Bergon has published twelve books—four novels, a critical study ofStephen Crane, five edited collections and anthologies, and most recently two books of essays. A major concern of his work is with the lives ofBasque Americans in the West.[5] His writing about Native Americans ranges from the Shoshone of Nevada[6] to the Maya of Chiapas, Mexico.[7]
His Nevada trilogy consists of three novels spanning a century from the Shoshone massacre of 1911 (Shoshone Mike),[8] to the shooting of Fish and Game officers by the self-styled mountain manClaude Dallas (Wild Game),[9] to the current battle over nuclear waste in the Nevada desert (The Temptations of St. Ed & Brother S).[10]
Bergon's California trilogy, consisting of,Jesse's Ghost,Two-Buck Chuck & The Marlboro Man: The New Old West andThe Toughest Kid We Knew: The Old New West: A Personal History, all focus on the San Joaquin Valley, and his Basque-Béarnais heritage. His writing was the subject of a 2019 conference and 2020 book by scholars and writers from the U.S. and the Basque Country:Visions of a Basque American Western: International Perspectives on the Writings of Frank Bergon.[11] The trilogy also draws attention to today's sons and daughters of the CaliforniaOkies portrayed inSteinbeck'sThe Grapes of Wrath.Jesse's Ghost was selected in 2024 forThe New York Times "Best Books About California."[12]
He also writes about the natural history and environment of the American West in both fiction[13] and non-fiction, such as inThe Journals ofLewis and Clark.[14]
With his wife, Holly St. John Bergon, he has published translations of the Spanish poets Antonio Gamaneda, José Ovejero, Xavier Queipo, and Violeta C. Rangel inNew European Poets[15] andThe European Constitution in Verse.[16]
Bergon has taught at theUniversity of Washington and for many years atVassar College, where he is Professor Emeritus of English.[17] In 1998, Bergon was inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.[18][19] In 2024, he was included into the Bellarmine Hall of Fame.[20]
Guns and Grammar, or How to Read the Second Amendment published in TheLos Angeles Review of Books humorously but devastatingly makes that case that an incorrect textual reading of the Second Amendment by Supreme Court Justice Antonin Scalia starts, and continues to cause, disastrous rulings on U.S. gun laws.[21]
I Understand Thee, and Can Speak Thy Tongue: California Unlocks Shakespeare's Gibberish published in the Los Angeles Review of Books links what has been regarded as gibberish in Shakespeare to the Basque language.[22]
^Ann Ronald, "Nevada," in Updating the American West, ed. Thomas J. Lyons, Fort Worth; TX: Texas Christian University Press, 1997.
^Glotfelty, Cheryll (2008)."Frank Bergon," in Literary Nevada: Writings from the Silver State. University of Nevada Press. p. 649-650.ISBN978-0-87417-755-8.
^Morris, Gregory L. (1997).Frank Bergon: Western Writers Series. Boise State University Press. p. 5-8.ISBN0884301257.
^Staff."Summa Cummlaude for Madera Man". No. 7 June 1965. Center for Bibliographical Studies & Research. Madera Tribune. RetrievedApril 14, 2019.
^Monica Madinabeitia, “Getting to Know Frank Bergon: The Legacy of the Basque Indarra,” Journal of the Society of Basque Studies in America, 28 (2008).
^James H. Maguire, "Fiction in the West," in The Columbia History of the American Novel, ed. Emory Elliott, New York: Columbia University Press, 1991.
^Frank Bergon, “Come with Me to Reality,” Terra Nova: Nature and Culture, 3 (Winter 1998): 16-34.
^“Top Twelve Westerns,” in Good Fiction Guide, ed. Jane Rogers. New York: Oxford University Press, 2001.
^"Tiny Cards".New Yorker: 82. August 14, 1995.(subscription required)
^Cheryl Glotfelty, "Spiritual Testing in the Nuclear West," in Spiritual Frontiers: Belief and Values in the Literary West, Provo, UT: Brigham Young University Press, 2000.
^Bergon, Frank; Arrieta Baro, Iñaki; Irujo Ametzaga, Xabier, eds. (2020).Visions of a Basque American Westerner: International Perspectives on the Writings of Frank Bergon. Center for Basque Studies Press, University of Nevada, Reno. pp. 15–169.ISBN9781949805277.
^Jim Dwyer, “100 Best Books,” in Where the Wild Books Are: A Field Guide to Ecofiction, Reno: University of Nevada Press, pp. 125, 185.
^Frank Bergon, “The Journals of Lewis and Clark: An American Epic,” in Old West-New West: Centennial Essays, ed. Barbara Howard Meldrum, Moscow, ID:University of Idaho Press, 1993.
^New European Poets, ed. Wayne Miller and Kevin Prufer, Saint Paul, MN: Graywolf Press, 2008.
^The European Constitution in Verse, ed. David Van Reybrouck and Peter Vermeersch, Brussels: Passa Porta, 2009.
