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The Last Valley
The Last Valley by Alfred Bertram Guthrie Jr.
293 pages, Hardcover
First published January 1, 1975
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151 people want to read
About the author
A.B. Guthrie Jr.
52 books115 followersAlfred Bertram Guthrie, Jr. was an American novelist, screenwriter, historian, and literary historian who won the Pulitzer Prize for fiction during 1950 for his novel The Way West.
After working 22 years as a news reporter and editor for the Lexington Leader, Guthrie wrote his first novel.
Ηe was able to quit his reporting job after the publication of the novels The Big Sky and The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize).
Guthrie died during 1991, at age 90, at his ranch near Choteau.
(Source - Wikipedia)
After working 22 years as a news reporter and editor for the Lexington Leader, Guthrie wrote his first novel.
Ηe was able to quit his reporting job after the publication of the novels The Big Sky and The Way West (1950 Pulitzer Prize).
Guthrie died during 1991, at age 90, at his ranch near Choteau.
(Source - Wikipedia)
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Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews
November 3, 2021
The Last Valley is the final book of the series that began with The Big Sky. It's time period ranges between early 1900 thru the post WWII years. Guthrie captures the subtle changes that occur between generations such as names of landmarks ,the boundaries of town and homesteads, societal place for women. The great leaps of change that occurred within these five decades changed Montana . The wild prairie grasses are plowed over, dams alter the crashing rivers, automobiles demand paved roads, the wildlife retreats. The nascent beginnings of the move for Earth's conservation in modern society emerges and begins to circle back around to the native Indian's respect of nature. The various town founders lead lives that push and pull the direction of change. It is interesting to observe how people are full of inconsistencies and steadfastness at the same time.Town removes the brash wildscape from man's consensus even as man still exerts his will on the land. Yet, the majesty and untamed beauty of Montana is not usurped. Altogether, this series has been exceptional with wonderful dialog, many points worth pondering and an abiding love of the land.
July 8, 2018
We are now quits, Mr Guthrie And I. It's been quite a ride. And I'm glad. His life work as an author was a tour de force.
July 18, 2023
Guthrie can tell a great story. This was good. I'll be working my way through all his stuff in the coming years.
December 15, 2020
In this, the final novel in his Big Sky sequence, Guthrie again returns to the small northwestern Montana town of Arfive, with events commencing in the early 20s (with Prohibition), progressing through the 30s (with the Great Depression), and ending shortly after the second world war. The previous novel in the sequence, Arfive, had introduced the town and its principals, Mort Ewing and Benton Collingsworth. They are still prominent, especially Ewing, but it is a newcomer from Ohio, WWI vet Ben Tate—the new editor/owner of the Arfive Advocate—who earns the largest spotlight.
While the novel Arfive chronicled some of the moral concerns involved in transforming a frontier cow town into a family-friendly community (and the toll exacted on its women), The Last Valley brings to the fore many of the issues—political, personal, and sociological—that represented national concerns as well. That said, Guthrie portrays these issues/concerns from the vantage of people dealing with people. Guthrie’s dialogue is droll and telling, and his characters define themselves and move the story with genial asperity and the particulars of the moment. In short, Guthrie continues, as he has throughout the Big Sky sequence, to account for “progress” not merely as outside forces, but as those which people willingly choose, for better or worse, to champion (or deplore).
The larger tapestry of events, however, does not lessen the significance of those smaller events that shape and define personal traits. In particular, there is room for virtue, rectitude, and fortitude, especially when it means acting against a mob. Outgoing editor of the Advocate, Mack Cleveland speaks out at a pro-American, anti-Bolshevik meeting, exposing its demagogue as a hypocrite, celebrating freedom of speech as a means to open discussion, not to close it. (This episode makes clear how easily the American public is subject/prey to post-war fears that dim their critical thinking.) In another episode, Ben Tate’s actions quell a lynch-mob, again illustrating how easily people’s emotions can be used to ignite rash and hateful behavior. In another episode, the town is mobilized by a handful of citizens (Tate, Ewing, et al.) in anticipation of a dam burst that will flood the town. When the rains cease and the threat of a flood is no longer imminent, some townspeople grumble at the work they’d done, touching on the novel’s larger theme of husbanding natural resources, how many in Arfive (and in the nation) are content to ignore the future for the plunder of the present.
