan Kollin is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and the director of the American Studies Program at Montana State University, where she teaches courses in Western fiction and film. She is a past president of the Western Literature Association and the editor of A History of Western American Literature.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One. Gender, Sexuality, and the WesternChapter Two. "A Love Letter to the West"Chapter Three. "We're Fugitives Now": Women, Guns, and ViolenceConclusion. Beyond the AbyssNotesBibliography

Susan Kollin's use of the Western genre to reexamine Thelma & Louise is timely, relevant, and very welcome. Kollin has crafted a very thoughtful analysis that resists easy answers and allows the film's full complexity to shine through, leading to even deeper conversations and new questions."—Cynthia Miller, author of The Encylopedia of B Westerns"Kollin's crucial innovation (in Thelma & Louise) is to move us beyond considerations of how the genre alludes to conventions of Western fiction to a much more sophisticated analysis in which the Western emerges as the key to understanding not only the film itself, but why it so resonated, and continues to resonate, with audiences."—Andrew Patrick Nelson, author of Still in the Saddle: The Hollywood Western, 1969-1980

Susan Kollin is a Distinguished Professor in the Department of English and the director of the American Studies Program at Montana State University, where she teaches courses in Western fiction and film. She is a past president of the Western Literature Association and the editor of A History of Western American Literature.

• List of IllustrationsAcknowledgmentsIntroductionChapter One. Gender, Sexuality, and the WesternChapter Two. "A Love Letter to the West"Chapter Three. "We're Fugitives Now": Women, Guns, and ViolenceConclusion. Beyond the AbyssNotesBibliography

Susan Kollin's use of the Western genre to reexamine Thelma & Louise is timely, relevant, and very welcome. Kollin has crafted a very thoughtful analysis that resists easy answers and allows the film's full complexity to shine through, leading to even deeper conversations and new questions."—Cynthia Miller, author of The Encylopedia of B Westerns"Kollin's crucial innovation (in Thelma & Louise) is to move us beyond considerations of how the genre alludes to conventions of Western fiction to a much more sophisticated analysis in which the Western emerges as the key to understanding not only the film itself, but why it so resonated, and continues to resonate, with audiences."—Andrew Patrick Nelson, author of Still in the Saddle: The Hollywood Western, 1969-1980