The Meadow

The big question here, is what took me so long to read this wonderful novel. It checks all my boxes. No answer there but I am glad I finally did. The author sets the story, on the Colorado/Wyoming border and it follows the people that have settled on this land, for the past century. It describes in beautiful detail, all the hardships and joys these people faced. The author grew up in this area and knows it intimately. It comes across on every page. The prose is spare and lyrical, bringing the stunning landscapes into sharp focus. I loved many of these characters but Lyle Van Waning, a self-styled bachelor and the central figure here, will go down as one of my very favorite literary creations. Don’t put this one off, like I did. Seek show more out a copy immediately. show less

I could be really lazy and just quote the blurb on the cover:

"A masterpiece. The Meadow is one of the best books ever written about the American West" - William Kittredge

I loved this book, written by a poet and about, not so much the high-mountain meadow on the Colorado/Wyoming border, but the people who lived and attempted to live on it. I will miss App and Ray and Lyle, and even Clara, whom I would have liked to have gotten to know better but I realize this wasn't her story. A mix of memoir, fiction and natural history, it begs to be reread as I'm sorry it ended so soon.
Highly recommended.

This book contains some beautiful language about the hard life of trying to make a living off the land in Northern Colorado. It is not at all surprising that the author is a poet. He grew up on the Colorado/Wyoming border listening to the stories his neighbors told about the stark land and the hold it had on them. My first association with The Meadow was through the audio version on a road trip to Colorado. I felt like the author was in the car talking to me as we laughed and cried over life and death in the shadow of the mountains. I enjoyed my reread of the book in a similar way, except that now Lyle, Ray, Frank, Clara, and the others feel like old family friends. This is definitely going to be one of my comfort reads.

This book reminds me of stories my uncle, mother and husband told me about growing up in ranching country, particularly my uncle and mother's stories seated in Montana (the book's story is in Wyoming and Colorado, so close enough). The land and weather are fleetingly soft and mostly hard, and the people who survive there are too. This is a love story, this history of a meadow. Those of us who belong to a particular loved piece of the planet will understand the continued struggles to stay close to a patch of earth, no matter the costs. Poetic and richly descriptive of landscape and its natural inhabitants, this work will break open your heart to flora and fauna, and humanity.

On the Colorado-Wyoming border high in the Neversummer Mountains is a piece of land called The Meadow. Author James Galvin, who was raised in northern Colorado and has an intimate sense of the place, writes a one-hundred year history of the eponymous meadow. Narrating in short vignettes, he describes "seasons, the weather, the wildlife, and the few people who do not possess but are themselves possessed by this terrain" (Publisher). Ray, Frank, Clara, and Lyle, my favourite character, are among those “possessed” – not only with the land in the arid mountains, but with wills of steel and relentless resourcefulness, grace, and neighbourliness.

The Meadow is spellbinding: a beautiful and timeless tribute to the American West and its show more people. That Galvin is a poet will not surprise, given the gorgeous prose. Highly, highly recommended.

"He takes a deep drag and looks down past the springhouse nested in the orange willow branches. Up over the opposing hill he sees the snow on the mountains west of Laramie. Another breath of wind comes up and starts the aspens chattering like nervous girls, and they catch the last low-angling rays of sun and flare. The dark tops of evergreens are red, almost bloody, and for a good thirty seconds he knows the world is something altogether other than what it appears to be." (121) show less

What a glorious book! I read it slowly, savoring it, and enjoyed it immensely. It's full of wonderful character studies and descriptions of the land in the high mountains of Wyoming. This is a story of people who lived there and of the land itself. By the end of the book I felt as though I had actually known the people in it.

Beautiful writing and beautiful descriptions fill this book's pages. I underlined some of most lyrical phrases, and will no doubt be re-reading this book in the future.

A collection of observations rather than a novel, but the thread that ties them together is their connection to a high-sage meadow somewhere on the Wyoming/Colorado border. This follows individuals in the 2 families that owned the land and their neighbors. Somewhat laconic, very independent, these men will go out of their way to help anyone in their remote region. I say "men" advisedly, as there are very few women represented in this book. Hard as iron, they have survived the isolation of being snowed-in for much of each winter and have learned to make what is needed. Yet you know they appreciated the beauty that comes there way in sunsets, snow on cedars, or wild animals.
Told from the point of view of a younger man who does not seem to show more be from one of the original settler families but works with the older men and here reports what he's learned of them. show less