New West Network

My Page: Allen M. Jones

Column

I like to hunt, and I like to fish, and I like to do them in good conscience. This means, first and foremost, that I do my best to obey the rule of law, toe the line in the interests of, among other things, preserving the resource. As a hunter and fisherman, I want people to think well of me. I bristle at stereotypes, I wince at photos of 300 pound rednecks on ATVs proudly holding up forkhorns they shot under a jacklight. Aware of the public relations disaster that is too often the image of hunters viz the city folk, I dig it when the bad guys get their comeuppance.

I should be pleased, then, to see a few more ne’er-do-wells taken off the playing field in Montana.

Charges were recently filed in state district court against James Reed (Rexberg, Idaho), Blake Trangmoe (Glendive) and John Lewton (Whitehall). Lewton received the majority of the charges, including felony unlawful sale of a game animal, felony unlawful possession of a game animal, two misdemeanor counts of hunting without landowner permission, and a misdemeanor count of outfitting without a license.

Indeed, I should be pleased to see these guys caught. But…

Western Kibitzing

Reif Larsen’s novel, The Selected Works of T.S. Spivet, has been rumbling around in the intestines of the publishing industry for the last year or so. An auction, rumors of a near-million-dollar advance, interviews describing a strikingly original narrative that begins in Montana and ends in D.C., maps and sketches by the author…here, perhaps, I thought, might be a book that’s actually worthy of its press releases. A great American novel that happily begins in my own backyard. Alas, and to misquote Thomas Huxley, “Another beautiful premise ruined by a few ugly facts.”

Turns out, the novel’s narrator, T.S. Spivet, is a twelve-year-old genius, a kid compelled to map, complete with marginalia and commentary, the minutiae of his life. From the shape of a corn cob caught mid-crunch to the conversational dynamics around a dinner table, water table maps to the forensics of the gunshot wound that killed his brother, the kid can’t stop drawing. Over 220 sketches with accompanying marginalia are presented as an organic part of the novel itself. If you were pitching the screenplay you’d say it’s Holden Caulfield meets Shane meets Good Will Hunting, and all with a sketch pad. [more]

A Profile in Poetry

When he's in Montana, the poet and novelist Jim Harrison does most of his work in a shed behind his refurbished farmhouse. The house itself is tastefully done up in arts and crafts, arrangements of hardwoods and mirrors and original art; his writing space, however, could have come from impoverished Mexico, Argentina, the Balkans. Some mountain village still ten years away from electricity. There's a sleeping cot (quilts piled up in a wad) and a good-sized desk. A corkboard of photos and shelves full of personal totems. Little else. It's the room of a writer leery of all distraction save memory. [more]

Fiction's Fourth Estate

By and large, there are three sorts of writers: The misfortunates who have sacrificed everything for their art (the Lowrys of the world, the Sextons); the mean average (with their bitter stories about publicists); and the fortunate few for whom, when a deck of cards is tossed high, all the aces flop face up (Foer, Franzen).

But maybe there's a fourth category as well. I’m thinking now about those famous writers who have nevertheless not done as well as they perhaps deserve. Rilke never won a Nobel, for instance. Up here in Montana, you read Thomas McGuane and you can't help but feel a dose of indignation on the author's behalf. As successful as he is, it still feels like there should be more. Where are the major awards, for instance? His is a career that's been built on essays (An Outside Chance, Some Horses), a few screenplays (Rancho Deluxe, The Missouri Breaks, Tom Horn), and a portfolio of fictions that, taken together (Panama, Nobody's Angel, Nothing but Blue Sky), float him up into the most rarefied kind of literary air. Surely he's due another ace or two. There are so few American writers who can make you laugh even as they're breaking your heart.

Maybe it's time. His newest book, a collection of ten short stories called Gallatin Canyon, contains moments nearly as fine as anything he has written, and if there are soft spots, they serve only to emphasize the soundness of the larger whole.

Editor's Note: Click here to read Hal Herring's interview with McGuane. [more]

New West Book Review

They don't make writers like David James Duncan anymore. A novelist (The Brothers K, The River Why) and essayist / fly-fisherman (My Story as Told by Water), screenwriter (the documentary Trout Grass), academic lecturer and environmental activist, the guy's been all over the map, a regular road show of impassioned curiosity. Unsurprisingly, then, his newest book, the wonderful God Laughs & Plays: Churchless Sermons in Response to the Preachments of the Fundamentalist Right (Triad, Books, $22.95), tends to resist comfortable categories. An important book, absolutely; a fierce and polarizing call to arms, you bet; a tender tribute to his cohorts in the fight, no question. But, really... what is it?

As published by The Triad Institute, if you had to boil out the common themes from God Laughs & Plays (essays, interviews, parables), you would tend to arrive at sensibilities rather than ideas. These writings are all about wonder and mysticism, pity and anger and love, they're about doing what you can -- doing anything -- in the face of impending environmental, political and spiritual catastrophe. [more]

Painting, Writing, Cooking...

Montana artist and publisher, Russell Chatham, upon the occasion of two new releases from his book house, Clark City Press (For All Time by Helen Claypool, and Mile High Mile Deep by Richard K. O'Malley), recently took the time to answer some questions from New West. [more]

Poetry and the Arts

Montana’s Governor Brian Schweitzer today announced his appointment of Sandra Alcosser as Montana’s first poet laureate. “The arts are an important part of Montana,� said Governor Schweitzer. “Our heritage, our lives and our unique way of life in this great state are often expressed through poetry. This is a unique opportunity to bring poetry to the people of Montana. Alcosser has a strong commitment to promoting poetry and writing around Montana. It is an honor to have Sandra Alcosser as Montana’s first poet laureate.� [more]

Western Publishing

It ain’t easy publishing a regional magazine. Unlike, say, the gossip rags (a new divorce every week) or sports magazines (always a fresh playoff series around the corner), for the regionals, there’s only so much material to go around. Here in Montana, for instance, how many fly-fishing photo essays on the Big Horn River do you really need? Or how about a road trip to the Bucking Horse Sale? Covered it twice already. Or we could always use something on grizzly bear safety. What the hell, grizzly bears sell. With more than half a dozen Montana themed magazines on the newsstand, each one tramping back and forth across the same tired territory, how do you come up with a new vision of things? A new angle?
[more]

Book Store News

From our friend Barbara Theroux, we’ve learned that Montana author Jeanette Ingold will soon be visiting Barbara’s independent book store in Missoula, Fact & Fiction. A specialist in historical fiction aimed at the young adult market, Ingold’s books nevertheless have lessons for all ages.
[more]

New West Book Reviews

Odds on, you already know about Russell Chatham. Painter, publisher, restaurateur, the guy’s everywhere. His lithographs and original oils (with their distinctive, Piazonni-influenced palettes) have informed an entire generation of Western artists and writers. A cottage industry unto himself, if he closed shop tomorrow half of Southern Montana would be going on relief. Genial and distracted, paint-spattered and graying, a generous nose tillered off twenty degrees to starboard, there’s little about the guy himself to suggest the wide tide of his influence. [more]