Description: A native Montanan and an acclaimed novelist, Rowland spent the better part of two years studying and traveling around his beloved home state, from the mines of Butte to the forests of the Northwest, from the stark wind-scrubbed badlands of the East to the tourist-driven economies of the Southwest. Along the way, he considered who we are, where we came from, and what we might be in the process of becoming.
Brief description: Russell Rowland is the highly-applauded author of three novels set in Montana, including High and Inside, as well as co-editor of an anthology, West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West. He lives in Billings, Montana.
Review Quotes: "Russell Rowland is a whirlwind of a writer, clothed in the stark colors of Montana's mountains and sky, her high plains and her deep true rivers. His book Fifty-Six Counties: A Montana Journey is astounding in beauty and vitality, interwoven with great wisdoms about human shadow and human light, touched by divine notions of the sacredness that binds all people, and graced with a hard won and ultimately natural sense of illumination. In writing the book, Rowland says he wanted to tap 'into the spirit of Montana... to explore its heart.' The result of Rowland's exploration is something soulful, defiant, and revolutionary. He is fiercely devoted to the atonement and beauty that are the hallmarks of all great works of art. Rowland names our collective loneliness, but does so with a fierce and tender devotion to the mothers and fathers of all races, all cultures. In so doing he restores us not only to each other but to Mother Earth. His unique, person to person path through the history, present, and future of Montana is a vision both elegant and muscular, rich with the scents of forest and arid lands, violence and community, ranch life and city life, conservation and industry and ore. Fifty-Six Counties is animated by the numinous even as it humbles us, makes us more sane, and draws us into a new and invigorating experience of the essence of life. This is a book for Montana, for the nation, and for the world." -- Shann Ray "winner of the American Book Award, the High Plains Book Award, and the Spur Award, author of American Masculine, Balefire, and American Copper"