A Montana Reading List: Background information when reading Dog Run Moon

A Montana Reading List

This article relates to Dog Run Moon

Dog Run Moon is mostly set in Montana. Here is a selection of recommended books also set in Big Sky Country.


Winter: Notes from Montana by Rick Bass
This is a memoir of the author's first winter spent in Yaak Valley, Montana with his wife, the artist Elizabeth Hughes, whose line drawings illuminate the book. With their dogs and alongside other isolated neighbors, they faced a hostile yet beautiful world and went back to the basics of survival: finding wood, and chopping and burning it. Like Annie Dillard's Pilgrim at Tinker Creek, Winter is full of lyrical passages about the sanctity of a simple life: "This valley shakes with mystery, with beauty, with secrets – and yet it gives up no answers."

Painted Horses by Malcolm Brooks
In 1956, young archaeologist Catherine Lemay is summoned to Montana to prove no treasures will be destroyed during the construction of a dam. This big sky and canyon landscape may be foreign to Catherine, but with the help of retired cavalry soldier John H and Native American guide Miriam, she will come to see its worth. Meanwhile, Jack Allen is the macho cowboy offering dubious assistance on her project. This is a fresh take on the traditional horseman tale as well as a memorable love story.

The Farmer's Daughter: Novellas by Jim Harrison
Though all three novellas are distinct from one another, they are joined by the exploration of isolation, displacement, raw sexuality, and human connection. In the great expanses of Montana, Harrison transports readers to a simpler but tougher place in "The Farmer's Daughter" and allows all his characters to explore their limits, their curious sexualities, and their courage when no one else is looking, which at times adds an unsettling quality to his stories.

Fourth of July Creek by Smith Henderson
Pete Snow is a Montana social worker in the early 1980s. The case that most captivates his attention is that of young Benjamin Pearl, raised in the wilderness by his anarchist father, Jeremiah. Ever since his wife and their teenage daughter Rachel left for Texas, Pete has been adrift in a fog of alcohol and sex, driving between remote locations in an attempt to save his clients and his criminal brother. When Rachel runs away, though, life's dangers come home to Pete for the first time.

Black River by S.M. Hulse
Grieving the death of his beloved wife, Claire, Wes returns to his former home of Elk Fork Valley in western Montana. He's there to bury Claire's remains as she requested, forcing him to see – and stay with – his estranged stepson, Dennis, for the first time in over twenty years. The healing power of music and the act of listening are poignant motifs woven delicately throughout. The story is much like the rugged mountains of Montana: beautiful, yet rough and immense.

The Last Stand: Custer, Sitting Bull, and the Battle of the Little Bighorn by Nathaniel Philbrick
Mythologized as Custer's Last Stand, the June 1876 battle took place in southern Montana. In a tightly structured narrative, Philbrick sketches the two larger-than-life antagonists: Sioux chief Sitting Bull, whose charisma and political savvy earned him the position of leader of the Plains Indians, and George Armstrong Custer, one of the Union's greatest cavalry officers and a man with a reputation for fearless and often reckless courage. Within a few years of Little Bighorn, all the major tribal leaders were confined to native American reservations. The Last Stand is a mesmerizing account of the archetypal story of the American West.

See BookBrowse's Colorado/Wyoming/Montana shelf for additional books that are set in Montana.

Incidentally, Callan Wink recently shared his recommendations for the 10 Best Books set in the American West in Publishers Weekly.

Picture of buffalo in National Bison Range, Montana under license from Depositphotos.com

Filed under Reading Lists

This article relates to Dog Run Moon. It first ran in the March 2, 2016 issue of BookBrowse Recommends.