The Desert of Wheat is a story that includes life in the Pacific Northwest and experiences of young men fighting abroad during WWI. Published in 1919, Grey undoubtedly wrote the book while the war was being fought. Kurt Dorn is the son of a wheat farmer hard-pressed to survive on rented land. He is being pressured by the I. W. W. to unionize his workers when the wheat is harvested. Simultaneously, he falls in love with Lenore Anderson and then is sent to Europe to fight in WWI. Severely wounded, an internationally-renowned physician tell the family there is no hope for Dorn. But Lenore refused to give up on him.
Zane Grey (January 31, 1872 October 23, 1939) was an American author best known for his popular adventure novels and stories that presented an idealized image of the American frontier. Riders of the Purple Sage (1912) was his best-selling book.