Who Owns the West?
By William Kittredge
176 PAGES, Essays
ISBN 978-1562790783
Who owns the West? "All of us, of course," says Kittredge. But this "simple answer … is sort of beside the point when we get down to considering questions of fairness. Stay joyous under the sun and moon, in the rain and out; that's another halfway answer." Kittredge gives us not easy answers but a sustained meditation on what it means to be a Westerner today. He writes a celebration of the new West and an elegy for an old West that is fading.
William Kittredge (1932-2020) grew up on the MC Ranch in southeastern Oregon, where he lived until he was thirty-five. He taught at the University of Montana in Missoula for over 30 years and received a Lifetime Achievement Award at the Montana Book Festival in 2017.