Salt Lake City News

Western Book Roundup

I recently reviewed Brian Leung’s heartfelt historical novel Take Me Home for the Dallas Morning News.  Set in a rough mining town in Wyoming, the book tells the story an improbable love affair that develops between a white woman and a Chinese man. 

Leung’s novel got me thinking about the many books published over the past year or so that address the theme of Chinese miners in the Old West.  There’s The Poker Bride: The First Chinese in the Wild West by Christopher Corbett (which I reviewed for New West) and Massacred for Gold: The Chinese in Hells Canyon, by R. Gregory Nokes. That Idaho massacre is central to Dana Hand’s novel Deep Creek (which David Abrams reviewed for New West), and Chinese miners had a cameo role in Ivan Doig’s Montana mining novel, Work Song (which Abrams reviewed for New West and I reviewed for the Dallas Morning News).  All of these books are worth checking out for anyone who has an interest in Chinese immigrants in the Old West, or who is just looking for a good read.

Also in the Roundup: Jackson Hole Review is revived with a call for submissions, Temple Grandin’s new book, and Boulder Book Store’s generosity.

FALL MUSKIES NOT FOR WUSSIES

Beware of Muskie Fever. It can ruin the life of a perfectly normal fishaholic.

And contagious? You betcha. I caught it even before I went anywhere near water where the mighty muskellunge lurks. Then, last year, I finally had my first chance at a muskie, and what an introduction! Six long days and 8,600 casts without a single hook-up. (Click here to read the gory details.)

But even such a royal butt kicking can’t come close to curing Muskie Fever. Instead of giving up and going back to trout, I couldn’t wait to go back for another beating. Catching a muskie was high on my life list, so it had to happen. All I needed was a better time and place, eh?

SASKATCHEWAN FISHING LODGES

I’ve had all kinds of fishing experiences, and some of them--perhaps too many of them--have been in somewhat primitive, if not brutal, conditions. Roughin’ it is okay, I guess. I’ve done plenty of it, but now, as I get older every year, I’ve discovered that a little relaxation and indulgence goes just fine with fishing.

Which is one reason I thoroughly enjoyed my stay at Selwyn Lake Lodge.

New West Book Review

The Wake of Forgiveness
by Bruce Machart
320 pages, $26

I tried to think of a way to approach writing about Bruce Machart’s debut novel, The Wake of Forgiveness, in my usual third-person book reviewer way, but I don’t come to this story of a grievous rift between Czech-American farming brothers in Texas during the early 1900’s with a blank slate, so it’s only right that I fess up. 

I’m Czech on my mother’s side—my generation is the first group Czechs mixed with something not Czech, even though the family has been in America for over 150 years.  At some point shortly after my ancestors, named Hotovy, arrived in America and settled in Nebraska near the “Bohemian Alps” that Ted Kooser has written about, there was a terrible argument between the brothers of the family, the upshot of which is that one branch disowned the other and changed the spelling of its name to Hottovy—that’s my line.  As the story goes, one branch of this family became known in the community as industrious and dependable, while the other one gained a reputation for being shiftless and lazy.  All the business owners in the area needed to know before they would extend credit to a person was whether he spelled his name with one T or two.  My family, of course, claims that the two-T Hottovys were the upstanding ones.

No one can remember what the cause of the split was, except to speculate that land was probably at the heart of it.  So it was with great interest that I read The Wake of Forgiveness, in which four Czech brothers suffer a rift in part over the acquisition of land.

Bruce Machart will discuss The Wake of Forgiveness at the King’s English Bookshop in Salt Lake City on November 11 at 7 p.m.

Western Writers

With Driving on the Rim, his first novel since 2002’s The Cadence of Grass, Thomas McGuane has delivered one of the finest books of his career.  The novel primarily pivots around the trials and tribulations of Dr. Irving Berlin “Berl” Pickett who must fight small-town gossip and politics to preserve his reputation in Livingston, Montana, after a patient dies under his care and he’s charged with negligent homicide.  Like many McGuane characters, Pickett spends most of the book trying to find his center of gravity; when times get really tough, he goes back to house-painting—a job which helped pay his way through medical school.  I had a chance to talk with McGuane when he stopped by Butte on his way from his 2,000-acre ranch in McLeod, Montana to Missoula where he would begin his book tour.  Our conversation was punctuated by his frequent laughter, which rolls as easily out of this throat as it does off the pages of his fiction.

New West: Was there any one incident or person which inspired the novel?

Thomas McGuane: I’ve lived in Montana now for 43 years—mostly in towns of comparable size—and there are a lot of people in those towns who are outsiders.  They may be fourth-generation Montanans, but for one reason or another, they’ve just never seemed to fit into the melting pot.  For example, when I first lived in Livingston, you were either a railroad family or you were a ranch family and if you were something else you were going to have a wobbly path.  I was intrigued by the idea that somebody (like Berl Pickett) who was bright and came up through this Fundamentalist madhouse and economic insecurity could end up being a doctor.  I was also intrigued by the idea that in small towns, doctors still tend to be these sacrosanct figures but they have a hard time living up to it.  So I thought about a guy who comes out of nowhere in a community, achieves a modicum of success, but never believes in himself.  What does that do to his behavior?

