Synopsis
A loving but clear-eyed portrait in miniature of the vanishing rural West.
At the outset of Gregory Martin's affecting memoir, only thirty-three people still live in Mountain City in remote northeastern Nevada; by the end of the book there are thirty-one, and none of them are children. The town's heyday is long past, its abandoned mines testimony to the cycle of promise, exploitation, abandonment, and attrition that has been the repeated story of the West.
Yet the comings and goings at Tremewan's, the general store Martin's family has run for more than forty years, make the town seem like a more vibrant place than many small cities. The store is a hub for a stoic but close-knit community that includes salty widows, Native Americans from a reservation nearby, and a number of Martin's deeply idiosyncratic relatives, who are descendants of the Basque sheepherders who settled in the region during the nineteenth century. It is also the lens through which Martin observes them as they persist in a difficult but rewarding existence. Without pity or regret, Martin celebrates the large and small dramas of their lives and their stubborn attachment to a place that seems likely to disappear in his lifetime.
Publishers Weekly
Tucked away in the northern reaches of Nevada, the small boom-and-bust mining town of Mountain City may seem like a ghostly speck on a map, but for Martin it is the quickened heart of the universe. In this gorgeously written, meticulously observed memoir, he probes the lingering old age of the town he romped in as a child and continues to visit. The center of the story, and of the town, is Tremewan's, the general store run by Martin's extended family, which serves the 30-odd residents of Mountain City and others from the outlying areas. Martin stocks shelves, bags groceries and absorbs the history of the town's bust, along with the news and jokes of the people who eke out a living in a place they continue to love. Most of the time, Martin's hometown is warm and homey, but it becomes less agreeable as the winter drags on and folks tire of the routine and limited company. A keen and witty observer, Martin captures the local characters with humor and nuance, never averting his eyes from the small flaws that make this community real. People bicker, the town widows form a tight-knit clique and his Basque uncle Mel, usually the effervescent town wag, hits the Black Velvet one hour before close every night, which sometimes turns him downright mean. Throughout, Martin shows how frailty is woven into the fabric of relations; he maintains an immediacy that highlights the humanity of his subjects and frames the steady press of time that is forcing an era of the American West deep into memory. Agent, Doug Stewart and Curtis Brown Ltd. (June) Copyright 2000 Cahners Business Information.|