Elk Love: A Montana Memoir

by Lynne Spriggs O'Connor

Overview

Having spent ten summers on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park, part of her doctoral fieldwork for a PhD in Native American Art History, forty-two-year-old Lynne Spriggs O'Connor thinks of Montana as her healing place. When she moves to “Big Sky Country” from the East Coast in a quest to reset her life, she has high hopes for what awaits her.

Great Falls, a farming and military town in central Montana, is not what Lynne imagined when she decided to leave city life behind. But her dream of being more connected to nature in the American West comes alive when she meets Harrison, a handsome rancher thirteen years her senior. Wary but curious, with her dog Willow by her side, she leans into the seasonal rhythms of Harrison’s hidden valley and opens her heart to a wild language that moves beyond words. In a modern world where listening is rare, Elk Love explores an intimate place where loneliness gives way to wonder, where the natural world speaks of what matters most.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781647426408
Publisher:	She Writes Press
Publication date:	06/18/2024
Pages:	360
Sales rank:	298,723
Product dimensions:	5.50(w) x 8.50(h) x 0.00(d)

About the Author

Before moving to the rural West at age forty-two, Lynne Spriggs O'Connor curated exhibitions of folk and self-taught art at the High Museum in Atlanta. She spent ten summers on northern Montana’s Blackfeet Indian reservation while pursuing fieldwork for her PhD in Native American Art History at Columbia University. She also worked in the film industry as Production Coordinator for Spalding Gray and Jonathan Demme on the iconic Swimming to Cambodia. After landing in Montana, she curated Bison: American Icon, a major permanent exhibit for the Charlie Russell Museum on bison in the Northern Plains. Elk Love is her first memoir. For the past fifteen years, she and her husband have lived on a cattle ranch in an isolated Montana mountain valley east of the Rockies, where her life centers on writing, animals, and family. 

Editorial Reviews

Elk Love is a memoir about Montana ranching life and finding healing, love, and home through shared challenges and joys with another.”
—Foreword Reviews

“A superbly written true story of love and self-discovery.”
—Kirkus Reviews

“O’Connor's exceptional writing style makes Elk Love a captivating read. Healing and invigorating, this memoir is like a breath of fresh air. . . . reads as a confession of a beautiful and artistic soul. The narrative is vibrant, poetic, and sprinkled with occasional humor.”
—Readers' Favorite, 5 STARS

 “. . . a soul-soothing revelation of the innate connection between nature and the human spirit.”
—Christopher Wilson, Director, Audubon Conservation Ranching Initiative

 “If you long for a respite from the crush of this busy world …read this book. I basked in every page. You will be transported and renewed, and you will ask yourself: What would it take for me to open my heart to true, and unabashed, wonder? ”
 —Laura Munson, author of Willa's Grove and founder of Haven Writing Retreats

 “In all the love stories I love best, it is impossible to tell whether the real object of desire is the man, or the mountain he lives on, or the elk that stands on that mountain and bugles to his mate. So it is for Lynne Spriggs, who works her way into the hearts of all three with a savvy combination of curiosity, independence, and tenacity. In prose that is by turns rapturous, bawdy, hilarious, and serene, Elk Love sings a song of relationship—with the man, yes, but also with the Earth.”
—Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country

“Elk Love is a beautiful memoir about love, grief, intimacy, and finding one’s place in the world. Throughout the vivid seasons and daily rhythms of rural Montana, Lynne Spriggs O’Connor deftly illuminates her own transformation through a unique relationship to this wild place and a man who makes his home there. Art, ranch life, and romance converge in this remarkable love story that distills the truth . . . and so much more.”
—S. Kirk Walsh, author of The Elephant of Belfast

“In the midst of stampeding elk, mating birds, birthing cattle and all the viscerality of a working Angus ranch, Lynne Spriggs O’Connor has composed a lyrical memoir. I devoured this enchanting book about the sensual landscape of animals, budding love, and the intrinsic wildness of it all. This unflinching saga teaches the ancient knowledge that hope begins again as we traverse the cycles of life and death.”
—Nani Power, author of New York Times Notable Book of the Year Crawling at Night

“Like a novel one can’t put down, Elk Love takes the reader into a world few will ever experience – a world we risk losing. Savor the stories within this finely crafted memoir. Hold them close as you might a loved one, or as you might hold a rare and fleeting vision.”
—Page Lambert, author of In Search of Kinship

“Elk Love demonstrates what it means to endure, to sustain, to adore the fierce wildness of the world around us and to nurture that wildness in ourselves.”
—Kim Barnes, author of In the Wilderness, finalist for the Pulitzer Prize

From the Publisher