The Willow Field

After numerous essays, short stories and the heralded memoirA Hole in the Sky, William Kittredge gives us a debut novel that ratifies his standing as a leading writer of the American West. Rossie Benasco's horseback existence begins at age 15 and culminates in a thousand-mile drive of more than 200 head of horses through the Rockies into Calgary. It's a journey that leads him, ultimately, to Eliza Stevenson and a passion so powerful, his previously unfocused life gains clarity and purpose. From the settlers, cowboys, and gamblers who opened up this country to the landholders and politicians who ran it, this is an epic tale of love and wide open spaces that stretches over the grand canvas of the twentieth-century West.

William Kittredge is the author, most recently, of The Nature of Generosity, and with Annick Smith he edited The Last Best Place: A Montana Anthology. He grew up in Oregon and now lives in Missoula, where for many years he taught at the University of Montana.


From the Hardcover edition.