This is a phenomenal book written by a phenomenal author. Her writing is mesmerizing, especially for those who've lived in similar places and experienced the grandeur and the hardships that one experiences living in the Northwest.

I was offered an opportunity at a fellowship studying Western literature under Mary Clearman Blew's tutelage a couple of summers ago. I found her insight into Western literature as a whole, man's connection to the landscape, and living in the "Real West" fascinating. She is a true storyteller and a voice for those of us who see ourselves intrinsically linked to this place we call home.

On a side note: My favorite Blew short story is "The Sow in the River," which can be found in the book _A Circle of Women_. Excellent reading!

I read Mary Clearman Blew's collection of essays over the last weekend and found it to be wonderfully descriptive of the western experience both historically and in current times! It especially describes the experience of rural western women well: their strengths and the challenges they have faced. As a social worker I found her final essay about the experience of a single mother as foster parent balancing the demands of author, educator, mother, grandmother and foster parent to be beautifully written. Ms. Clearman Blew's sense of space and the elements is moving. The reader feels she is there with the author in each of the essays.

Barnes and Blew have assembled a landmark collection of powerful writing by a wide spectrum of western women. The poems, stories, and essays in this collection remain as timely and instructive and powerful as ever. If Penguin has let the book go out of stock--or worse, allows it to go out of print--then a pox on its house. Once upon a time, before bottom feeders made the bottom line preeminent, publishers kept books in print because they understood the value of continued availability to developing a readership. These days, it appears that the marketers of blue jeans and jelly beans are in charge--unbooked, unbookish, and--finally--bad for business.

Find this book if you can. It will be one you cherish.

This is one of the best collections of short stories I have ever read. The settings for the stories is Montana and the inevitable impact of the harsh environment on the people living there. In seven short stories and less than one hundred pages Blew has managed to combine the effects of an unforgiving climate with the turbulent lives of so-real characters that experience conflict, brutality and heart breaking violence. The environmental effect on the characters in the title story "Lambing Out" is stark and readily apparent. However, the impact in "Paths Unto The Dead" and "Monsters" is more subtle and will give the reader pause and, upon reflection, insight into the incredible talent of the author. This blend of human and natural landscape into the written word is powerful and unforgetable. If you ever wondered why anyone would live "out there", try these stories. For anyone interested in first-rate writing about the interrelationship between a regional environment and the people that inhabit it, this is as good as it gets. Don't be surprised if you end up with the impression the characters are real, that somehow Blew is not making these stories up. She is that good. These are powerful, thoughtful, moving stories that come very close to transcending region.

This book is just a cute little book definately from a time gone by. Easier read than a Lamour, but still a pretty solid western, even by today's standards.

As a Montanan cowgirl myself, I found Chip of the Flying U truthful and entertaining. The characters are real and the story is innocent. B.M. Bower knew the characters she created and it shows.

This is a terrific escape book, one that deserves a "10" rating for its entertainment value. The characters are appealing, the language is incredibly clean by today's standards, and there is much laugh-aloud humor. "Chip of the Flying U" is tremendous fun!

While I enjoyed this book - it made me aware of just how fragmented my own family history is. How I wish my ancestors had written (or kept) diaries and especially wish they had written on the backs of all those old photos to know what states, counties, cities, villages they were in at the time of the photograph and what was the event or celebration, etc. Thanks for a good read, Ms. Blew

I am in this book

This is a book about a dearly loved aunt's slide into dementia, a book about a tentative reconciliation between mother and daughter, a book about a Montana childhood remembered, and a book about an earlier Montana imaginatively reconstructed from the aunt's fifty years of laconic daily diaries. Just when I would settle into one book, swallowing Blew's often self-pitying tone, wham, off we would go into another book. She is trying for a quilt of a book and leaves us with pieces. But these pieces are often of very good writing indeed, especially the fond anecdotes of the generations of horses which worked the family property. As you read, remember the family motto --"Never speak aloud of what you feel deeply." As often as I was engrossed in what is in this book, I wondered what deliberately is kept out and how other voices -- the daughter and the aunt -- might tell this story.

Ever wondered what you would do if you were the caregiver to an elderly relative? Mary Blew finds herself pressed into caregiving when her Aunt Imogene calls and says that she is going to move from Port Angeles, Washington to Lewistown, ID to be near Mary. Mary has no idea why her aunt would want to leave her beautiful view of the ocean and surrounding area and questions her. Since their family has tacitly agreed never to speak about what is important, her aunt ambiguously replies that it is because one day she "forgot how to make oatmeal." Blew is confused since Aunt Imogene, whose independence she has long admired, was the steadying rock in her life that offered her support during her two divorces.

Quickly we realize that that Aunt Imogene is suffering from mental lapses that rapidly progress to "dementia" where she flickers arbitrarily between reality and her own world. Dealing with an independent aunt who is struggling to control her life is compounded by Blew's estranged daughter divorcing her husband and moving near her mother. As Blew works to rebuild a relationship with the daughter who she had treated with great reserve, she is forced to revisit her divorces, her treatment of her daughter, and her expectations for life. Then Mary Blew finds and reads her aunt's diaries. Aunt Imogene has never married, and Mary searches the diaries to discover why. Carefully reading between the lines, she finds surprising revelations not only about her aunt but also about her parents and grandparents, thereby overlaying and entwining the lives of four generations. This gives the memoir a fragmented narrative associatively entwining the life of the narrator, her daughter, her aunt, and their ancestors.

Refusing to keep her family's code of silence about important things, Blew shares her findings with her daughter. What she finds are dysfunctional marriages that compel females in her family to strive for personal freedom, females who are unwilling to speak about what really matters, and women with an ability to suppress large parts of their lives. Aunt Imogene has paid dearly for her freedom in Port Angles; however, as she loses her grasp with the world, Mary Blew slowly receives a firmer grasp on her own world. Recognizing destructive familial patterns in herself, Blew intimates that her journey of self-discovery was successful as she takes small steps to spring loose "unacceptable" ideas that she has suppressed.

I loved this book and recommend it to any lover of memoir. Mary Clearman Blew renders a heartfelt story about uncovering the mysteries of her Aunt Imogene's life, and in turn, embarking on self-discovery. I suggest first reading "All But the Waltz," which puts Balsamroot in a rich context of family history. It is also a wonderful narrative on its own.

Walker transports you to turn-of-the century ranching life, and the rise of the Western aristocracy. Deals with issues of town vs. country and Eastern establishment and Western individualism. Its a feminist look at social structure and conflict in Western America. A must read for wilderness lovers and lovers of US history!

This is a remarkable book. It is a primary account of a child's life growing up in Montana and Canada in the early part of the twentieth century. Margaret (Peggy) Bell's life spanned some 94 years, from 1888-1982, and her story is as exciting and troubling as any account one is likely to read, fiction or non-fiction. That the book is edited by Mary Clearman Blew makes it not only highly readable but lends it undeniable credibility.

Bell's account of growing up on the high plains of Montana and Canada is a rare, first person account of life on the frontier with it's numerous hardships, grinding poverty, and ultimate struggle to retain her mind and spirit that will break your heart and make you shout for joy...sometimes within a few paragraphs or pages. In a straight forward, honest, almost stoic manner she describes the many life lessons she learned and discusses a subject that is rarely seen in print in the literature of the period: the abuse, sexual and otherwise, she experienced at the hands of her uncle and stepfather. This is an amazing book that chronicles the life experiences of a resilient woman in a man's world that lived to understand who she was, where she came from, and what it all meant. That she could tell such a story without self pity or sentimental, touchy-feely themes is remarkable. Brutally frank, honest and ultimately uplifting.