Stange's new book 'thoughtful story of farming, ranching'
Mary Zeiss Stange, professor of women's studies and religion, is the author of the
newly released book, Hard Grass: Life on the Crazy Woman Bison Ranch (University of New Mexico Press, 2010).
The book contains a series of essays that illustrate the realities of ranch life at a time when the "New West" of subdivision, "ranchettes," telecommuting, and tourism collides with the "True West" of too much, too little, too hard, and too harsh.
In her preface Stange discusses the challenges of being a ranch owner-operator in
Montana and a professor at Skidmore: "Over the years I have had to become fairly adept,
then, at occupying two different mental spaces more or less simultaneously, just as
I do two time zones, Mountain and Eastern. Transiting from one conceptual terrain
to the other is not infrequently a bumpy ride. But what might strike the casual observer
as a jarring juxtaposition of radically different sets of information and their accompanying
emotional states is, necessarily, just day-to-day living for me."
Her stories explore the myths and realities of ranch life in modern America - the
brandings, rodeos, and demolition derbies that are major events, and the social, environmental,
and political factors at work in shaping the land and the people.
ESPN.com critic James A. Swan wrote in his review, "What Mary's long-distance commuting,
and her scholarly habits, enable her to do is reflect on the experience of planting
roots in the soil and creating a self-sustaining existence on rough land.
"This is a thoughtful story of modern America, the place of farming and ranching in modern times as a way to root oneself in nature, and how one can come to embrace hunting as an act of reconnecting with the land and the web of life to celebrate our place in the food chain as omnivorous predators."
