Bad Land: An American Romance

Raban, Jonathan

ISBN 10: 0679759069 / ISBN 13: 9780679759065

Published by Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (edition Reprint), 1997

It's a preowned item in good condition and includes all the pages. It may have some general signs of wear and tear, such as markings, highlighting, slight damage to the cover, minimal wear to the binding, etc., but they will not affect the overall reading experience. Seller Inventory # 0679759069-11-1

Synopsis:

NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. • "As good a book as I have read about rural America in a very long time." —The New York Times Book Review

In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert.  But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders—many of them immigrants—went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.    

In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories.

About the Author: JONATHAN RABAN is the author of the novels Surveillance and Waxwings; his nonfiction works include Passage to Juneau, Bad Land, and Driving Home. His honors include the National Book Critics Circle Award, the PEN/West Creative Nonfiction Award, the Pacific Northwest Booksellers’ Award, and the Governor’s Award of the State of Washington. He died in 2023.

Bibliographic Details

Title: Bad Land: An American Romance
Publisher: Knopf Doubleday Publishing Group (edition Reprint)
Publication Date: 1997
Binding: Paperback
Condition: Good
Edition: Reprint.