Thomas McGuane will discuss Driving On The Rim in Salt Lake City at the City Library Auditorium on October 23 (2 p.m.), in Bozeman at the Country Book Shelf on October 28 (7 p.m.), and in Denver at the Tattered Cover (LoDo) on November 15 (7:30 p.m.).

Western Book Roundup

October is National Book Month, and there are book festivals throughout the region for the next few weeks—check out our Book Festivals of the West map to learn more about what’s going on in Montana, Utah, Colorado, and Idaho this month.  (The orange books on the map mark the October events.)

• Every year the Lighthouse Writers Workshop brings a notable writer to Denver for Inside the Writer’s Studio, a weekend full of literary activity.  Past guests have included Lorrie Moore, Tobias Wolff, and Francine Prose.  This year the featured guest is Colson Whitehead, the funny, talented author of four novels and one collection of essays.  A few years back, he won a MacArthur “genius grant” for his trouble.  (Also check out his always-amusing Twitter feed.) The festivities kick off on Saturday, October 23 with Inside the Writer’s Studio, an on-stage interview of Whitehead at Jones Theatre (DCPA, 4 p.m., $15-$20).  After that comes the Intuitive Dinner and Drinks, a chance to schmooze with Whithead at Tamayo (7 p.m., $100-$140).  On Sunday, October 24 at the Tattered Cover LoDo, Whitehead will deliver “Five Micro Lectures on Craft” ($50-$65).  Tickets to all three events are $150 for Lighthouse members, $185 for non-members.

Also in the Roundup: the Utah Humanities Book Festival and Jamie Ford’s continued book tour.

Western Book Roundup

Wallace Stegner, as probably most of the people reading this know, was a novelist, nonfiction writer, and environmentalist who won the Pulitzer Prize in 1972 for Angle of Repose.  His place in the literature of the American West is so secure that he’s often called “The Dean of Western Writers.” Stegner grew up in Salt Lake City, Utah, Great Falls, Montana, and Saskatchewan.  He taught writing at several universities and founded the creative writing program at Stanford. 

In a New York Times column last year, Timothy Egan called Stegner an “uber-citizen of the West” and wrote, “All over the West, Stegner centers, Stegner prizes and Stegner scholars produce work that follows his life theme: an attempt to get Westerners to make peace with their surroundings.”

Last year the University of Utah celebrated the 100th anniversary of Wallace Stegner’s birth with a series of events culminating in a spring symposium.  But Westerners aren’t done celebrating Stegner yet, as several Stegner-related events are scheduled across the region over the next few weeks:

Western Book Roundup

Brittany Anas recently wrote in the Boulder Daily Camera about the role CU professor Adam Bradley has played in publishing the second posthumous novel of Ralph Ellison (via Twitter.com/Boulderbooks).  Ellison published his classic novel, Invisible Man, in 1952, and although he worked on several novels for decades, he did not publish another one before his death in 1994, but as Anas notes, he left behind “27 boxes of manuscript for his second novel that included handwritten notes, typewritten pages and 460-some computer files.”

Bradley was born and raised in Salt Lake City.  Anas writes that Bradley became interested in Ellison’s work at a young age:

“As an undergraduate at Lewis & Clark College in Portland, Ore., Bradley became intrigued with Ellison, whose father died when he was a child. A character in Invisible Man tells the protagonist: ‘Be your own father, young man.’ The rich theme of father-son relationships struck Bradley, who was raised by his white mother and met his black father for the first time in his 20s.”

Also in the Roundup: Denver’s Bloomsbury Review turns 30, Copper Canyon Press holds a benefit with W.S. Merwin, and “The Montana Place Names Companion” is now up and running.

Western Book Roundup

Narrative Magazine, a leading online literary journal, is currently offering some new work by prolific Montana author Rick Bass. Bass has published a number of stories and essays in Narrative, and currently you can hear Bass read his story “Eating” for free, or for twelve bucks you can order The Blue Horse, a new novella available only at Narrative.  It’s 56 pages long, and the price includes shipping.

Also in the Roundup: The “Literature and Landscape of the Horse” retreat in Wyoming, Denver novelist Carleen Brice holds a contest to benefit a local charity, and a new interview with Terry Tempest Williams.

HERE, WE CAN REALLY MAKE A DIFFERENCE

During a bout of insomnia last night, I watched CNBC to see if any of the talking financial heads thought my retirement funds might stop disappearing, and there it was. Perhaps the biggest environmental, wildlife habitat and water quality problem we don't like to discuss. Yes, it's touchy, but that has never stopped me, so why start now.

We all need to stop buying fool's gold. [more]