The Last Centennial

by Patricia Nell Warren

First published in 1971, this is the well-reviewed first novel by Patricia Nell Warren, who went on to write bestsellers like "The Front Runner." Set in the author's native state of Montana, it spotlights a historic Montana town preparing to celebrate its first centennial. Three of its citizens face battles with their own personal histories. Pinter Brodie is an old cowman who lives in the past. Now his falling-down ranch is threatened by a terrifying space-age environmental threat. Beth Stuart is a local teen, wrestling with identity issues that the town's old-school sex code compels her to keep secret. Johnny Chance is an American Indian torn out of his tribe as a child by federal adoption policy. Raised as a white, he hungers to find his real roots.

349 pages, Kindle Edition

First published January 1, 1971

About the author

Patricia Nell Warren (pen-name Patricia Kylyna) was a Ukrainian and American poet and novelist. She wrote her works in Ukrainian and English.

In 1957 she married a Ukrainian emigre writer Yuriy Tarnawsky and subsequently learned Ukrainian language. Under Tarnawsky's influence she started socializing in Ukrainian emigre writers' circles and soon started writing her own poems, which culminated in her publishing several well-received Ukrainian poetry collections: Trahediya dzhmeliv (New-York: Vydavnytstvo New Yorkskoyi hrypy, 1960), Legendy i sny (New-York: Vydavnytstvo New Yorkskoyi hrypy, 1964), and Rozhevi mista (Munich: Suchasnist, 1969). She published her Ukrainian poetry collections under the pen-name Patricia Kylyna.

After Nell Warren divorced Tarnawsky in 1973, she left Ukrainian literature and never wrote another book in Ukrainian until her death. Instead Nell Warren switched to American literature and tried her best as an American novelist. In 1972 she published her first book in English, a novel The Last Centennial, still under her pen-name Patricia Kylyna (Kilina). Her breakthrough came in 1974 when she published a gay-themed novel The Front Runner. This was the first time she published any of her books under her real name Patricia Nell Warren, and it paid off: the book sold more than 10 mil. copies and was subsequently translated into multiple languages.

For her Ukrainian-language profile see Патриція Килина

Reviews

[Joe Pfeiler · Rating 4 out of 5]

The time is the present, around 1970. Cottonwood, Montana is celebrating its centennial with a fair, rodeo and pageant. The Last Centennial follows the lives of three very different people: Johnny, a Cheyenne Indian who was raised by a white family; Beth, a late-blooming teenager; and Pint, an old cowboy.

The wealth and opportunity of the 1940s & 50s are part of the past. People are living in a new period: the modern-day decay of the 1960s. This social and economic decay exists in all three sections of the book: a family’s tension and denial with increasing debt, dwindling income, kids doing drugs. Cottonwood’s race-track, fairgrounds and stables are aging. A marriage is on its last legs. Water has become contaminated. While this isn’t an upbeat setting, it’s not presented as depressing, it’s simply the way things were, and it drew me in.

The characters have relatively little interaction with the centennial celebration, which is used mostly as the setting. Hand-in-hand with the decay, all three characters are at crossroads in their lives, experiencing their own torments: Johnny longs to be part of the Indian community but feels disconnected to both that community and the family that raised him; Beth, a late bloomer, is catching up with herself emotionally and sexually; old Pint feels obsolete.

My thoughts return often to Beth, a girl we’re first led to believe doesn’t understand herself, then we learn she understands herself quite well – her lack of experience and maturity don’t stand in the way of her knowing who she is and how far she needs to go to catch up. She’s accepting of her growth’s pace. Then something happens to Beth, that’s quite clear, yet there’s no tidbit I could find to indicate the cause. Beth’s unusual tale of a first love pulls my thoughts back, again and again – that alone indicates a well-written story. Still, I’d like to know what really happened to her.

Current-day television moves very fast – rapid dialogue, rapid cuts, quick shots – much more is packed into each minute than in the 1970s. 21st-century readers who prefer a similar pace might find Patricia Nell Warren’s (under the pseudonym Patricia Kilina) use of simile something that makes The Last Centennial a slower read than they’re used to, but that didn’t stop me from picking it up every time I sat down. Patricia’s knowledge of the American West, Montana in particular, as well as her ability to tap into who her characters are, made the 38 years it took me to finally read this book quite worth the wait.

The Last Centennial is available for Kindle, on Amazon. Hard copies are out of print, but used copies are available online. I found a fine copy on Amazon, from North Carolina.