Pick Up the Gun, My Son

A bounty hunter is haunted by a painful past he believes is tied to a ruthless villain. A young boy on a spiritual quest finds his future threatened by that same man. In the dense forests of the American Northwest, their fates intertwine in a raw, psychological Western.

But the drama onscreen in the forgotten 1951 film Pick Up the Gun, My Son is only half the picture.

This is also the tale of its creator, Tracy Little, a pulp author who transformed her own journey of personal trauma into a search for meaning—a struggle mirrored in her characters. It is the story of Hollywood legends like Tyrone Power, Orson Welles, and Henry Fonda, who, reimagined in this work of historical fiction, joined Little in offering the public an uncommon narrative about the pursuit of purpose.