Bibliographies
Rural Women Writers, fiction and memoir
Date: Sun, 17 Nov 2002
From: Mary Scriver <prairiem@3rivers.net>
This is only one small section. I may have some strays that belong in this
category, but I tried to do a fairly thorough roundup. There is an exception: I didn't list my Gene Stratton Porter books here -- I classify them as "heritage books" because most of them belonged to female ancestors. They are rural but not Western. The same goes for "Anne of Green Gables" and the LM Montgomery journals and bios. It would be hard to find anyone who can put her finger more accurately on rural and small town communities.
Books about the West -- particularly Montana -- that's what I look for and keep.
This is not a list of all the books I recommend -- just what happens to be on my
shelves. People run off with them and I buy new ones all the time, so it's a moving target.
I'm putting anthologies in another category, too. I won't post all categories since I don't think you want a list of my theatre books from the 1960's!
There's one book I would really like to lift up -- it's Sharon Butala's "Garden of Eden." She writes about a ranch woman whose husband dies and who wakes up to a completely different world -- one that includes starving people in Africa. It's very moving and absolutely authentic since Butala WENT there. It's an excellent antidote to the arguments about whether a wife's sacred duty is to stay on the ranch or leave to fulfill herself. This book asks, "What about the rest of the world?" And it is a political AND personal question.
Prairie Mary
FICTION & MEMOIR (female)
Austin, Mary, "The Land of Little Rain." U of New Mexico Press, 1974. ISBN 0-
8263-0354-7, pb
"Earth Horizon: An Autobiography by Mary Austin." U of New Mexico Press,
1932, renewed 1960, reprinted 1991. ISBN 0-8263-1316-7 pb
Baker, Alison, "How I Came West and Why I Stayed." Chronicle Books, 1993. ISBN 0-8118-0324-4 pb
Bird, Isabella L., "A Lady's Life in the Rocky Mountains." U of Oklahoma, U of
Oklahoma Press, 1960. ISBN 0-8061-1328-6 pb
Blanchet, M. Wylie, "The Curve of Time." Weatherly Press & Gray's Publishing, Ltd., 1968. ISBN 0-935727-00-0 pb. This is the "wet West," near Vancouver Island, on a small boat.
Blew, Mary Clearman, "Lambing Out and Other Stories." U of Missouri Press,
1977. ISBN 0-8262-0227-6
"Runaway: A Collection of Stories." Confluence Press, 1990. ISBN 0-917652-
77-0
"All But the Waltz: A Memoir of Five Generations in the Life of a Montana
Family." Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN 0 14 01.2892 1 pb
"Balsamroot, a Memoir." Penguin Books, 1994. ISBN 0-1401/7624 1 pb
"Bone Deep in Landscape: Writing, Reading and Place." U of Oklahoma Press, 1999. ISBN 0-8061-3177-2
"Sister Coyote: Montana Stories." The Lyons Press, 2000. ISBN 1-58574-071-3
Blunt, Judy, "Breaking Clean." Borzoi, Knopf, 2002. ISBN 0-375-40131-8
Brown, Lillian, "I Married a Dinosaur." Dodd Mead, 1950.
Butala, Sharon "Country of the House." Fifth House, 1984 ISBN 0-920079-05-9 pb
"Queen of the Headaches." Coteau Books, 1985. ISBN 0-919926-48-7 pb
"The Gates of the Sun." Fifth House, 1986. ISBN 0-920079-20-2 pb
"Luna" Fifth House, 1988. ISBN 0-920079-36-9 pb
"Fever" HarperCollins, 1990. ISBN 0-00-223575-7
"The Fourth Archangel: A Novel." HarperPerennial, 1992. ISBN 0-00-647404-
7 pb
"Coyote's Morning Cry: Meditations & Dreams from a Life in Nature." HarperCollins, 1995. ISBN 0-00-255430-5
"The Garden of Eden." HarperFlamingoCanada,1998. ISBN 0-00 224386-5
"Wild Stone Heart: An Apprentice in the Fields." HarperCollins, 2000. ISBN 0-00255397-X.
"Real Life." HarperFlamingoCanada, 2002. ISBN 0-00-255402 X. Short stories.
Craven, Margaret, "Walk Gently This Good Earth." Dell Publishing, 1977. ISBN 0-440-39484-8 pb.
"Again Calls the Owl." ISBN 399-12453-5 G.P Putnam's Sons, 1980.
(Craven is best known for "I Heard the Owl Call My Name," which is also a video, but I don't have a copy.)
Daum, Ann. "The Prairie in her Eyes." Milkweed Editions, 2001. ISBN 1-57131-255-2
Davis, Claire, "Winter Range." Picador, 2000. ISBN 0-312-28425-X pb
Ehrlich, Gretel, "The Solace of Open Spaces." Penguin Books, 1985. ISBN 0-14-008113-5
"Islands, The Universe, Home." Penguin Books, 1991. ISBN 0-14-010907-2
"A Match to the Heart: One Woman's Story of Being Struck by Lightning."
Penguin Books, 1994. ISBN 0-14-017937-2
Gloss, Molly, " The Jump-Off Creek." Houghton Mifflin, 1989. ISBN 0-395-56001-2 pb (Gloss is also the author of "The Dazzle of Day," which is sci-fi. Is a huge spaceship rural or urban?)
