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Usfs 1919 the Ranger the Cook and the Hole in the Sky
Book by MacLean, Norman
Audio Cassette
First published April 1, 1994
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About the author
Norman Maclean
50 books415 followersLibrarian Note: There is more than one author in the GoodReads database with this name. See this thread for more information.
Born in Clarinda, Iowa, on December 23, 1902, Maclean was the son of Clara Davidson (1873-1952) and the Rev. John Maclean (1862-1941), a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who managed much of the education of the young Norman and his brother Paul (1906-1938) until 1913. The family relocated to Missoula, Montana in 1909. The following years were a considerable influence on and inspiration to his writings, appearing prominently in the short story The Woods, Books, and Truant Officers (1977), and semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It (1976).
Too young to enlist in the military during World War I, Maclean worked in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service in what is now the Bitterroot National Forest of northwestern Montana. The novella USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky and the story "Black Ghost" in Young Men and Fire (1992) are semi-fictionalized accounts of these experiences.
Maclean attended Dartmouth College, where he served as editor-in-chief of the humor magazine the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern; the editor-in-chief to follow him was Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. He was also a member of the Sphinx (senior society) and Beta Theta Pi. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1924, and chose to remain in Hanover, New Hampshire, and serve as an instructor until 1926—a time he recalled in "This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon: A Few Remarks on the Art of Teaching." He began graduate studies in English at the University of Chicago in 1928. Three years later he was hired as a professor at University of Chicago, where he received three Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. On 24 September 1931 Maclean married Jessie Burns (died 1968), a red-headed Scots-Irish woman from Wolf Creek, Montana. They later had two children: a daughter Jean (born in 1942), now a lawyer; and a son, John (born in 1943), now a journalist and author of Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire (1999), and two other books, Fire & Ashes (2003) and The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal (2007).
In 1940, Maclean earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago where during World War II he declined a commission in Naval intelligence to serve as Dean of Students. During the war he also served as Director of the Institute on Military Studies, and co-authored Manual of Instruction in Military Maps and Aerial Photographs. At the University of Chicago, Maclean taught Shakespeare and the Romantic poets, and he produced two scholarly articles, "From Action to Image: Theories of the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century" and "Episode, Scene, Speech, and Word: The Madness of Lear." (The latter essay elaborates a theory of tragedy that Maclean would revisit in his later work; the essay is available here.) From approximately 1959 to 1963, Maclean worked on a book about George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn that he never completed, but from which excerpts were recently published. During his last decade on the Chicago faculty, Maclean held an endowed chair as William Rainey Harper Professor of English. After his retirement in 1973, he began, as his children Jean and John had often encouraged him, to write down the stories he liked to tell. His most acclaimed story, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was published in 1976, the first work of original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press. This title was nominated by a selection committee to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Letters in 1977, but the full committee ignored the nomination and did not award a Pulitzer in that category for the year. A River Runs Through It was adapted into a motion picture directed by Robert Redford
Born in Clarinda, Iowa, on December 23, 1902, Maclean was the son of Clara Davidson (1873-1952) and the Rev. John Maclean (1862-1941), a Scottish Presbyterian minister, who managed much of the education of the young Norman and his brother Paul (1906-1938) until 1913. The family relocated to Missoula, Montana in 1909. The following years were a considerable influence on and inspiration to his writings, appearing prominently in the short story The Woods, Books, and Truant Officers (1977), and semi-autobiographical novella A River Runs Through It (1976).
Too young to enlist in the military during World War I, Maclean worked in logging camps and for the United States Forest Service in what is now the Bitterroot National Forest of northwestern Montana. The novella USFS 1919: The Ranger, the Cook, and a Hole in the Sky and the story "Black Ghost" in Young Men and Fire (1992) are semi-fictionalized accounts of these experiences.
Maclean attended Dartmouth College, where he served as editor-in-chief of the humor magazine the Dartmouth Jack-O-Lantern; the editor-in-chief to follow him was Theodor Geisel, better known as Dr. Seuss. He was also a member of the Sphinx (senior society) and Beta Theta Pi. He received his Bachelor of Arts in 1924, and chose to remain in Hanover, New Hampshire, and serve as an instructor until 1926—a time he recalled in "This Quarter I Am Taking McKeon: A Few Remarks on the Art of Teaching." He began graduate studies in English at the University of Chicago in 1928. Three years later he was hired as a professor at University of Chicago, where he received three Quantrell Awards for Excellence in Undergraduate Teaching. On 24 September 1931 Maclean married Jessie Burns (died 1968), a red-headed Scots-Irish woman from Wolf Creek, Montana. They later had two children: a daughter Jean (born in 1942), now a lawyer; and a son, John (born in 1943), now a journalist and author of Fire on the Mountain: The True Story of the South Canyon Fire (1999), and two other books, Fire & Ashes (2003) and The Thirtymile Fire: A Chronicle of Bravery and Betrayal (2007).
