Winter Range

Categories: Staff Picks , Fiction

Okay, this one’s not new, but it’s very seasonal.  You’ll feel positively cozy during our current heat wave reading the bitter winter scenes in Claire Davis’s 2000 debut novel, Winter Range.

Sheriff Ike Parsons is an outsider in his small Montana town.  He married a local girl, Pattiann, the daughter of one of the cattle ranching families, and has patiently tried to make a place for himself among the locals.  They like him and tolerate him, and he likes and admires them, but he knows he still isn't one of them.

Now an unusually long, harsh winter is dragging toward spring.  Chas Stubblefield, the son of one of the county's sternest ranchers, has given up the fight.  He is letting his cattle slowly starve to death in a desperate, angry, shamed gesture toward the bankers and feed mill owners who have finally cut off his credit. 

Ike can't let the situation continue. 

As reluctant as he is to interfere (he understands how touchy the locals are about the law coming between a man and his property), Ike has to act in order to save the cattle needless suffering. 

The situation is complicated by Chas’s history with Patiann, back in the days when they were both young and reckless.  Chas is angry enough to take advantage of Patiann’s sympathy now.  The situation is building toward crisis, both in the town and in Ike's marriage.     

This was an absolutely stunning first novel by a prizewinning short story writer.  In a structure as formal and beautiful as a Greek tragedy, Davis crafted an intensely moving story.  The sympathetic, persuasive portrait of the people and their complex reaction to Chas's desperate last stand couldn't be more convincing.  Readers who enjoy atmospheric regional fiction, beautiful writing, and heartbreaking suspense will find this immensely rewarding.