The Mountain and the Fathers: Growing Up in the Big Dry [Paperback]

The Mountain and the Fathersexplores the life of boys and men in the unforgiving, harsh world north of the Bull Mountains of eastern Montana in a drought afflicted area called the Big Dry, a land that chews up old and young alike. Joe Wilkins was born into this world, raised by a young mother and elderly grandfather following the untimely death of his father. That early loss stretches out across the Big Dry, and Wilkins uses his own story and those of the young boys and men growing up around him to examine the violence, confusion, and rural poverty found in this distinctly American landscape. Ultimately, these lives put forth a new examination of myth and manhood in the American West and cast a journalistic eye on how young men seek to transcend their surroundings in the search for a better life. Rather than dwell on grief or ruin, Wilkins’ memoir posits that it is our stories that sustain us, andThe Mountain and the Fathers, much like the work of Norman Maclean or Jim Harrison, heralds the arrival of an instant literary classic.

Praise forThe Mountain and the Fathers

“Joe Wilkins writes his truths straight from the broken heart of a broken land. When I read his personal stories, so lyrically and wondrously imagined, I feel a beautiful and sometimes terrifying emotion rise up in me—mythic, redemptive, and sustaining. If you want to read what matters, read this.” —Kim Barnes, Pulitzer Prize Finalist forIn the Wilderness

“Joe Wilkins’ sketches of life in Montana’s Big Dry country, north of Billings and halfway to nowhere, are filled with a potent combination of loving poetry and bitter nostalgia. You can smell the sage and wild onions and feel how this land apart forms and twists those who live there, and sometimes kills them. Wilkins’ search for his father—and for himself—takes its own twist: the Big Dry may care nothing for pilgrims and father seel³.