Rating: 
Summary: Mountain City
Review: This book was a good 'first book'. I was some what let down by the lack of character development. Just when I was getting to know the people, the author would end the chapter. If the author would develop his characters more in a 'Wendell Berry' approach this book would have been great. I got a 'taste' of the country and the people but felt like I missed the best part of the 'meal'. This book could have been a whole feast. I would like to see a re-write by the author.
Rating: 
Summary: Strong and spare, like the desert
Review: Thomas McGuane says that "...all literature is about loss, or the recognition of loss..." and Gregory Martin's debute memoir certainly shows this to be true.In Mountain City, Martin writes poignantly about a small town and a huge loss, about a place in rural northeastern Nevada, its people and their way of life--all leaning toward extinction. "Thirty-three people live in Mountain City," he says. "I come and go, but when I'm here that makes thirty-four." The community of ranchers, Native Americans, widows, and Martin's relatives, who are descendants of the original Basque settlers of the area, is already mostly abandoned to the past. There are no young families; one one, in fact, under forty. "I sweep the floors," Martin writes, providing us with his intimate perspective as he helps out at his Uncle Mel's store. Martin is always in the background, always observing. He lets us see the salient details, without judgment, without pity. From the hub of Tremewan's general store, an anachronism not unlike the town itself, he shows us the slow erosion: a circle of widows who won't allow any other woman to join them until her husband is dead; a grandfather who no longer recognizes life-long friends due to his failing eyesight; an Owyhee Indian who lives from one government check to the next and on many bottles of wine in between. By the end of the book there are two fewer people in Mountain City. But by then, we've come to see all of them as survivors. We admire them for their fierce tenacity, and we appreciate that Martin has shared their spirit with us.
Rating: 
Summary: A strong work about vanishing small town America
Review: When I read about the History of America, two aspects come to mind. And that is that America is made up of many different groups and many small towns. While the USA is perhaps more ethnically diverse then ever, small towns like Mountain City are disappearing from the landscape. I fear that one day we will all be living in cities, and then America will have lost something. Gregory Martin writes of his immigrant community with great affection and feeling. Many of the characters in his book are individuals who had lived in Mountain City when it was a relatively thriving town, and refused to leave when the town declined after the mines played out. It was somewhat chilling to imagine that in our lifetimes Mountain City may well cease to exist. The fact that I would be concerned about this is a testement to Martin's writing.
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