Under the Big Sky: A Biography of A. B. Guthrie Jr.

by Jackson J. Benson

Overview

Author of The Big Sky series, The Way West, and the screenplay for the classic Shane, among many other timeless stories of frontier mountain men, icon of Western literature A. B. “Bud” Guthrie Jr. brought a blazing realism to the story of the West. That realism, which astounded and even shocked some readers, came out of the depth of Guthrie’s historical research and an acuity that had seldom been seen in the work of Western novelists. In Under the Big Sky, the latest in his celebrated series of biographies of Western writers, Jackson J. Benson details the life and work of this true giant on the Western literary landscape.
 
The small Montana town that figures in several of Guthrie’s books is clearly patterned after the town where he grew up, Choteau, on the eastern front of the Rocky Mountains. Benson illuminates the critical details of Guthrie’s upbringing and education, the influence of his intellectually inclined father, his work as a newspaperman in Kentucky, and his time at Harvard University. Animated by the observations of friends, family, and fellow authors, this intimate account offers rare insight into the life and work of a remarkable writer and into the making of the literary West.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780803224643
Publisher:	University of Nebraska Press
Publication date:	05/01/2009
Sold by:	Barnes & Noble
Format:	eBook
File size:	2 MB

About the Author

Jackson J. Benson is an emeritus professor of American literature at San Diego State University and the author of ten books. Among them are five biographies of Western writers, including The True Adventures of John Steinbeck, Writer, which won the PEN USA award for nonfiction, and Wallace Stegner: His Life and Work, which won the Evans Biography Award, and is available in a Bison Books edition. He and his wife live part of the year in La Mesa, California, and part in a cabin in the Sierras.

Table of Contents

Acknowledgments  

List of Illustrations  

1. “By George, I’m Free!”    

2. A Smart Aleck and a Wise Guy    

3. Alone in a Small and Self-Contained City    

4. Marriage, Family, and Separation

5. The First Novel and Plans for the Big One   

6. The Big Break--the Nieman Fellowship  

7. The Big Sky Triumph and Tracking The Way West     

8. To Hollywood and Shane and the Move to Montana    

9. Bucking the Myth: These Thousand Hills

10. Down in the Dumps--Drink and Divorce 

11. Living with Janie and Courting Carol 

12. The Old Man and the Young Woman Wed  

13. Arfive and Speaking to the Young--Earth Day

14. The Twin Lakes Imbroglio and Building the “Barn” 

15. “What Happened to Boone?”

16. Fair Land, Fair Land: The End of the Trail 

17. Afterword: Fishing the Pishkun 

Notes and Documentation

Index

Editorial Reviews

“In this caring yet objective account of the novelist’s life, Jackson J. Benson uncovers the passions and demons in Guthrie’s life away from the desk, lending the biography meaning for general readers as well as writers.”—Washington Post
 

Washington Post

“One measure of a writer’s biography is the degree to which it expands one’s appreciation of the author’s work and increases the pleasure of reading it. Good biographies should also give readers insight into the people being written about: why they were who they were, why they became who they became. Under the Big Sky succeeds on all counts.”—Bloomsbury Review

Bloomsbury Review

"[Under the Big Sky] is a good picture of the man overall, one whose brother Chick described as 'a smart aleck and a wise guy.' But one who gave us all an enduring history of the West through fiction."—Pete Warzel, Montana Quarterly

Montana Quarterly - Pete Warzel

"Guthrie was a man of ideas who was quick to question and eager to learn what prompted settlers to step outside the confines of their secure lives. Benson's biography follows Guthrie's own personal quest for transcendence."—ForeWord

ForeWord

“A thorough, well-written, lively, and authoritative account of A. B. Guthrie Jr.’s life.”—Richard W. Etulain, Oregon Historical Quarterly
 

Oregon Historical Quarterly - Richard W. Etulain

“In this caring yet objective account of the novelist’s life, Jackson J. Benson uncovers the passions and demons in Guthrie’s life away from the desk, lending the biography meaning for general readers as well as writers.”—Washington Post
 

Washington Post

"[Under the Big Sky] is a good picture of the man overall, one whose brother Chick described as 'a smart aleck and a wise guy.' But one who gave us all an enduring history of the West through fiction."—Pete Warzel, Montana Quarterly

— Pete Warzel

Montana Quarterly

“A thorough, well-written, lively, and authoritative account of A. B. Guthrie Jr.’s life.”—Richard W. Etulain, Oregon Historical Quarterly
 

— Richard W. Etulain

Oregon Historical Quarterly

“Author of The Big Sky and the screenplay for Shane, Bud Guthrie was one of the giants of Western American storytelling. Under the Big Sky, Guthrie''s biography by Jackson Benson, tells another fascinating story, that of Guthrie''s life and the passions that drove him.”—William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Willow Field

William Kittredge

"Jackson Benson has written major biographies of John Steinbeck, Wallace Stegner, and Walter Van Tilburg Clark. Now he gives us a masterful portrait of A. B. Guthrie Jr., thereby filling yet another important gap in the literary history of the American West."

-Page Stegner, author of Adios Amigos: Tales of Sustenance and Purification in the American West

Page Stegner