Bad Land: An American Romance Paperback - 1997
by Jonathan Raban
Winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award, "Bad Land" recounts the exploits of the many homesteaders who came to the prairies of eastern Montana in 1909, drawn by the promise of free land--only to be defeated by a country so arid and unforgiving that maps identified it as the Great American Desert. "A stunning triumph".--"Newsday". 2 maps.
From the jacket flap
A New York Times Editors' Choice for Book of the Year
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers AwardWinner of the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award
"No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror. "
--Washington Post Book World In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert. But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders--many of them immigrants--went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.
In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories. Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. "Exceptional. . . . A beautifully told historical meditation. "
--Time "Championship prose. . . . In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark."
--Los Angeles Times
Details
- Title Bad Land: An American Romance
- Author Jonathan Raban
- Binding Paperback
- Edition Reprint
- Pages 364
- Volumes 1
- Language ENG
- Publisher Vintage, New York
- Date 1997-10-07
- ISBN 9780679759065 / 0679759069
- Weight 0.69 lbs (0.31 kg)
- Dimensions 7.94 x 5.26 x 0.98 in (20.17 x 13.36 x 2.49 cm)
-
Themes
- Chronological Period: 19th Century
- Chronological Period: 20th Century
- Cultural Region: Midwest
- Cultural Region: Pacific Northwest
- Cultural Region: Plains
- Cultural Region: Western U.S.
- Library of Congress subjects Frontier and pioneer life - West (U.S.), West (U.S.) - Description and travel
- Library of Congress Catalog Number 96013432
- Dewey Decimal Code 978
Media reviews
Citations
- New York Times, 11/30/1997, Page 32
- NY Times Notable Bks of Year, 01/01/1997, Page 96
- Publishers Weekly, 09/08/1997, Page 0
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