Book

The jump-off creek / Molly Gloss.

Summary:

Homesteader Lydia Sanderson writes about her life on Jump-Off Creek in the higher mountain country of Oregon in 1895. She tells of friendship, loss, daily struggles, and achievements.

"Set in the high mountain country of Oregon during the 1890s, this first novel is a quiet, unsparing portrait of pioneer life, recounted simply and without romanticism. Drawing on pioneer diaries, journals and hand-me-down stories of her own ancestors, Gloss displays a deep awareness not only of the brutal hardships of frontier life, but also of the moral codes and emotional attachments of the people who settled there. Drawn by the freedom the West offers, Lydia Sanderson leaves a disappointing marriage in Pennsylvania and comes to Jump-Off Creek to homestead a place of her own. Tim Whiteaker, 'gone cowboying' since the age of 13, and his partner, the half-Indian Blue Odell, raise cattle nearby. Three wolfers, squatting on abandoned property near Jump-Off Creek and walking the thin edge of the law in order to earn a marginal living, provide much of the tension within the novel. The author's intimate understanding of the harsh physical conditions and of the rituals and practices of frontier life (there are long descriptions of how to brand cattle and how to mend a roof) sometimes overshadows a deeper delineation of character. However, most of the scenes are handled with a restraint that communicates the characters' endemic loneliness, and the dialogue, though spare, is rich enough to convey their emotional conflicts."--Publisher's Weekly.

"Not a standard 'Western,' but a novel of the West notable for its accurate portrayal of life on a homestead and for the quality of writing that will make readers linger. At the height of the Depression of 1895 Lydia Sanderson, freed by the death of her husband, travels to Oregon where she homesteads on a mountain, living in a wretched hovel on land not fit to grow even a vegetable garden. Her companions are two mules, two goats, and hard work. Lydia's neighbors are few and far but bound together by a common struggle to survive. Their life is one of terse converse, kindness, and quick response to one another's needs. A rare treat of a first novel."--Sister Avila, Academy of Holy Angels, Minneapolis, Library Lournal.

Record details

ISBN: 0395925010
ISBN: 9780395925010
ISBN: 9780618565870
ISBN: 0618565876
Physical Description: 186 pages ; 21 cm.
Edition: 1st Mariner books ed.
Publisher: Boston : Houghton Mifflin Co., 1998.
Copyright: ℗♭1989.

Content descriptions

General Note:

"A Mariner book."

Includes a three page reader's guide at end of book.

"A PEN/Faulkner Award finalist"--Cover.

Biographical or Historical Data:

Best-selling author Molly Gloss, a fourth-generation Oregonian, was born in Portland, Oregon. Gloss received a B.A. and a secondary teaching certificate from Portland State College, and worked as a schoolteacher as well as a correspondence clerk for a freight company before becoming a full-time writer in 1980. In 1981, Gloss took a course in science fiction writing from Ursula K. Le Guin at Portland State University. Since then she has authored several short stories and novels in that genre, as well as works of western fiction, fantasy fiction, and young adult literature. In addition, Gloss has written book reviews, essays, an appreciation of Ursula K. Le Guin, and an introduction to the memoir of a woman homesteader. Gloss is the author of Outside the Gates (1986), The Jump-Off Creek (1989, winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and the Oregon Book Award, PEN/Faulkner finalist), The Dazzle of Days (1997, winner of the PEN Center West fiction prize), Wild Life (2000, winner of the James Tiptree Jr. Award), The Hearts of Horses (2007), and Falling from Horses (2014). Gloss lives in Portland.-- Information from Falling from Horses book jacket, University of Oregon bibliographic record for Molly Gloss papers, and Molly Gloss website, accessed September 13, 2016.