1987 trade paperback, ISBN: 9780140102659. Ralph Beer.(Afternoon Light;In these Hills).An emotionally damaged veteran returns to his family ranch in a rapidly changing Montana. Captures the atmosphere and dignity of a way of life that is slowly dying-Book Blurb

The Blind Corral

Literature & Fiction

Beer, Ralph

Literary

Penguin??Books

United States

VIKING

After a lifetime spent writing and working on his family’s cattle ranch outside of Helena, Montana, Ralph Beer has gathered his best magazine essays into one collection called In These Hills. In thirty-three essays he provides a moving and elegiac tribute to lives now passed, an often humorous homage to the provincial, and an attempt “to fathom the place where we live . . . to decipher who we are,” as he writes in his introduction. Beer, praised as one of the finest writers in the West, offers an authentic literary voice paired with a lifetime spent exploring a particularly beloved piece of land. From his first experience with a wheat harvest, to the winter rebuilding of a 1947 Dodge Power Wagon, to his moving exploration of an old family mystery, these essays slice sharply under the sod of our embedded romanticism, exploring not only the brute hardships of a living made from cattle ranching but the inextricable satisfaction of it as well. As Beer himself says in the final pages of this collection, "Stories outshine instruments of gold. Stories outlast stone."

In These Hills

Biographies & Memoirs

Professionals & Academics

Bison Books

Ralph Beer spent much of his life in central Montana, working the rough, rocky land on Jackson Creek that was homesteaded by his great-grandparents in 1910. The Jackson Creek Road brings together some of the best of Beer’s essays and short stories that were published between 1978 and 1998. They contain reflections and memories from his own life as well as stories that were passed down to him—stories that are rooted in a home place, family, neighbors, and work. From an exploration of a family mystery to reflections on weather and water in the American West to the labors of rebuilding a stretch of barbed-wire fence across a much-loved meadow, Beer shows his profound understanding of the men, the women, and the landscape that made up this corner of the American West. The Jackson Creek Road is paved now, and the original homestead is surrounded by the clutter of modern America. The silence and open spaces may be gone, but in this beautifully crafted collection the people and their stories live on.

The Jackson Creek Road: Essays and Short Fiction

Essays & Correspondence

Casey Peak Press

In 1971, graduate student Ralph Beer has two main interests-experiencing the local drug scene and avoiding the horrors of the Vietnam War. Only a university deferment stands between him and the draft, but he has lost interest in his studies, instead becoming increasingly attracted to a beautiful, brilliant fellow student. Twenty-three years old and flat broke, Ralph and Sheila drop out, leave their families behind, and drive north to central British Columbia, where they hope to build a log cabin and find permanent asylum. Alone in the woods, they take up a mining claim, prepare the logs needed for their cabin, and begin to build. Shaped by the isolation of the wilderness around them, they grow tougher and more resilient, until, when their plans are thrown into turmoil, they have the courage and strength to face the world they had been avoiding in college. A moving, often-funny, coming-of-age story, Afternoon Light recreates the chaos and uncertainty many young Americans felt during a defining moment in their country's history, as a brutal war and those who opposed it shaped the nation.

Afternoon Light

Travelers & Explorers

See the best price to sell, buy, or rent books by Beer, Ralph. BookScouter helps to compare book prices from 25+ online bookstores and 30+ buyback vendors with a single search.

Books by Beer, Ralph