I'll check out the book. It looks interesting. I'm not a huge Wayne fan. I think that his persona worked well in westerns for a lot of reasons and not so well in other movies for the same reasons. In my opinion, The Shootist is one of the best "modern" westerns ever made. The Searchers is also a nice piece of work.
Well, I loved Wayne, because he was so authentic. He really never "played" anything except himself. That's why toward the end of his career, I always thought he would have been an automatic Oscar by taking ANY "gay" role.