In 1940, Maclean earned his doctorate from the University of Chicago where during World War II he declined a commission in Naval intelligence to serve as Dean of Students. During the war he also served as Director of the Institute on Military Studies, and co-authored Manual of Instruction in Military Maps and Aerial Photographs. At the University of Chicago, Maclean taught Shakespeare and the Romantic poets, and he produced two scholarly articles, "From Action to Image: Theories of the Lyric in the Eighteenth Century" and "Episode, Scene, Speech, and Word: The Madness of Lear." (The latter essay elaborates a theory of tragedy that Maclean would revisit in his later work; the essay is available here.) From approximately 1959 to 1963, Maclean worked on a book about George Armstrong Custer and the Battle of the Little Big Horn that he never completed, but from which excerpts were recently published. During his last decade on the Chicago faculty, Maclean held an endowed chair as William Rainey Harper Professor of English. After his retirement in 1973, he began, as his children Jean and John had often encouraged him, to write down the stories he liked to tell. His most acclaimed story, A River Runs Through It and Other Stories was published in 1976, the first work of original fiction published by the University of Chicago Press. This title was nominated by a selection committee to receive the Pulitzer Prize in Letters in 1977, but the full committee ignored the nomination and did not award a Pulitzer in that category for the year. A River Runs Through It was adapted into a motion picture directed by Robert Redford
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Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews
October 10, 2023
This is one of my favorite novellas. Is it better than a River Runs Through It? I am not sure but I was gobsmacked by them both. It is often found in River Runs Through It and Other Stories. This is one of the other two stories but it comes in at over 100 pages so is more than a story in my mind.
Norman MacLean was a Professor of English Literature at the University of Chicago for decades. He only published four non academic works in his life and in his 70's no less. I consider his writing to be the best semi-fiction I've ever read. If you like character driven story-telling set in a wilderness backdrop, you will like this book. Highly recommended.
5 stars
Norman MacLean was a Professor of English Literature at the University of Chicago for decades. He only published four non academic works in his life and in his 70's no less. I consider his writing to be the best semi-fiction I've ever read. If you like character driven story-telling set in a wilderness backdrop, you will like this book. Highly recommended.
5 stars
February 28, 2021
This book was a very good read. It was short, concise, and yet it described a great story. Norman Maclean had a gift for painting mental images of settings, people, and most impressively, the beauty of nature. I chose to read this book because the movie based off of it is one of mine and my father's all time favorites. That is also another reason I enjoyed the book, and comparing and contrasting the movie and the book in my head kept me engaged and invested in the storyline. I give this 5 out of 5 stars, and recommend it to anyone who enjoys western memoirs.
March 24, 2024
This is a great story about men who have spent a season working for the newly-founded National Forest Service. They end up in a town in a bar-room brawl. They are bound together by a summer working. The story is about becoming men in the early years of the twentieth century in Montana.
February 5, 2017
A crisp coming-of-age story for the U.S. Forest Service and the main character. Mistakes were made, cards were dealt, and the town was cleaned out.
May 14, 2025
This showcases the rugged individuality of Forest Service sawyers (I didn’t know that meant one who saws) and pairs it with an obvious love for nature then ties in something of a coming of age story.
September 7, 2024
I love this. Not only is the writing Hemingwayesque, but in this autobiographical novella,the author takes you to another time and place ( in this case the 1920s US Forestry Service in the remote Idaho Mountains). It's a coming of age story, but it is so much more.
July 15, 2021
Thirty-three years ago, I first read A River Runs Through It and Other Stories, and it is surely one of my favorite books; of course, what I remembered was the title tale, of fishing and rushing rivers and wilderness and family. As I prepare (mentally and physically) for another week of wilderness trail-clearing in the Selway Bitterroot, friend and group leader and cook Jim H reminded our crew that the last story in the collection is actually about the very area we are going this year, near Big Sand Lake at the foot of Elk Summit and across the peak from Blodgett Canyon -and so I picked up my old book and reread it. And it is just as wonderful as the title story, and captures perfectly the backcountry trail experiences I have been fortunate to share, the role of the packers and the trail cutters (yes, we still must use only hand tools, but we don't use dynamite) and the cook ("known as the kings of the camps, and they sit on the throne, because in the woods eating is what counts most in life"), the comeraderie of the crew, and the beauty at the end of the day as the sun goes down and the stars come out around the fire. Thanks, Jim - looking forward to the next trip into the wilderness.
October 26, 2007
Norman Maclean is a true hero of this nation.
