Best of Montana's Short Fiction

Montana has long drawn the outcasts and the dreamers, the searchers and the hidersand the writers. Here are twenty-one stories from the frontier of our country and the edge of our national imagination. The cast of characters is as big as the state. There's the cuckolded father in Richard Ford's classic, "Great Falls," or Ralph Beer's hero in "Big Spenders," sitting with his umbrella drink, dreaming about palm trees and white crescent beaches. There's also Thomas McGuane's eavesdropping narrator in "Like a Leaf," watching other people's lives, always from a distance. Chris Offutt's protagonist in "Tough People" is trying to earn enough money in amateur boxing to get out of town, while Mary Clearman Blew's narrator in "Bears and Lions" describes how her home is slipping awayhow the West is leaving her behind. Montana has for years been a special place for writers. The Best of Montana's Short Fiction is long overdue.Jones, Allen Morris is the author of 'Best of Montana's Short Fiction', published 2004 under ISBN 9781592282692 and ISBN 1592282695.