30 Jan Books: Reading the West

Callan Wink takes another step in establishing himself as a major writer of the American West with his new work, Beartooth: A Novel (Spiegel & Grau, $28). Wink, the author of two previous books, Dog Run Moon (a short story collection) and August (a novel), is also a fishing guide on Montana’s Yellowstone River, where the heart of this latest book takes place. This story of two brothers, Thad and Hazen, is told with fierce poetry, a philosophical mind, and the kind of deep attention to fast-changing detail that comes from running wild rivers.

Thad and Hazen eke out an existence chopping wood and occasionally poaching animals in the wildlands near their remote family home in Montana’s Paradise Valley. They are two sides of a coin: Thad’s reason and level-headedness balance Hazen’s instinct and impulsiveness, Thad’s maturity plays counterpoint to  Hazen’s impishness, and Thad’s doubts contrast with Hazen’s animalistic clarity. One gets the sense that neither could exist without the other.

The world, in various forms, intrudes on this duality, threatening their brotherhood of blood and spirit. The return of their estranged mother, who Hazen welcomes and Thad resents; unpaid bills that threaten to devour their home; and a kilt-wearing crime boss with a bagpipe-playing daughter all act as wedges into the heartwood of their relationship — and as the story plays out, the maul of their conflicting passions drives the wedges further between them.

Wink knows the land and river of the Yellowstone with the intimacy of one who lives closely and attentively within their mysteries. His ability to put this intimacy and these mysteries on the page is a welcome reminder of just how good a novel can be. Woven articulately within this powerful and moving family story are sage ruminations on spirituality, the natural world, morality, aging, and losing those we love — even if, at times, that love feels like hate.

These brothers, these wild lands, this unforgiving yet sustaining river, these bonds of kinship, and this story will all endure.

Of Note

Craig Johnson offers us a streamlined, fast-paced chiller with the novella Tooth and Claw: A Longmire Story (Viking, $25). Heading back into Walt Longmire’s past, the story pits the future sheriff against the deadly perils — both animal and human — lurking in Alaska’s frozen North Slope. Working security detail on a remote oil rig, Longmire must save his stranded crew from an almost supernaturally predatory polar bear. The final showdown aboard a historical ghost ship, the SS Baychimo, is a heart-pounding sequence rising to the best of the thriller genre while maintaining the strong and elegant prose that keeps Johnson firmly in the literary-mystery realm — a realm where he may be rightfully called king.

One of the most celebrated collections of contemporary poetry is back in an expanded anniversary edition: Braided Creek: A Conversation in Poetry, by Ted Kooser and Jim Harrison (Copper Canyon Press, $22). When this slim volume first appeared, the poetry world took notice: Here was something special, a masterwork by two experienced poets. Now, 20 years later, these haiku-like gems of wisdom, humor, and close observation of the natural world are presented with a new forward by Naomi Shihab Nye and a new afterword by Kooser, who also added a few new poems dedicated to his late friend. Those who love the first edition of this book will treasure this special version. Those who are new to these poems are in for an enlightening and breathtaking journey.

Samuel Western issues a challenge to Western states to remember and learn from their past with The Spirit of 1889: Restoring the Lost Promise of the High Plains and Northern Rockies (University Press of Kansas, $34.99). The constitutional conventions of five states that were once part of Dakota Territory — North Dakota, South Dakota, Idaho, Montana, and Wyoming — all took place in 1889. Western takes a detailed look at the politics and economics of the day, showing how they contributed to the crafting of some of the most progressive, pragmatic, and 
people-centered constitutions in the country (though not without their shortcomings, especially in dealing with Indigenous people and Chinese-Americans). The framers of 1889 pushed ideals such as women’s suffrage, commonwealth social systems, and curbing corporate power — a simple historical truth that sounds like a far-fetched fiction in today’s West. The book examines how over-reliance on unsustainable agriculture and extractive economies driven by corporate greed have destroyed communities, eroded rights, and decimated small towns in favor of quick profits that offer little to the people who live within the rural West. But it also offers a path back to the idealistic intentions of these states’ founders: Through diversity, sustainability, and adaptability, these five states — “the 89ers” — could discover the benefits of pursuing commonwealth over commodities.

The fascinating — and often unjustifiably brutal — history of early cinema’s stunt horses is richly detailed in Carol Bradley’s Twisting in Air: The Sensational Rise of a Hollywood Falling Horse (University of Nebraska Press, $24.95). While illustrating the backstory of the horses and their riders, Bradley describes the dangerous techniques used in what was once the most popular form of film entertainment: the Western. She laments the injuries and deaths that Hollywood directors were all too willing to risk to get the shot. Moving to a safer and more humane era, the book highlights a particular horse, Cocaine, and his trainer and rider, Chuck Roberson, who was instrumental in the shift to training horses to fall on cue rather than being tripped unexpectedly with hidden wires. Roberson, Cocaine, and several humane societies and associations helped create a movie-making ethos in which stunt animals are treated safely and humanely. Written with the same lively spirit of its equine protagonist, Twisting in Air is an entertaining, informative, and historically relevant read. 

The “Walking Poet of Missoula,” David E. Thomas solidifies his legacy as a significant Montana poet with Railroad Gravel: Selected Poems 1975 – 2022 (FootHills Publishing, $18). With poems spanning continents as well as decades, Railroad Gravel is the travelogue of one who has honed the ability to listen to the music of back roads and highways, dive bars and mountain vistas, and to render that music into a tough and natural language that resonates long after the book is closed.

Marc Beaudin is a poet, theater artist, and bookseller based in Livingston, Montana. He is the author of These Creatures of a Day, Life List: Poems, and Vagabond Song: Neo-Haibun from the Peregrine Journals, and his work is widely anthologized in publications dedicated to environmental and social justice.