Hasselstrom, Linda, "Land Circle: Writings Collected from the Land." Fulcrum
Publishing, 1991. ISBN 1-55591-142-0 pb.
"Feels Like Far: A Rancher's Life on the Great Plains." The Lyons Press,
1999. ISBN 1-55821-887-4 "Windbreak" was Hasselstrom's "break-through" book, but "Feels Like Far" is probably the best one so far.
Heckman, Hazel, "Island in the Sound: Anderson Island: Puget Sound." U of
Washington Press, 1967. ISBN 345-01781-1-125 pb. Another classic book of the "wet West."
Henley, Patricia, "Friday Night at Silver Star." Graywolf,1986. ISBN 0-915308-
84-3. Short stories.
Johnson, Dorothy M., "The Hanging Tree And Other Stories." Ballantine, 1951. ISBN 345-02018-9-075 pb. Classic genre Westerns.
Jordan, Teresa, "Riding the White Horse Home: A Western Family Album." Vintage Books/Random House, 1993. ISBN 0-679-75135-1 pb
McNamer, Deirdre, "Rima in the Weeds: A Novel." HarperCollins, 1991. ISBN 0-06-016523-5
Meloy, Maile, "Half in Love." Scribner, 2002. ISBN 0-7432-1647-4 Short stories.
Ostenso, Martha, "Wild Geese." Dodd, Mead, 1925.
"O River Remember." Dodd, Mead, 1943.
Proulx, Annie, "Close Range: Wyoming Stories." Scribner Paperback, 1999. ISBN 0-684-85222.5 pb
Ross, Jeanette, "K Ranch." North Atlantic Books, 1984. ISBN 0-938190-32-6
Sexson, Lynda, "Margaret of the Imperfections." Persea Books, 1988. ISBN 0-
89255-131-3. Fabulist stories by a Montana author.
Tisdale, Sallie, "Stepping Westward: The Long Search for Home in the Pacific
Northwest." HarperPerennial, 1991. ISBN 0-06-097510-5 pb. Warning: there are a lot of trees in this book.
Townsend, Elsie Doig, "None to Give Away." Falcon Press, 1983. ISBN 0-934318-22-0
Walker, Mildred. "Fireweed." Bison Book, 1934. ISBN 0-8032-9758-0 pb
"Light from Arcturus" is not a rural book. It's about the Chicago World's fair.
Same publisher, written 1935
"Dr. Norton's Wife." Bison Book, 1938. ISBN 0-8032-9782-3 pb
"Unless the Wind Turns." Bison Book, 1941 IBBN 0-8032-9781-5 PB
"Winter Wheat." Bison Book,1944. ISBN 0-8032-9741-6 pb
"The Body of a Young Man." Bison Book, 1960. ISBN 0-8032-9787-4 pb
"If a Lion Could Talk." Bison Book, 1970. ISBN 0-8032-9778-5 pb
Williams, Terry Tempest, "Refuge: An Unnatural History of Fanily and Place."
First Vintage Books, 1992. ISBN 0-679-74024-4 pb
Date: Fri, 22 Nov 2002
From: Mary Scriver <prairiem@3rivers.net>
Here are a few strays from the female fiction and memoir:
Dinesen, Isak. "Shadows on the Grass." Kingsport Press, 1961. And, of course, "Out of Africa," but I love this book because it contains "Barua a Soldani," the letter from the King that helped her crushed timber feller.
Huxley, Elspeth, "The Flame Trees of Thika: Memories of an African Childhood." Penguin, (1959) 1987. ISBN 0-14-118378-0. Like Dinesen, Huxley has other books. In fact, I have a whole shelf of that Kenya stuff. It scratches my Ralph Lauren bump. There are bios and autobios, picture books, etc. What was the name of the lady pilot who was flirting with Dinesen's true love? And there are books about her actual husband plus that true love. Ah, what a dream world. Actually, there are little echoes of it here on the Blackfeet Rez, which is about the same size as the Serengeti.
MacDonald, Betty. "The Egg and I." Harper & Row, 1945. ISBN 0-06-091428-9. Another one of those smart young women who goes to the country and makes a cheerful fool of herself.
All three of the above are movies. I think it was Greer Garson who played Betty McDonald, so that's a golden oldie. As a little kid I thought the name of the movie was "Theguni" because no one pronounced it properly. We went to the actual place and visited McDonald once. She was generous about it. We played with her puppies.
Rolvaag, O.E., "Their Father's God." U of Nebraska Press, 1931(1959, 1983) Another by the master who gave us "Giants in the Earth." ISBN 0-8032-8911-1 pb.
Lippi, Rosina. "Homestead." Mariner/Houghton Mifflin, 1998. ISBN 0-395-927771-1 pb. I bought this because I thought it was about the American prairie, but it turns out to be about Austria, in alpine country so therefore more about livestock than crops. It's really twelve linked stories over a long period of time. The writing is so silvery, the plots so tensile steel, that I'm just knocked out every time I pick up this book. There is a woman in this town who was a war bride and who is from that place in Austria -- I keep thinking I should give her this book but I can't bear to let it go.
Prairie Mary