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Show POINT-BLANK Coming in to Set it Down An essay by Matthew Gross Writers are often desperate people, and these days-especially in the West-there is nothing they're more desperate for than a sense of place. The omission of pertinent details can leave the reader feeling cheated, however. In the rural West today, the issue of nativeness is of supreme importance. Yet in many contemporary books about the West, the issue of actual nativeness is coyly sidestepped, or Put your ear to the door of any windowless room west of the Mississippi, and you'll hear the pecking clatter of a writer at a word processor, extolling his or her connection to the land. Step into the stacks of a landgrant university's library, and you'll be sure to find some ambitious author researching the history of one local haunt or another. The airs that writers like to put on, these days, are the airs of provincialism. Cosmopolitan is out; hick is in. Or, a new breed of hick; a sort of new-age, green, bioregionalist hick; the sort of hick who writes books. down-played. For example: Gretel Ehrlich, who wrote a book about Wyoming called The Solace of Open Spaces, is actually from California, which she admits. But, apparently, the open spaces didn't offer her enough consolation, for she left Wyoming as soon as the book was finished. necessarily limiting--Faulkner is all the evidence one needs as proof that Americans can write about the local and render the universal. Rick Bass, an author originally from Texas, now (loudly) calls Montana home. He writes books about chopping wood (cf. Winter). He also writes about struggling to stay afloat in a small town, rarely mentioning the buoyancy he gets from the royalties Such provincialism in literature is not new, of course, and nor is it he earns from his oil wells. There isn't much new either, in the moral framework on which today's writers try to hang their regional topics; Thoreau and Emerson did the same. What we often find in today's western writers of place In many contemporary books about the West, the issue of actual nativeness is coyly sidestepped, or down-played. For example: then, is less originality than fashion. It's hip to be local. It is the definition of local, however, which becomes a problem when writing about the Greta Ehrlich, who wrote a book about Wyoming called The Solace of the Open Spaces, is actually from California, West. I believe two writers--Gretel Ehrlich and Rick Bass--exemplify a misstep that newcomers to the West should avoid when writing about the landscape. I don't want to denigrate the transplanted western writer too much, however. Like Ehrlich and Bass,I too which she admits. But, apparently, the open spaces didn't offer believe we live in desperate times. I also believe we need to find a way to live with, and not just upon, the landscape we call home, no matter how long we have called it that. Nonetheless, a sacred cow needs to be tipped at least once, even when it's mooing your tune; and if the heifer strikes a few writers on her way down, then so be it. her cnough consolation, for she left Wyoming as soon as the book was finished. In a famous passage from Walden, Henry David Thoreau walks along the railroad tracks and imagines that, given the labor required to lay the line, the wooden ties may as well be Both writers admit to some difficulty in being accepted, at first, by the locals. To compensate for their outsider's status, Ehrlich, showing a sense of commitment to her men's lives. Not since Pharaoh, Thoreau writes, has the world seen such centralized control It's a compelling thought, from one of our most project that publishers love, marries a local rancher. Rick Bass vigorously chops down trees until the local loggers take him in as one of their own. Both writers, however, make ve rebellious authors; yet Thoreau neglects to mention that the thought comes to him as he is taking his laundry to his mother's house for her to wash. I'm willing to forgive him for that-I hate doing laundry myself-but others are not. C.L. Rawlings, for example has recently taken both Annie Dillard and Edward Abbey to task for omitting from or borrowing for their “autobiographical” narratives. To me, such objections are specious, for little of the places from which they came, and this omission raises a number of questions. The first is a question of integrity, both artistic and individual. How honest is it to claim kinship to a place that values place of birth while neglecting your own? The question is not as puerile as it may first seem. The western preoccupation with birthplace may be maddening-it is often easier to claim the Queen of England's lineage than to claim you're over humanity's collective efforts. even the most novice of writers knows that writing is selective, and that the wrong details can quickly wreck a cohesive narrative. from Cutbank—but it is, nonetheless, a cultural fact. To ignore such facts, and yet to claim that one is writing an authentic account of what it means to “become western”, is dubious. This is art after all, and not merely portraiture. And now...welcome to my nightmare. The first of my cast of characters who have The New West Blues.” JS MEET E D FRIENDLY entrepreneur Redneck realtor/ Abe ' ‘ Why...they come in here with their ~ espresso shops & Uf Y WU oon OST re OA ALA A A OO GORA OY These damn newcomers are ruining our town! Damn yuppie scum with their sport utility vehicles and their alligator shirts. I'm tellin’ yuh...these flippin' city people are destoying the Custom & Culture of our town!!! /: OT HY] Any y MWA their fancy foods & their phony culture...| hear they're bringin' BALLET here fer crissakes. Oh...the Where you goin' Ed? just remembered, I'm closing on that worthless piece of crap five acres | own out in the valley. To some dumb Californian... Why I...er...Good Gad almighty what time is it? I'm LATE! $75,000 an acre. | LOVE IT!!! Willy Ha) MAA MAA PUD TH] HA) Wy incongruity of it all. 77Yh f |