In Open Spaces

This novel hits the mark in several respects. It's a convincing coming-of-age book, a Montana Bildungsroman; it's also a wonderful evocation of a landscape and the human connection to it, and of an era. It's also a solid family saga. The pacing is unhurried and the writing restrained---these are virtues in a book of this sort. Rowland succeeds in holding your attention from the beginning, however, not so much through a plot hook as through the creation of a sympathetic and interesting protagonist. Anyone who's interested in well-crafted character-driven fiction should enjoy this book. It's a great beginning to what I hope will be a productive and successful career.

Friends ask me why I read fiction, since it's "not real," and I've always maintained that I get a finer appreciation for life, politics, geography, culture, what have you, including history, which comes alive - the facts as well as the feel of it - through a good story. That is the case with this novel of eastern Montana. It has classic American elements: baseball, the west, hard work ethic, a love story, and a big boisterous family, like old big boisterous families, with its own sense of ideosynractic mystery. The patient pace and brusque, delightful simplicity of the narrative calls to mind the oral storytelling tradition, a style that seems to match the stubborn resilience of the people and the land of the setting. I liked this book a heck of a lot.

As a lifelong reader of books written about the west, particularly those about Montana, Russell Rowland's In Open Spaces is as good as it gets. I felt the same way reading this book as I did the first time I read Ivan Doig's "This House of Sky," which is a classic and personal favorite. Rowland writes with simplicity, honesty, and restraint. I've met these people before, or seen them in their pickups, at the county fair, in the rodeo. And instead of caricatures, the characters are real, vulnerable, and truthfully enigmatic. This is a powerful book, and important not only for what it says but for what it doesn't. I hope this is the beginning of a long and successful career. Great work.C.J. BoxAuthor of "Open Season" and "Savage Run"

A friend turned me on to this one. What a stunner! A pitch perfect description of the tribulations facing a family attempting to survive each other and the rough, rough world of Montana ranch country in the first half of this century. The challenges facing the Arbuckle clan are overwhelming and bleak, and yet this book is absolutely charged with energy, life, and passion. I could not get the main characters (esp. Blake, Jack or Rita (ooooh, i LOVED rita), out of my head. And if for no other reason, read this book to experience what I will only describe here as an intense medical procedure performed on an injured (and profoundly angry) cow by lay people with no anestheia, one of the most gripping (and if you can believe it, sexually charged) scenes I have ever read. Like the "Corrections", Rowland captures both the intimate details of family life AND the overall impact of large societal forces (in this case, WW1, the great depression and relentless dust bowl, and WW2). This book is not getting the attention it deserves, it is one of the finest books i have ever read, grand in scope and true in its details.

This breathtakingly good debut positively floored me. It is at once majestic and intimate. The author presents a family of strong, unique characters who must act as one to survive the unforgiving open spaces of Eastern Montana -- even as the family members increasingly form and break alliances with one another. Rich in detail, the author's ranchhand roots clearly run deep. I highly recommend this book to anyone with an interst in "guy stuff" (ranching, baseball, murder?), "girl stuff" (unrequited love, intrafamily dynamics, handsome cowboys) or just stuff (life during the depression, hitching rides in mail trucks, how to hold a cigarette).