The autobiography has not always been acknowledged as true literature. Since 1970, however, American memoirs have revealed themselves as a respectable literary genre, distinct with an inimitable literary voice and a unique capacity to intersect narration and reflection.  This study focuses critical attention on ten memoirs from the northern U.S. Rockies, including Utah, Colorado, Wyoming, Montana, and Idaho. By comparing memoirs representing states that share similar demographic, ecological, and socio-economic characteristics, this historic and literary analysis reveals both commonalities and divergences among American Western memoirs. Each chapter compares two books of similar thematic concerns, ranging from regional values and rural evolution to dynamic landscapes and the experiences of American Indians.

The Rockies in First Person: A Critical Study of Recent American Memoirs from the Region

Biographies & Memoirs

McFarland, Ron

Historical

McFarland

Deep Down Things: Poems of the Inland Pacific Northwest

Literature & Fiction

Schneider, Franz

Poetry

Washington State Univ Pr

Ten of Maclean's previously uncollected speeches and essays, two fantastic interviews, family photos, and contributions by Studs Terkel, William Kittredge, Wendell Berry, Wallace Stegner and others. First edition.  Great gift.

Norman MacLean

History & Criticism

Boise State Univ.

Norman Maclean (Confluence American authors series)

Hugh Nichols

Confluence Press, Inc

Lieutenant Colonel Edward J. Steptoe's escape from encirclement by 1,000 Northern Plateau Indians in 1858 is a familiar story from the Indian Wars. Yet the details of the Battle of Pine Creek (or Tohotonimme) and its aftermath remain subjects of debate. Outnumbered six to one, Steptoe's 164 troops slipped away in the night. Newspapers called it a "disaster." A few weeks later, Colonel George Wright avenged the defeat and Steptoe, who had suffered a stroke months before the battle, lived his final years in relative obscurity in his native Virginia as the Civil War erupted.  This definitive biography of Steptoe chronicles the career of a field officer who served nearly four years in the Second Seminole War, won commendation for gallantry during the Mexican War, performed admirably (though controversially) in the Utah Territory, undertook construction of forts at Walla Walla in the newly defined Washington Territory and engaged with various tribes throughout his deployments. His personal letters reveal a thoughtful, sensitive commander who came to question his choice of career even before his final battle.

Edward J. Steptoe and the Indian Wars: Life on the Frontier, 1815-1865

Community & Culture

In a 1995 interview, prolific Chicano writer Gary Soto noted, "Wonderment has always been a part of my life." This book surveys Soto's immense range of poems, stories, novels, essays and plays for audiences of prereaders to adults. Soto's world moves from the cotton and beet fields of the San Joaquin Valley to the blue-collar barrios of Fresno, and to urban and suburban settings in Oakland and Berkeley. Chapters analyze a wide variety of Soto titles, from his breakout works like 1977's The Elements of San Joaquin to the Chato the Cat illustrated books for children. With self-deprecating humor, particularly in his poems, Soto combines his wonderment with the trials and conflicts that beset him throughout life. In such novels as Jesse, Buried Onions and The Afterlife, and in his stories for YA readers, including Baseball in April and Petty Crimes, his broad array of characters confront the anxieties and annoyances of adolescence. Although he continues to motivate young Chicanos to read and write, Soto stakes his greatest claims to literary prominence through his poems, which are accessible to readers of all ages.

Gary Soto: A Career in Poetry and Prose

In Understanding James Welch, Ron McFarland offers analysis and critical commentary on the works of the renowned Blackfeet-Gros Ventre writer whose first novel, Winter in the Blood, has become a classic in Native American fiction and whose book of poems, Riding the Earthboy 40, has remained in print since its initial publication in 1971. McFarland offers close readings of Welch's poems and five novels, as well as his volume of nonfiction, Killing Custer, which tells the story of the Battle of the Little Bighorn from a Native American perspective.   Demonstrating how Welch wrote each of the novels from a different angle, McFarland finds the writer's focus to be on the picaresque in Winter in the Blood, on tragic inevitability in The Death of Jim Loney, on epic qualities in Fools Crow, and on the element of intrigue in The Indian Lawyer. McFarland draws on interviews with Welch, book reviews, and a growing body of secondary scholarly commentary to reflect on Welch's evolution as a writer, his interest in the landscape and the psychological life of his characters, his use of Native American lore and regionalist elements, and his thematic concerns-particularly the identity motif.

Understanding James Welch (Understanding Contemporary American Literature)

University of South Carolina Press

The Hemingway Poems

Pecan Grove Pr

Haunting Familiarity of Things

Singular Speech Pr

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Books by McFarland, Ron