Rating: 
Summary: Where place and people are one.
Review: I have longed loved literature that intertwines personalities with landscapes and have always believed that Southern writers did this better than anyone. I was wrong. With the same authenticity with which Faulkner gave us winding roads cut through red clay hills and the Snopes', Mr. Rowland gives us the emptiness and distances of Montana and the story of a family that cannot find the words to reach across them.This is a powerful first novel full of dreams unrealized, words not said, and love strained and stretched to its breaking point; a fine first novel from an author I look forward to reading again and again.
Rating:
Summary: Haven't read a story like this in a long, long time
Review: I picked up this book thinking I'd read a chapter or so before bed, but I couldn't sleep til I finished it. The opening chapter, describing the wide open spaces of Montana and the family farm, hooked me. It was the most lyrical thing I'd read in a long time, with a haunting storytelling remembering tone. Utterly beautiful. But it occurred to me, Well, yeah, a lot of books have a really amazing first chapter, this can't go on ... But it did. A humbly eloquent voice telling a story deep from the heart. Not with riffs of animated delivery or bursts of energy, just talking quietly on and on with that mesmerizing voice. Telling and telling. And seeing far far more than is visible on the surface. An unforgettable cast of characters--many are the author's not-too-distant ancestors. The story? God, that kind of hard life, that kind of endurance and suffering and love ... in that setting? of giving and giving until you are exhausted beyond anything ... And enduring .... It has a sweep, a magnificence even in the smallnesses. A grandeur even in the mud and death. I didn't know anyone could write a saga like that any more.
Rating: 
Summary: Boring, Boring, Boring
Review: I thought that this book was totally boring! I had to read it for a literature class, otherwise I would not wasted my time. Very slow. The author is great at his description of Montana, but his characters are so BORING!!!!!
Rating:
Summary: a fitting title for this novel's scope
Review: If Mr. Rowland's first book is an indication of his talent, I can't wait to see more. The Montana landscape is as much a character in this novel as the novel's narrator, Blake. The story takes place over 30 years in Blake's life, beginning from his return home from school after his brother's drowning. Perhaps the most interesting aspect is the novel's structure, which is divided into three parts: fire, dust, and water. Also, the character of Art Walters is an interesting study on how the land "beats hell out of you." Mr. Rowland, please give us more!
Rating:
Summary: A Vanishing Way of Life
Review: If you want to understand the complexities of a vanishing way of life in eastern Montana from a fictional perspective, you can do no better than to read Russell Rowland's debut novel, In Open Spaces. Rowland knows his subject, and his beautifully descriptive passages of Carter County, Montana illustrate well how the geography of a magnificent but desolate part of the country affects all who choose to live there. The characters in Rowland's book are flawed but still are authentic heros and heroines.
Rating:
Summary: A Sense of Place as Powerful as Willa Cather's
Review: In Open Spaces begins with a description of the Montana prairie sweeping west to the Rocky Mountains. If the novel had continued as a meditation on place, it would have been rewarding to read. Russell Rowland places a family of ranchers in this beautiful and forbidding setting, however, and unfolds a plot of family conflict. Like Willa Cather's Alexandra Bergson, protagonist Blake Arbuckle gives his life to the demanding prairie. Unlike Alexandra, however, Blake doesn't find the prairie personified as a powerful lover. Instead, for most of his life almost monk-like in his devotion, he gives his life to the land. The extremes of climate, the drought years of the Depression, and the often grim and determined Arbuckle family seem aesthetically matched in the novel. Blake narrates the novel in a low-keyed voice. Like his family, despite loss, he keeps his language undramatic. The scope of the landscape, however, dramatizes the power of the family secrets and their consequences. This restained, prosaic narrative voice, like the stern Montana prairie, adds to the power of this excellent novel.
Rating:
Summary: An epic feel...
Review: In Open Spaces does indeed have that epic feel, and I don't mean in the phony potboiler sense, but with a deep and unhurried unfolding that a reader can settle into. Great characters, setting and story, told with authority and charm.
Rating: 
Summary: A simple and powerful story
Review: In Open Spaces is a quiet book - the plot is simple and nothing overly dramatic happens. But somehow, the story draws you in forcefully. Rowland infuses his characters and their harsh rural Montana environment with so much depth, creating a story of family ties and sibling strife that surprised me in its power to intrigue and move me.
Rating:
Summary: Big Novel, Big Sky
Review: Mr. Rowland's debut novel is a satisfyingly sprawling family saga about prairie life in Montana in the early half of the 20th century that shows him clearly to be the most worthy successor to Ivan Doig.
Rating:
Summary: Enjoyable novel
Review: Rowland's novel is clearly written and the plot flows nicely. The main character is compelling as he struggles with many issues that affect himself and his family. The prose is restrained which adds to its effect. A fun one to read.
| 
