Anyway, I found your blog and got caught up in it. You’re a terrific writer, but that’s not surprising. I see it’s a time of flux in your life - moving to Montana is, well, a major move. Part of me is quite jealous. I’ve spent, oh, maybe just 5 days in Montana. I went there by myself on vacation during the years I was living in San Francisco. It’s a beautiful vast place. Life out west is much more influenced and shaped by the outdoors - the geography, climate, and natural resources - then it is back east, I find. I felt that way even in San Francisco, which is a good-sized city. Now that I’m back on the east coast, I miss that feeling, even though I’m not much of an outdoorswoman at all.

Anyway, I’m a librarian these days, so as such I can’t help but recommend a few Montana books that I’ve read.

In the non-fiction arena, I’d recommend Norman Maclean’s “Young Men and Fire” about the most deadly (up until the last 15 years or so) forest fire in the West, where 10(?) smoke jumpers died. It’s his attempt to find some explanation of a tragedy that can’t really be fixed by just explaining it. Right next to the Missoula airport is a smokejumper’s museum, as I recall. I remember learning more than I wanted to know about how fires behave, too. Maclean is also the author of “A River Runs Through It” which most of us experienced in movie form. That novella is really quite lovely as well.

I also read “Bad Land” by Jonathan Raban, probably 10 years ago now. I can’t recall too much about it. It explores the settlement of eastern Montana by homesteaders. I recall one part in particular, the story of a woman who settled there named Evelyn Cameron. She photographed life on the ranch from the 1890s through the 1920s, and so left an amazing visual record of the hardships of that kind of life. I remember stopping in the town where the little museum is that held her photos. Annoyingly it was a Sunday and so I never got to see them.

In the vein of ranch life, I also liked “Breaking Clean” by Judy Blunt. She was a rancher’s daughter who became a rancher’s wife. In this country we’re not all born with the same opportunities, and this is a story of the limits of her life and how she escaped them. The parts about the realities of ranching life are really an education, as I recall. Children’s lives and opportunities and just what seems “normal” vary so much depending on where they grow up, and what their families expect and demand of them. Kids in Montana, if they go to university, can major in “equine science” - I mean, us Easterners hear that and think, “Huh? That’s a thing?”

As for fiction, I’ve only read a couple of books by Ivan Doig (and liked them), but he’s considered one of the big voices of Western fiction these days, and he sets his books in Montana.

Well, that’s about all I can recall of Montana books that I’ve read. It’s exciting and scary to make such a big move into a very different environment. My other recommendation: Go to the rodeo. Rodeos kick ass. It’s pure adrenaline.

Good luck and take care,
Carrie