On Sarpy Creek

Rating:
Summary: A beautiful, powerful novel
Review: A deceptively simple novel, this is a profound work of art, an exploration of love and courage and hope; it tells of a farm family in Montana in the 1920's; tells of the connection of people to the land, in all its beauty and richness and harshness; tells of being connected to other people on the deepest levels. I cannot praise this book highly enough: it has depth but is a joy to read. Published first in 1938, it is a real find.

Rating:
Summary: A Montana Treasure
Review: Last week while I was coming back from Miles City, Montana, and I saw Exit 72 to Sarpy Creek. I couldn't help but turn off the freeway to see the beautiful landscapes you'll find so wonderfully described in this Montana treasure. If you love Willa Cather, this book is for you. The life of homesteaders out on the eastern Montana prairie is detailed richly with some of the most fully realized women characters I've ever seen in this type of literature. Richly ironic and yet sweetly tender, I thought, too, of Thomas Hardy's *Under the Greenwood Tree* and its evocation of a time long past. The publishers are friends of mine and I thought they were exaggerating when they said what a good book this is because I figured I would have heard of it before if it was worth reading. I was wrong AGAIN. I didn't think anyone could match the lyricism of Jim Harrison's *Legends of the Fall*; you'll find it here. I didn't think anyone could match the hard look at pioneer reality like William Kittredge's short story, "The Stone Corral"; this book does. I didn't think anyone could touch the western romanticism of Owen Wister's *The Virginian"; it's here, too.