Reseña de Choise

This accessible book opens by pondering instances of right-wing militancy in Montana as examples of dread linked to the state's native pessimism. Egan's purpose in highlighting the "dialectic of dread and hope" in Montana life and literature is to encourage a more realistic intellectual balance. He first considers Montana's "prehistory" (before 1940), examining work by Plenty Coups, Two Leggings, and Mourning Dove, along with ranch and homestead narratives, in which the history of loss and failure first induced the pessimistic tone. Next Egan appreciates the canonical tragic novels of D'Arcy McNickle and A.B. Guthrie Jr. and the history-jeremiads of Joseph Kinsey Howard and K. Ross Toole--perhaps too easily denigrating the "outlanders" Richard Hugo, Jim Harrison, Richard Ford, and Thomas McGuane. Finally, he praises more recent work offering "provisional hope," especially that of James Welch, William Kittredge, and Ivan Doig and women writers Cyra McFadden, Mary Clearman Blew, Mildred Walker, and Deirdre McNamer. Although the author occasionally oversimplifies, his book is free of jargon and incorporates personal reflection. It belongs on the shelf with William Bevis's Ten Tough Trips: Montana Writers and the West (CH, May'91) and The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology, ed. by William Kittredge and Annick Smith (1988). ^BSumming Up: Recommended. All collections supporting study of regional literature. J. J. Wydeven Bellevue University