Hard Grass - by Mary Zeiss Stange (Paperback)

About the Book

These colorful tales highlight the complex relationships that comprise life in the rural West today.

Book Synopsis

Gold Medal Winner for Best Regional Non-Fiction, 2011 Independent Publisher Book Awards

Mary Zeiss Stange's story of running a bison ranch with her husband in southeastern Montana--on the outskirts of nowhere and far-from-here--is a narrative of survival in a landscape and a society at once harsh and alluring. In this series of essays she illustrates the realities of ranch life at a time when the "New West" of subdivision, "ranchettes," telecommuting, and tourism collides with the "True West" of too much, too little, too hard, and too harsh. This society is molded by the climate, and both run to extremes, simultaneously unforgiving, often brutal, yet capable of unalloyed charm and breathtaking beauty.

Her stories explore the myths and realities of ranch life in modern America--the brandings, rodeos, and demolition derbies that are major events, and the social, environmental, and political factors at work in shaping the land and the people.

Less memoir than deep history of people and place, these vivid, naturalistic tales examine the complex relationships that comprise life in the rural West today.

Review Quotes

"Scholar, rancher, hunter, and feminist, Mary Zeiss Stange finally gives the fly-over country of the West what it's been lacking: a nuanced portrait of its people and animals from someone invested in the harsh and beautiful landscape."--Ted Kerasote, author of Bloodties: Nature, Culture, and the Hunt and Out There: In the Wild in a Wired Age