This is a story of a wild horse who many said could not be caught or broken, and the man who set out to prove them wrong. Alcatraz is a wild horse and Brand alternates the narrative between the people struggling to hold onto a ranch and the horse as he breaks from a cruel master and learns to survive on the plains. This is one of the great Western novels. Max Brands style of writing is classic western, heroes and villains, good guys and bad guys, wide open country. Max Brand was the pen name of American author Frederick Schiller Faust. Brand was best known for writing Western novels, and many films have been adapted based on his stories.