Yonder : A Place in Montana

Rating:
Summary: Montanamania
Review: "Yonder" (subtitled "A Place in Montana") by John Hemingway is an untidy book, but one I still recommend to readers interested in the west. Hemingway is an expert on Africa, a producer of documentary films for PBS, a writer, and a Montana "hobby rancher". Noel Perrin used the phrase "hobby farmer" to identify people who buy farms in Vermont in order to feel connected with the soil and the hardy Yankee yoemen who till it, but who continue to derive most of their income from some other source. The book relates Hemingway's experiences after he and members of his family purchase first a ranch in central Montana and then a 36-acre mountain retreat, named the Bar 20, north of Yellowstone Park. He interweaves events and observations from his own life in Montana with his search for information about the previous owners of the Bar 20.

One of the pleasures of the book is Hemingway's gift for vivid word snapshots of people he encounters in Montana. His filmaker's eye rests briefly on organic rancher Tom Elliott, BLM archeologist Michael Kyte, outfitter Larry Lahren, horse whisperer Ray Hunt, ranch foreman Floyd Cowles, teepee manufacturer Don Ellis, and his motley neighbors in the Boulder River valley. The sketches are illuminations of ordinary lives rather than (a la Annie Proulx) a lepidopterological display of "characters". The book's other strength is the mini-biography of Stanley and Bab Cox, easterners like Hemingway, who owned the Bar 20 from 1933 to 1951 and who, unlike Hemingway, resided there continuously except for the war years. Hemingway's determined and ingenious research has unearthed a story worthy of a novel.

"Yonder", published by the National Geographic Society Adventure Press, is the worst-edited book I have encountered in some time. It is rife with typos: missing quotation marks, uncapitalized proper names, "souh" for "south", "there's" for "theirs", "Yate's" for "Yates'", "shooting match" for "shouting match", and a missing negative that turns a sentence about organic farming into nonsense. It is also guilty of dubious or incorrect word usage. Examples: three sheets of paper become in the next paragraph three sheaves of paper; a hinged bookcase hiding a door is called "trompe l'oeil". And what is one to make of this sentence? "While grounds for abandoning a six-year-old child seem inconceivable, we can speculate he justified his decision because, perhaps, he felt rejected by the Hydes, who clearly had never warmed to a man they regarded as a diffident provider, husband, and father."

Hemingway grafts a couple of self-contained essays (previously published articles?) onto the stalk of his narrative. They deal with native American activities in other parts of the state and artist Winold Reiss. These are interesting in their own right, but anti-climatictic after the drama of the Cox research.

"Yonder" will save future owners of the Bar 20 the trouble of playing detective in order to find out what John Hemingway was doing and thinking during his days in Montana.

Rating:
Summary: Reprehensible
Review: "Yonder" (subtitled "A Place in Montana") by John Hemingway is an untidy book, but one I still recommend to readers interested in the west. Hemingway is an expert on Africa, a producer of documentary films for PBS, a writer, and a Montana "hobby rancher". Noel Perrin used the phrase "hobby farmer" to identify people who buy farms in Vermont in order to feel connected with the soil and the hardy Yankee yoemen who till it, but who continue to derive most of their income from some other source. The book relates Hemingway's experiences after he and members of his family purchase first a ranch in central Montana and then a 36-acre mountain retreat, named the Bar 20, north of Yellowstone Park. He interweaves events and observations from his own life in Montana with his search for information about the previous owners of the Bar 20.

One of the pleasures of the book is Hemingway's gift for vivid word snapshots of people he encounters in Montana. His filmaker's eye rests briefly on organic rancher Tom Elliott, BLM archeologist Michael Kyte, outfitter Larry Lahren, horse whisperer Ray Hunt, ranch foreman Floyd Cowles, teepee manufacturer Don Ellis, and his motley neighbors in the Boulder River valley. The sketches are illuminations of ordinary lives rather than (a la Annie Proulx) a lepidopterological display of "characters". The book's other strength is the mini-biography of Stanley and Bab Cox, easterners like Hemingway, who owned the Bar 20 from 1933 to 1951 and who, unlike Hemingway, resided there continuously except for the war years. Hemingway's determined and ingenious research has unearthed a story worthy of a novel.

"Yonder", published by the National Geographic Society Adventure Press, is the worst-edited book I have encountered in some time. It is rife with typos: missing quotation marks, uncapitalized proper names, "souh" for "south", "there's" for "theirs", "Yate's" for "Yates'", "shooting match" for "shouting match", and a missing negative that turns a sentence about organic farming into nonsense. It is also guilty of dubious or incorrect word usage. Examples: three sheets of paper become in the next paragraph three sheaves of paper; a hinged bookcase hiding a door is called "trompe l'oeil". And what is one to make of this sentence? "While grounds for abandoning a six-year-old child seem inconceivable, we can speculate he justified his decision because, perhaps, he felt rejected by the Hydes, who clearly had never warmed to a man they regarded as a diffident provider, husband, and father."

Hemingway grafts a couple of self-contained essays (previously published articles?) onto the stalk of his narrative. They deal with native American activities in other parts of the state and artist Winold Reiss. These are interesting in their own right, but anti-climatictic after the drama of the Cox research.

"Yonder" will save future owners of the Bar 20 the trouble of playing detective in order to find out what John Hemingway was doing and thinking during his days in Montana.

Rating:
Summary: A story of finding that which is "yonder"...
Review: I loved Yonder. It is the story of John Heminway's search to uncover the history of a ranch in a beautiful Montana valley. John and his sister, Hilary, bought the ranch soon after they had found it with the help of a knowledgeable agent. As Yonder unfolds I fell under its enchantment and could not put it down until I found out what John had discovered through his search for its past owners. However, Yonder is more than a paean to Montana as moving as Ivan Doig's This House of Sky or Rick Bass's Seven Mile Wolves. It is also the story of the author's search for peace and joy. This is heartfelt book should fascinate those who enjoy interesting people and unique places.

Rating:
Summary: A story of finding that which is "yonder"...
Review: I loved Yonder. It is the story of John Heminway's search to uncover the history of a ranch in a beautiful Montana valley. John and his sister, Hilary, bought the ranch soon after they had found it with the help of a knowledgeable agent. As Yonder unfolds I fell under its enchantment and could not put it down until I found out what John had discovered through his search for its past owners. However, Yonder is more than a paean to Montana as moving as Ivan Doig's This House of Sky or Rick Bass's Seven Mile Wolves. It is also the story of the author's search for peace and joy. This is heartfelt book should fascinate those who enjoy interesting people and unique places.

Rating:
Summary: Reprehensible
Review: John Heminway's hippie-commune-turned-subdivision is an environmental and community tragedy, but he and his trust fund find it a paradise. This book is instructive for its unintentional exposition of the hypocrisy, condescension, and self-absorbtion that the super-rich bring to "their" Montana. But if you know anything about the state, it's truly painful to read.

Not just in need of the most basic proofreader, the book contains dozens of factual errors. (I was particularly surprised that National Geographic would place the Missouri River in Fargo.) Not only does Heminway blandly repeat the same old stories, but in getting them wrong (not only does he botch the story of Charlie Russell's painting "Waiting for a Chinook," he even inflates its alternate title from "Last of the 5,000" to "Last of the 10,000") he does a tremendous disservice to anyone who would find this representative of Montana.

Avoid this book! If you want to read about this region, read Mark Spragg's "Where Rivers Change Direction" -- not only a more accurate book, but a truly eloquent memoir.