October 26, 2025
2.5/5: (Rounded Up)
Not only does Norman Maclean prove once again that he has a plot issue, but that he simply cannot grapple with creating an orderly scene by scene basis. This story has much more substance that the latter in his acclaimed short story collection, but somehow lacks a focal point or main idea. I simply do not understand how one can find a point in these stories. I get that he had some cool adventures during his job as a ranger, but this story has no idea what it's trying to be. If I was given this story to edit or change as a publisher, I'd turn it down at the fact there's no main idea. I mean, what do all these scenes even mean? As someone who's been in organizations similar to the Parks Service, this tale could at least focus on one trip and leave it at that. I'm going to leave it at this: Norman Maclean has failed at the key idea of a story - a plot. In no place is a tale ever formed, in my personal opinion.
-Constant Reader
Not only does Norman Maclean prove once again that he has a plot issue, but that he simply cannot grapple with creating an orderly scene by scene basis. This story has much more substance that the latter in his acclaimed short story collection, but somehow lacks a focal point or main idea. I simply do not understand how one can find a point in these stories. I get that he had some cool adventures during his job as a ranger, but this story has no idea what it's trying to be. If I was given this story to edit or change as a publisher, I'd turn it down at the fact there's no main idea. I mean, what do all these scenes even mean? As someone who's been in organizations similar to the Parks Service, this tale could at least focus on one trip and leave it at that. I'm going to leave it at this: Norman Maclean has failed at the key idea of a story - a plot. In no place is a tale ever formed, in my personal opinion.
-Constant Reader
November 13, 2023
I enjoyed reading this book. I recently found a note where I quoted a few lines that jumped off the page. "Everything that was to happen had happened and everything that was to be seen had gone. It was now one of those moments when nothing remains but an opening in the sky and a story - and maybe something of a poem." Norman Maclean Usfs 1919 the Ranger the Cook and the Hole in the Sky
September 19, 2025
I finished this a couple of days after A River Runs Through It, and honestly this one was my preference. The lookout section was so beautiful. I’m sure some version of the last act happened to Maclean, but it wasn’t my favorite part…though the stuff with the waitress was sweet.
And as I think I said in my review of the A River Runs Though It novella, Maclean’s prose has me wanting to reread Young Men and Fire.
And as I think I said in my review of the A River Runs Though It novella, Maclean’s prose has me wanting to reread Young Men and Fire.
April 12, 2023
A very enjoyable audio book (or book) particularly is you like outdoors adventures. I listened to this a few years ago. Some may consider it "slow" but if you like details of forestry service life from the eyes of a teenager you may find this enjoyable. This story was made into a movie (with Sam Elliot) and of course Maclean also wrote A River Runs Through It also made into a movie.
February 5, 2019
Great follow through, loved his life.
September 13, 2020
A wonderful story, very funny, very tough crowd.
July 6, 2023
Norman Maclean tells a good tale. Many of his stories are based on his life. He did not live a boring life.
October 31, 2023
Some parts of the story were hard to follow. But I enjoyed it.
June 17, 2024
Great little book! Felt a little slow at some parts but a cool look into the Forest Service and work in the early twentieth century.
January 16, 2025
a fun read but not as good as a river runs through it.
August 30, 2023
We are all exceptionally lucky that a writer of this caliber was so thoroughly infected with the love of nature.
January 11, 2018
Norman MacLean wrote with beauty. A contemporary of Bellow at The University of Chicago, he is America's best writer that no one knows about, and if they do, they usually equate him with A River Runs Through It.
This story is written with a poignant approach that I love Norman Maclean for. His summer of "growing up". Wanting to be as tough as Bill Bell (the hero), the villian (the cook) - who we have all had in our lives - wanting to kick the hell out of him. The humor of the crew playing cribbage/cards, drinking dried apricot brandy and making mad dashes to the privy. The teeneager who walks 40 miles through the Bitterroot in a day, and is hospital-ed in a whorehouse afterward. The brawl... And of course, the girl with freckles, whom Maclean never identified in later life. Nor did he ever see any of this summer cast again.
This short describes Maclean's toughness as a kid, and his humanity.
This story is written with a poignant approach that I love Norman Maclean for. His summer of "growing up". Wanting to be as tough as Bill Bell (the hero), the villian (the cook) - who we have all had in our lives - wanting to kick the hell out of him. The humor of the crew playing cribbage/cards, drinking dried apricot brandy and making mad dashes to the privy. The teeneager who walks 40 miles through the Bitterroot in a day, and is hospital-ed in a whorehouse afterward. The brawl... And of course, the girl with freckles, whom Maclean never identified in later life. Nor did he ever see any of this summer cast again.
This short describes Maclean's toughness as a kid, and his humanity.
February 25, 2014
It may be because both my father and his step-father cut down trees for a living in their youth or it may be because Norman Maclean was a wonderful writer but this comes close to being my favourite collection of stories. If you've ever earned your living by the sweat of your brow outside of cities on the western side of North America then this book is for you.
October 23, 2013
Necessary companion to A River Runs Through It.
Displaying 1 - 22 of 22 reviews