In fiction and nonfiction Mary Clearman Blew, the great-granddaughter of homesteaders in northern Montana, has written a vivid and moving record of ranch life in the decades between 1940 and 2000. Her short fiction has been included in the O. Henry Prize and Best American Short Stories anthologies, and two of her books, Runaway: A Collection of Stories (1990) and All But the Waltz: Essays on a Montana Family (1991), have garnered Pacific Northwest Booksellers Awards. Blew is the recipient of two Montana Awards in the Humanities and the H. G. Merriam Award for Distinguished Contribution to Montana Literature. In 1997 she received an honorary doctorate from Carroll College in Helena, Montana. Along with fellow Montana writers such as James Welch, Ivan Doig, William Kittredge, and Linda M. Hasselstrom, Blew is among the notable writers from the inland Northwest whose work has drawn national attention. Credit for that attention, which has increased over...