Catch The Mountain And The Fathers: Growing Up On The Big Dry Produced By Joe Wilkins Expressed As Print

is a poet and each short chapter delivers the rhythms and song of the best writing, What is even more remarkable is that these chapter/prose poems subtly construct a remarkable narrative that gathers momentum and delivers both hope and tragedy in the same breath.
Brilliant stuff.
I am certainly conflicted about this book, I don't like that people that read this will take away from this book that small town Montanans are poor uneducated sorry lot! Not the case, There are not a lot of opportunities for young people in these areas if there is not a ranch in their family, That being said, I did enjoy reading this book, Why is it that the best book I read inslipped beneath the wire and crossed intoI don't know, but I wish it could last forever, Stunning. Language, feeling, it's all here, Do not miss this gem, For those of us who grew up without a father, Joe captures some repeating themes we tend to have : Doubts about our male identity, seeing and rejecting father figures in the men we meet, Trying to understand who are own father was, and whether we're like him.
As if by knowing him we could finally come to know ourselves,

This is also an intimate slice of life, coming of age, in a rural harsh clime,

Highly recommended.



"This is the Big Dry the railroads gone, the oil gone, the rain never falling yet like most any place of deep poverty and latent violence, the worst of it is that slow erosion of imagination, of any hope for something better.
"

I stumbled across Joe Wilkins's debut novel, Fall Back Down When I Die, and so enjoyed it that I wanted to know more about him,

The Mountain and The Fathers is Wilkins's story, growing up in droughtafflicted eastern Montana, When he writes about the windswept, unforgiving landscape, it reminded me of the saying, "Tough times don't last, tough people do, " Unfortunately, in the Big Dry, tough times do last, and even the toughest Montanan doesn't always, As Wilkins illustrates, "Out on the far prairie, bad luck and bad choices were one and the same, failure the only unforgivable sin, for we had to believe we could abide in that bad land.
We had to believe that it was possible, that it was not folly, "

Wilkins was raised by his mother and grandfather, following the death of his father due to cancer, While the Big Dry was home, it was uncomfortably clear to him at an early age that he was destined for a life unlike the Montanans before him, Violence, poverty, and the harshness of the land are significant themes spanning Wilkins's memoir, one in which you can't help but suspect he wrote for himself as some form of cathartic poetry.
For, in his own words, "Remembering is the opposite of pretending, it is the beginning of telling the truth to yourself about yourself, "

out of. Beautifully written memoir of growing up in difficult circumstances, And his mother is a saint!!!! "It is late July, haying season, and he is waiting for the sun to dry the dew from the field, He is happy just waiting, happy because in this dry country too much moisture is a fine problem to have, because a meadowlark is calling, because the air this morning is sweet and sharp with clover and sage.
"really are so crass, . .

Here are the questions we discussed at the sitelinkReading the Western Landscape Book Club at the sitelinkLos Angeles County Arboretum amp Botanic Garden,

Did Joe have a happy childhood
How does he process his fathers death or not
What was your favorite landscape interaction that Joe had
Is the landscape an adversary
Was the transition to the harrowing adolescence inevitable
How does the fathering or his search for fathering affect his adult life
Does his poetic language help the story hinder hide sanitize
Who was your favorite father figure
How did the end fit with the rest of the story or not
What is the “mountain” of the title
How did Joe's Catholicism influence his journey
Read advanced reader's copy.
Literary narrative about growing up in Eastern Montana, A brilliant blend of personalities, family saga, history, geography, and social commentary, If you liked Dubuss Townie, you will like this, La Montagne et les pères est constitué de courts récits autobiographiques retraçant l'enfance de l'auteur, Tout commence alors que Joe Wilkins, âgé deans, voit mourir son père d'un cancer,
Puis l'auteur restitue l'ambiance du Montana à l'époque de sa jeunesse, la rudesse du climat et des relations humaines parfois, la beauté des paysages, Ses souvenirs apparaissent comme des instantanés, des tranches de sa vie et de celle des siens, L'auteur se livre également à de très beaux portraits de ses proches, sa mère ou son grandpère paternel notamment, Sa mère qui a tout quitté pour suivre son mari assoiffé de grands espaces, Son grandpère, vieux cowboy du Big Dry, lui a servi de père de substitution et l'a "libéré" en lui offrant un bel avenir,
L'écriture poétique de Joe Wilkins rend un vibrant hommage à ses proches et évoque avec émotion le chagrin et la quête d'identité d'un garçon au père trop tôt disparu.

Un très beau moment de lecture,
Joe Wilkins grew up in a waterstarved stretch of eastern Montana known as the Big Dry, With his new book, he returns to the unforgiving landscape of his youth in a series of wistful vignettes culled from vivid, often violent childhood memories, The Mountain and the Fathers is a wonderfully rendered portrait of starkly beautiful rural life and a haunting search for what it means to be a man in the American West.
Wilkins is a poet his eye for detail is clear and he writes with the narrative grace of high lonesome prairie wind, This beautifully written collection of memories took my breath away,
Wilkins unique voice is reflected in each sentence sometimes sparse, sometimes elegant but always meaningful,
A must read for sons, for fathers and for the women who love them, Beautifully written memories of parents, family and growing up in a poverty stricken place, Fast paced book that oftentimes reads like poetry, Looking forward to meeting the author in a few weeks! One of the most beautiful books I've ever read, My heart! Joe Wilkins begins his fine memoir, "What I remember without qualification is the dark, " He is a young boy being pulled from sleep on the night of his father's death, Over and over again he recounts, "What I remember" spooling out the details of a night that haunts him still, "We leave and never leave, We grow up and never grow up, We grieve and grieve and grieve, "

Wide open and desolate, Montana's Big Dry is a place of hard times and hard luck, Wilkins and his family have seen plenty of both, The Mountains and Fathers is a powerful coming of age story it is also beautifully written, A poet first, Wilkins cadence and imagery are what make this such a fine read,
The language. Oh the language. Swoon. Prose that is ecstatically alive with poetry, each of these short vignettes resonates,

There are lessons in "The Mountain and the Fathers," about who we are and who we can become, the strength and delicacy of life, and perhaps most importantly, it isn't that life isn't meant to make us tough, but for us to be tough enough to keep the wallops of life at a stiffarm so that we can also become more.


I started reading this book on the river, after long days of rowing, but it read best this fall when I was back in my classroom read like a book of

poetry, in small chunks over the course of days.
Joe Wilkins is one of the great lyricists of life,

The mountain and the fathers is a stirring account of the author's experiences growing up on "the big dry", Powerfully emotional and spellbindingly poetic, Joe Wilkins takes us through the joys of a boyhood spent hunting and fishing in the Montana wilderness, the struggles and hard labor of farm life, poverty, and the tragic loss of his father.
An exceptionally good book!

I have received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads,
Joe Wilkins writes in beautiful prose of his life in Eastern Montana, He tells a story in each chapter as if a certain subject Lake Water, Sky, Slow Breath or person his mother, Bruce Wheatry, Kelly Dempsey, each brought to his mind pictures and lessons learned.
Wilkins writing is almost like reading poetry, It is descriptive, poignant, sometime sad and sometimes hilarious, Life on the Big Dry was certainly hard, but from all of it he gained a knowledge of self, family, those who treated him like family, This is a must read for all who seek to find something important in their own lives, Sometimes the smallest most mundane things are important, In the retelling of his life on the Big Dry, Joe Wilkins finds his father, finds himself,

I rated this book withbecause I came away changed by Mr, Wilkins' stories. .