Balsamroot

Mary Clearman Blew's first memoir, All But the Waltz, sealed her renown as a "brave, bone-honest" writer (Ivan Doig, The Washington Post) of "prose with a shining edge" (The New York Times Book Review). Now she focuses on some of the women she so memorably introduced in that book - above all, on her favorite aunt, Imogene, whose early struggle for independence and new struggle with age and dementia focus Blew's own feelings about living, about making choices, and about growing older. Melding past and present into a moving narrative, Mary Clearman Blew imaginatively recreates the dry, dusty, sparsely populated Montana of the early homesteaders and of her aunt's young womanhood, and tries to understand why her aunt chose a life alone, away from the ranch where she grew up. At the same time she evokes the rigors of her own growing-up years; her yearnings for independence and escape; her own choices regarding marriage, divorce, and single parenthood; and the poignant reconnection with her daughter. A rich and unforgettable blend of intimate reflection, diaries, history, and local legend, Balsamroot shows us one of our top writers at her most personal and compelling.

Beyond its central premise, the book can be read through the connected lenses of Nonfiction. Those themes offer useful points of attention as the characters, ideas, or world develop, especially where the book complicates the expectations of its primary category.