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Flyover Fiction Series
 The departed men in her life still have plenty to say to Corey. Her father, a legendary rodeo cowboy who punctuated his lifelong pronouncements with a bullet to his head, may be the loudest. But in this story of Montana—a story in which the old West meets the new and tradition has its way with just about everyone—it is Corey’s voice we listen to. In this tour-de-force of voices big and small, sure and faltering, hers comes across resonant and clear, directing us to the heart of the matter. Played out against the mythology of the Old West—a powerful amalgam of ranching history, Marlboro Men, and train robbery reenactments—the story of the newly orphaned, spinsterish Corey is a sometimes comical, sometimes poignant tale of coming-of-age a little late. As she tries to recapture an old dream of becoming a painter—of preserving some modicum of true art amid the virtual reality of modern Montana—Corey finds herself figuring in other dramas as well, other, younger lives already at least as lost as her own.
 Mary Clearman Blew is the author of the acclaimed essay collection All But the Waltz; three books of short stories, including Sister Coyote; and is the editor of When Montana and I Were Young: A Memoir of a Frontier Childhood, available in a Bison Books edition. She is a professor of creative writing at the University of Idaho and twice has received the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award, once in fiction and once in nonfiction, as well as the Western Literature Association’s Distinguished Achievement Award.
 "In Blew's commendable fiction debut. . . . [the author's] distinctive narrative voice and knack for description keep the story on track."—Publishers Weekly “Mary Clearman Blew’s stunning first novel gives us an example—if any is required—of why fiction is still necessary and what it uniquely offers. It’s an understated achievement that recalls the early works of Larry McMurtry, along with the tough, febrile voice of S.E. Hinton’s The Outsiders and the emotional intelligence of William Maxwell. Willa Cather’s work also comes to mind. . . . Sentences seethe with urgent, unhurried energy, and the description of the land the author so clearly loves is in service of the story, not showing off. You come to care deeply about these people, caught between an uncapturable past and an uncertain future. Jackalope Dreams is a small masterpiece; it deserves the attention it makes a point of not seeking.”—Paul Wilner, Los Angeles Times Book Review “Jackalope Dreams is a candid exploration of values in transition, caught between a tradition that has become elegy and a future transformed by canny, self-sufficient women. Itself a ‘long intense shiver,’ it forces us to reconsider issues of honor, violence, technology, independence, responsibility—and love. Add Mary Blew’s name triumphantly to the canon of essential novelists of the new West.”—Judith Kitchen, author of The House on Eccles Road “Mary Blew has written a tough, true, and starkly beautiful novel about change and tradition in the cowboy West. Her characters are authentic, her story is gripping, and her writing is splendid.”—Annick Smith, author of Homestead and In This We are Native “A stunning debut novel, perceptive and provocative, in part about the growing pains of a region. Blew offers piercing insights into people who define themselves by their traditions and who must learn to come to terms with the encroachment of the new West.”—Joy Passanante, author of The Art of Absence “Mary Clearman Blew’s novel Jackalope Dreams is a marvel, a story that’s as evocative as the West and as inventive as its mythology. Like the Jackalope itself, the novel explores a new reality grafted on the bones of the old. New-day survivalists clash with the tourist industry, ranchers struggle to keep their livelihood while developers bring in the big machines, and amidst it all, one woman risks everything to take in a troubled child. This is clearly the work of a master storyteller, a writer at the peak of her craft.”—Claire Davis, author of Winter Range “What Blew has achieved in her first novel is nothing less than stunning: a story beautifully told, characters richly conceived and developed, lessons subtly delivered, complete with shoot-’em-ups, horse wrangling and hidden stashes of cash. . . . [I]t is the poetry and preciseness of Blew’s writing that set Jackalope Dreams apart from others of its ilk. Hers is storytelling of the highest order.”—Sherry Devlin, Missoulian
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