A new collection of short stories offers a portrait of people on the fringes.
Annie Dawid
Posted inMay 2, 2016: The Gold King Reckoning
In a dead-end prison town, a fraught journey home
A first-time novelist follows a quiet Montana man in the wake of grief.
Posted inApril 4, 2016: A Land Divided
Menace at the edge of sanctuary
In “The Animals,” a wildlife rescuer faces his ugly past.
Posted inMarch 21, 2016: Making Sense of Malheur
Missoula’s rape problem
Jon Krakauer’s latest book explores a flawed justice system that fails victims.
Posted inMay 25, 2015: Monument Man
Survival = Anger x Imagination
A review of ‘Crazy Horse’s Girlfriend’ by Erika T. Wurth.
Posted inMarch 2, 2015: Unite and Conquer
Grief’s possible outcomes
Review of ‘The Possibilities’ by Kaui Hart Hemmings.
Posted inDecember 8, 2014: The Great Salmon Compromise
New Mexico interregnum
Review of “Backlands: A Novel of the American West” by Michael McGarrity.
Posted inSeptember 1, 2014: Lost in the Woods
Sovereign contempt
Astoria: John Jacob Astor and Thomas Jefferson’s Lost Pacific Empire:A Story of Wealth, Ambition and SurvivalPeter Stark366 pages, hardcover: $27.99.HarperCollins, 2014. Everyone knows about the Lewis and Clark Expedition of 1804-’06, but another entrepreneurial foray a few years later — larger, bolder, and, ultimately, a debacle – has fallen into historical oblivion. The Astor Expedition […]
Posted inJune 23, 2014: River of No Return
A Refugee in Her Own Land
Katie Gale: A Coast Salish Woman’s Life on Oyster BayLlyn De Danaan336 pages, hardcover: $29.95.Bison Books, 2013. In Katie Gale, anthropologist Llyn De Danaan chronicles the life of a 19th century Salish woman who married a white man, gave birth to four children, became a successful oysterwoman, suffered greatly in a divorce settlement, and watched […]
Posted inAugust 19, 2013: Dinosaur Wars
Mourning before departure
The Days Are GodsLiz Stephens206 pages, softcover: $18.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2013. A wistful, at times mournful spirit permeates the 41 brief essays that make up Liz Stephens’ first book, The Days Are Gods. The Oklahoma-born Stephens is a “card-carrying Choctaw tribal member” and recently earned a Ph.D. in creative nonfiction. Her multifaceted memoir is […]
Posted inJune 10, 2013: Paradise at a Price
Holt’s last days
Benediction: A NovelKent Haruf258 pages, hardcover: $25.95.Knopf, 2013. Death hovers over Benediction, the latest of novelist Kent Haruf’s books about the eastern Colorado town of Holt. Two earlier works are called Plainsong and Eventide, and the liturgical nuances of the titles seem fitting as this benevolent Colorado novelist bids farewell to a dying world. A […]
Posted inApril 15, 2013: Sacrificial Land
Beatification of a sinner: a review of The Soledad Crucifixion
The Soledad CrucifixionNancy Wood336 pages, paperback: $21.95.University of New Mexico Press, 2012. In Nancy Wood’s newest novel, The Soledad Crucifixion, we find ourselves in Camposanto in the Territory of New Mexico, in the year 1897. Lorenzo Soledad has just been nailed to a cross. “On this, the last day of his life, the priest found […]
Posted inFebruary 4, 2013: Making Good on the Badlands
Water is (still) for fightin’: A review of Durango
DurangoGary Hart246 pages, softcover: $15.95.Fulcrum, 2012. Former Colorado Sen. Gary Hart’s seventh novel, Durango, is timely, as many Westerners agonize over drought and the energy industry’s use and abuse of water. Hart’s novel, however, takes us to another front in the water wars, the decades-long dispute over damming southern Colorado’s Animas and La Plata rivers […]
Posted inDecember 10, 2012: The Evolution of Wildlife Tech
Of faith and frostbite: a review of True Sisters
True SistersSandra Dallas341 pages, hardcover: $24.99.St. Martin’s Press, 2012. In the 2012 presidential election, the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints emerged from the shadows with the first Mormon candidate for the nation’s highest office. Colorado writer Sandra Dallas’s 11th novel examines the history of a religion not widely understood outside its Utah base, […]
Posted inAugust 20, 2012: Troubled Taos
A long, strange trip: A review of Pot Farm
As blunt as its title, Pot Farm, a memoir by poet and professor Matthew Gavin Frank, goes straight to the point: You, the reader, will take a trip through the world of medical marijuana cultivation and sales, in the process becoming familiar with the unusual and even bizarre cast of characters at Weckman Farm, and […]
Posted inSeptember 5, 2011: For the love of hummers
The aftermath of violence: A review of The Color of Night
The Color of Night Madison Smartt Bell 208 pages, softcover: $15.Vintage Contemporaries, 2011. Dangerous, charismatic leaders with zealous followers haunt Western history, with Jim Jones, the California cult leader responsible for the 1978 Guyana suicides, at the top of the list. In The Color of Night, Madison Smartt Bell’s 13th novel, the leader is clearly […]
Posted inMay 16, 2011: Ripple Effects
Are you an Indian?
Navajos Wear Nikes: A Reservation LifeJim Kristofic256 pages, hardcover: $26.95. University of New Mexico Press, 2011. Despite his light-brown curls and pale face, Jim Kristofic gets asked this question all the time, even though he no longer lives on the Navajo Reservation. Now 29 and back in his native Pennsylvania, he teaches and tells stories […]
Posted inDecember 20, 2010: California Dreamin'
Excavating John
The Book of JohnKate Niles225 pages, softcover: $22.85.O Books, 2010. John Gregory Wayne Thompson, the eponymous hero of Kate Niles’ second novel, The Book of John, moves between the southwest Colorado desert and the cold beaches of Washington’s Neah Bay, in the process retracing his personal life and loves. An archaeologist, John is 50 years […]
Posted inDecember 6, 2010: Toxic Past, Toxic Present
Seven months of solitude
Breaking into the BackcountrySteve Edwards192 pages, softcover: $16.95.University of Nebraska Press, 2010. “In the seven months I spent in the backcountry, in relative solitude, I rarely felt as alone as I do sitting at this table,” writes Steve Edwards, describing his return to the family dining room after a lengthy sojourn by Oregon’s Rogue River. […]
Posted inOctober 25, 2010: Lynch-Mob Politics
A raw-edged memoir
Raw Edges: A MemoirPhyllis Barber280 pages, hardcover: $26.95.University of Nevada Press, 2010. All memoirs risk provoking the reader’s question: What’s so important about your life, anyway? Why should we bother to read a whole book about it? Nevada author Phyllis Barber tries to answer that question in her second autobiography, Raw Edges: “While this search […]