Tate’s twenty-five years in Arfive ultimately leave him hopeful about the future, content with his life and his wife, Mary Jess, the daughter of Prof Collingsworth. Their union, while seemingly fated, was for a long while rocky, and Guthrie adeptly, throughout the novel, illustrates how the sharp edges are gradually worn down and the two find themselves over time comfortably, happily matched. As in the two Big Sky novels that feature Dick Summers as an able-bodied old-timer—always aware of the encroachment of people on the landscape and of the changes progress entails—Guthrie shows the same respect for Arfive’s abiding/guiding spirit, Mort Ewing. The wisdom of age and experience, Guthrie appears to say, should be honored and accounted, not trampled in the rush to the future.
While the novel Arfive chronicled some of the moral concerns involved in transforming a frontier cow town into a family-friendly community (and the toll exacted on its women), The Last Valley brings to the fore many of the issues—political, personal, and sociological—that represented national concerns as well. That said, Guthrie portrays these issues/concerns from the vantage of people dealing with people. Guthrie’s dialogue is droll and telling, and his characters define themselves and move the story with genial asperity and the particulars of the moment. In short, Guthrie continues, as he has throughout the Big Sky sequence, to account for “progress” not merely as outside forces, but as those which people willingly choose, for better or worse, to champion (or deplore).
The larger tapestry of events, however, does not lessen the significance of those smaller events that shape and define personal traits. In particular, there is room for virtue, rectitude, and fortitude, especially when it means acting against a mob. Outgoing editor of the Advocate, Mack Cleveland speaks out at a pro-American, anti-Bolshevik meeting, exposing its demagogue as a hypocrite, celebrating freedom of speech as a means to open discussion, not to close it. (This episode makes clear how easily the American public is subject/prey to post-war fears that dim their critical thinking.) In another episode, Ben Tate’s actions quell a lynch-mob, again illustrating how easily people’s emotions can be used to ignite rash and hateful behavior. In another episode, the town is mobilized by a handful of citizens (Tate, Ewing, et al.) in anticipation of a dam burst that will flood the town. When the rains cease and the threat of a flood is no longer imminent, some townspeople grumble at the work they’d done, touching on the novel’s larger theme of husbanding natural resources, how many in Arfive (and in the nation) are content to ignore the future for the plunder of the present.
Tate’s twenty-five years in Arfive ultimately leave him hopeful about the future, content with his life and his wife, Mary Jess, the daughter of Prof Collingsworth. Their union, while seemingly fated, was for a long while rocky, and Guthrie adeptly, throughout the novel, illustrates how the sharp edges are gradually worn down and the two find themselves over time comfortably, happily matched. As in the two Big Sky novels that feature Dick Summers as an able-bodied old-timer—always aware of the encroachment of people on the landscape and of the changes progress entails—Guthrie shows the same respect for Arfive’s abiding/guiding spirit, Mort Ewing. The wisdom of age and experience, Guthrie appears to say, should be honored and accounted, not trampled in the rush to the future.
September 15, 2021
This is the last of a series of 5 books that are sequential in time frame, sharing many characters in common. The first of the series, The Way West, narrated the progress of a wagon train from Missouri to the west coast. It won the Pulitzer Prize, which is what attracted me to the series. This last book sits in the same town in Montana founded by some of the repeat characters, and begins Post WW I. Like all the other books, the language is of the cowboy idiom. Guthrie surely can tell a good yarn. He has consistently held my attention through the entire series.
Guthrie's first book was The Big Sky. It's success inspired him to write the series that followed. Obviously I loved the booksl
Guthrie's first book was The Big Sky. It's success inspired him to write the series that followed. Obviously I loved the booksl
September 7, 2022
The final installment of the Big Sky series ends as the land matures and the people living on it age. Guthrie’s writing is full of remembering and hard won philosophy. It is a comfort to read (and re-read) these books, perhaps I will again.
March 21, 2023
A nicely sketched picture of a small-town newspaper owner and a town full of early 20th century characters as they live the changes in the American West.
February 7, 2017
I really enjoyed this book. While the settings and to some extent the focus is very similar to Ivan Doig, Guthrie ain't Doig in how he writes and how he manages the twists and turns of his stories. His treatment of women is a little dated but not jarringly so. His scope is also different from Doig's, but complementary.
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August 31, 2008Author George Sibley recomended this book as part of the Rocky Mountain Land Library's "A Reading List For the President Elect: A Western Primer for the Next Administration."
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December 1, 2008LP WGut
Displaying 1 - 10 of 10 reviews