West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West

Published by University of Texas Press 2011

West of 98

Living and Writing the New American West

Edited by: Lynn Stegner and Russell Rowland

https://doi.org/10.7560/723436

Overview
Contents

About this book

What does it mean to be a westerner? With all the mythology that has grown up about the American West, is it even possible to describe "how it was, how it is, here, in the West—just that," in the words of Lynn Stegner? Starting with that challenge, Stegner and Russell Rowland invited several dozen members of the western literary tribe to write about living in the West and being a western writer in particular. West of 98 gathers sixty-six literary testimonies, in essays and poetry, from a stellar collection of writers who represent every state west of the 98th parallel—a kind of Greek chorus of the most prominent voices in western literature today, who seek to "characterize the West as each of us grew to know it, and, equally important, the West that is still becoming."

In West of 98, western writers speak to the ways in which the West imprints itself on the people who live there, as well as how the people of the West create the personality of the region. The writers explore the western landscape—how it has been revered and abused across centuries—and the inescapable limitations its aridity puts on all dreams of conquest and development. They dismantle the boosterism of manifest destiny and the cowboy and mountain man ethos of every-man-for-himself, and show instead how we must create new narratives of cooperation if we are to survive in this spare and beautiful country. The writers seek to define the essence of both actual and metaphoric wilderness as they journey toward a West that might honestly be called home.

A collective declaration not of our independence but of our interdependence with the land and with each other, West of 98 opens up a whole new panorama of the western experience.

Author / Editor information

Lynn Stegner is the author of four works of fiction, three of them novels—Because a Fire Was in My Head (which won the Faulkner Award for Best Novel and was a Literary Ventures Selection, a Book Sense Pick, and a New York Times Editors' Choice), Undertow, and Fata Morgana—and the novella triptych Pipers at the Gates of Dawn (Faulkner Society Gold Medal in the novella category).

Russell Rowland has published two novels: In Open Spaces, which earned a starred review from Publisher's Weekly and made the San Francisco Chronicle's Bestseller List, and The Watershed Years, which was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award for fiction.

Reviews

One of the glories of this book is that it is host to 67 writers...Voices and viewpoints are left out, but that does not diminish the value and pleasure of West of 98.

— Bloomsbury Review

Topics

Frontmatter Publicly Available Download PDF	i
Contents Publicly Available Download PDF	vii
Introduction Lynn Stegner Publicly Available Download PDF	xi
Big Grass Louise Erdrich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	1
Wealth of the West Larry Woiwode Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	5
Whose West? Which West? West of What? Larry Watson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	11
Viewed from Ground Level Dan O’Brien Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	16
Naked Time Kent Meyers Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	19
Why the West? Ron Hansen Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	25
The Fence Jonis Agee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	27
Two or Three Places Antonya Nelson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	33
The Light at the Bottom of the Mind Rick Bass Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	37
Points Allison Adelle Hedge Coke Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	45
Between the Sans Bois and the Kiamichi Jim Barnes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	48
Excerpt from Walter Benjamin at the Dairy Queen Larry Mcmurtry Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	57
Slurry, Drainage, Frontage Road Susanna Sonnenberg Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	63
Geopiety Jim Harrison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	70
River Sequence I–VII Jim Harrison Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	72
Wolf and Coyote and Kumbaya Gary Ferguson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	77
What We Leave Judy Blunt Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	82
Reading Montana Ed Kemmick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	87
Ranching in Suburbia Dan Aadland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	94
Chasing the Lamb Russell Rowland Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	102
The Summer of Now Annick Smith Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	111
The Native Home of Governors on Horseback John Clayton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	118
The Way Home Willard Wyman Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	123
The Imaginary Book of Cave Paintings Melissa Kwasny Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	129
Livingston Blows Walter Kirn Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	138
Where Should We Be? William Kittredge Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	143
Self-Portrait as the Strong and Silent Type Alyson Hagy Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	146
Blood West Kenneth Lincoln Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	149
Motherlands and Mother Tongues: Five Reflections on Language and Landscape Lee Ann Roripaugh Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	156
Blame It on Rancho Deluxe C. J. Box Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	164
The Conceit of Girls Teresa Jordan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	168
Pinus Contorta Beth Loffreda Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	178
Where the Burn Meets the Dead Gretel Ehrlich Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	182
Two Illustrations of the West, the first being second- hand, the second first Stephen Graham Jones Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	187
Cowboy Up, Cupcake? No Thanks Laura Pritchett Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	193
The Fatal West Patricia Nelson Limerick Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	197
A Shape- Shifting Land Page Lambert Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	203
Moving West, Writing East Tom Miller Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	208
Tasting a Sense of Place in the Arid West Gary Nabhan Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	212
Entre Mundos/Between Worlds Denise Chávez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	217
Matins in the Cathedral of Wind David Lee Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	223
On Language: A Short Meditation Kim Barnes Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	226
Utah Cabin Under Heaven, July 3 Ron Carlson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	230
Plucked from the Grave Debra Gwartney Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	232
Two Poems: Progress Robert Wrigley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	241
Tumbling Toward the Sea Stephen Trimble Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	245
Friendship Terry Tempest Williams Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	251
Red Amy Irvine Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	252
Growing Up Western Jim Hepworth Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	255
No Direction Home Charles Bowden Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	264
Beyond This Place There Be Dragons Sally Denton Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	266
City of Nomads, City of Second Chances Douglas Unger Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	268
Places Names Ursula K. Le Guin Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	275
East to the West John Daniel Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	290
Three Poems: Closed Mill David Guterson Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	294
Celilo Falls Craig Lesley Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	296
Dark Light in the West: Racism and Reconciliation Barry Lopez Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	299
Dirty Stories David Mas Masumoto Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	319
Two Poems: The Black- tailed Hare Gary Snyder Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	324
“It’s Like They Tilted the Whole Country East- to- West. And Everything that Wasn’t Tied- Down Slid” Louis B. Jones Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	327
Star Struck Peter Fish Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	332
Días de los Muertos Maxine Hong Kingston Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	339
The San Francisco Psyche Harold Gilliam Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	341
Three Poems: The Supple Deer Jane Hirshfield Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	349
Maria Evangeliste Greg Sarris Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	351
Headed Kris Saknussemm Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	362
The Sense of No Place Page Stegner Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	367
Biographies Requires Authentication Unlicensed Licensed Download PDF	371

Language: English
Publisher: University of Texas Press
Audience: General/trade;
Pages
- Main content: 418

eBook

Published: July 25, 2012
ISBN: 9780292735859