i would like to have given more stars. the last chapter was excellent. the stories of her family were great but she jumped around so much that i got confused. anyone reading my reviews would send me for a dementia check but i like a story to proceed from a to b rather than a to d to m to c to b to…………. i would pick up the book and have no idea who these people were. ( )

Mary Clearman Blew pulls no punches in telling the story of the Hogeland and the Welch families and the tellingly tough times they faced in frontier Montana from the turn of the twentieth century onward. Drought, the Depression, inexperience, madness, bitterly cold winters and dust storms all conspire against these families, and yet they somehow managed to persevere, if not to prosper, at least to survive. Blew's finely wrought essays weave a tapestry that brings these people to life, from 1900 right up to the present day. Her own difficult marriages and fierce, almost ruthless, determination to succeed are not spared in the telling. This is one helluva good read, one which I will recommend highly. I have nothing but admiration for Mary Clearman Blew, both as a writer and as a woman. ( )