Books by Mary Clearman Blew

A romance novelist returns to Montana and her family's homestead to restart a life among neighbors who like to fire automatic weapons, a son who hates her, and the father of that son, who may hate her even more.

Set in central rural Montana in 1925, Waltzing Montana follows midwife Mildred Harrington as she grapples with feelings for her old sweetheart while also trying to overcome the horrific abuse that she suffered as a young teenager.

Melding past and present into a moving narrative, Mary Clearman Blew imaginatively recreates the dry, dusty, sparsely populated Montana of the early homesteaders and of her aunt Imogene's young womanhood. This is a rich and unforgettable blend of intimate reflection, diaries, history, and local legend.

In this action-packed novel set in 1975 Montana, history professor Diana Karnov begins to see what she had learned about western America in an entirely new light.

Music, whether a Debussy etude or Gram Parson's "Hickory Wind", has been a constant in Ruby Gervais's life. After Ruby helps fuel a paranoid fervor that spreads like wildfire throughout her rural Montana community, her home life deteriorates. Throughout, Ruby Dreams of Janis Joplin is underscored by the music that forms inextricable bonds between fascinating characters.

The departed men in her life still have plenty to say to Corey. Her father, a legendary rodeo cowboy who punctuated his lifelong pronouncements with a bullet to his head, may be the loudest. But in this story of Montana - a story in which the old West meets the new and tradition has its way with just about everyone - it is Corey's voice we listen to.

Mary Clearman Blew's education began at home, on a remote cattle ranch in Montana. She graduated to a one-room rural school, then escaped, via scholarship, to the University of Montana, where, still in her teens, she met and married her first husband. This Is Not the Ivy League is her account of what it was to be that girl, and then that woman.