The Jump-Off Creek

A PEN/Faulkner Award Finalist – Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award – Winner of the Oregon Book Award

“An instant classic. . . a truly beautiful piece of American storytelling.” –William Kittredge

A widowed homesteader is determined to make a life in the unforgiving mountains of late 19th century Oregon in this “powerful novel of struggle and loss.” (Dallas Morning News)

Acclaimed author Molly Gloss drew on pioneer diaries and old family stories to write this modern Western classic of a solitary woman’s frontier life. In the 1890s, Lydia Bennett Sanderson, a hardship-honed widow, leaves her old life behind and journey’s to Jump-Off Creek to make her way as a homesteader in the backcountry of Oregon. Her neighbors are few: Tim Whiteaker and Blue Odell are trying to make a go of it on their small hardscrabble ranch. Evelyn Walker is a young, lonely wife rearing her children in daunting isolation. And a trio of rootless cowboys have taken up squatters rights in the mountains, their only income the bounty from poisoned wolves. While Lydia toils into the summer, building fences, digging ditches, and repairing her little homestead cabin, Tim and Blue engage in a deadly spoilers game with the wolvers. As the months pass, there is good and ill fortune, the exchange of fair-and-square favors, and Lydia finds both courage and community in her determination to survive.

An unforgettable tale–“every gritty line of the story rings true” (Seattle Times)–Gloss delivers an authentic and moving portrait of the American West.

Author: Molly Gloss
Binding Type: Paperback
Publisher: Harper Perennial
Published: 06/01/2005
Pages: 208
Weight: 0.6lbs
Size: 8.40h x 5.50w x 0.60d
ISBN: 9780618565870
Language: English