Ballet at the Moose Lodge

ISBN-13: 978-0996418317
Date of Publication: May 18, 2017
Pages: 284
Publisher: Drumlummon Institute
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Book Description
Ballet at the Moose Lodge showcases sixteen of Patterson extraordinary stories, many of which were published in journals including Seventeen, Southwest Review and Epoch. In these stories, Patterson explores what it is to grow up female in the American West. As her narratives explore the lives of travelers, homemakers, radio show announcers, mothers, teachers, dancers, shop clerks, and the subterranean world of girls, they take the reader from a ferry dock in Resurrection Bay, Alaska, to a two-room school in the Bitterroot Valley, from brash, backpacking college students to young new mothers on the edge, from the 1920s to the 1990s. In Ballet at the Moose Lodge, Patterson explores in delicate and searing prose the visible and invisible negotiations women make to navigate lives bound by the rugged western landscape.
Reviews
"The calm, wise surfaces of Caroline Patterson's stories encourage readers to explore the deeper waters without fear and to emerge with something like hope for us all. Her characters are embedded in the West, physically and emotionally, but their struggles are not local, nor is the experience of reading these lovely, original explorations of their lives."
– Deirdre McNamer, author of Aviary, Rima in the Weeds, One Sweet Quarrel, and Red Rover
“Caroline Patterson’s stories in Ballet at the Moose Lodge explore the depths of love and longing, escape and return, hope and regret in the lives of women and their men in the Western towns she knows so well. Ranging from a forlorn young woman in Seward, Alaska, to yesterday’s schoolmarms in a remote Montana hamlet, her stories express in vivid detail the dreams and nightmares of a wealth of characters. Like mini-novels in the Alice Munro tradition, these stories offer readers insights into the joys, terrors, and confines of small-town lives that matter.”
—Annick Smith, author of Homestead (The World as Home) and Crossing the Plains with Bruno.
“Caroline Patterson, with Ballet at the Moose Lodge, gives us stories about broken-hearted on-the-street household disasters and high-country triumphs. Terrific storytelling!”
—William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky: A Memoir and The Willow Field
"Caroline Patterson writes with grace and grit, stories that light up both the real Montana landscape and the imagined. She is a savvy and gleeful interpreter of the lightning-strike epiphanies that comprise our daily lives.”
—Susanna Sonnenberg, author of She Matters: A Life in Friendships
“Certainly these are western stories—swept by Bering Sea winds, crossed by prairie roads, and enshadowed by old larch—but one hesitates to taint them with any hint of regionalism. The emotional breadth of these heart-wrenching yarns is vast, the characters within them fragile yet counter-intuitively rugged and complex. Here are stories that explore the darkest recesses of the soul and will resound in your head like the ring of an ax long after you put this wonderful book aside.”
—Kim Zupan, author of The Ploughmen
“At once heartfelt and unflinching, Caroline Patterson's stories cover the wide world of hurt, hope, and uncertainty she finds in small, specific, often overlooked places, from juke joints to chicken pens, Montana to Alaska. She's as empathic and skillful writer as any publishing today, and her book ought to be read.”
—Beverly Lowry, author of Her Dream of Dreams: The Rise and Triumph of Madam C. J. Walker
“In these stories, Patterson explores what it is to grow up female in the American West. As her narratives reveal the lives of travelers, homemakers, radio show announcers, mothers, teachers, dancers, shop clerks, and the subterranean world of girls, they take the reader from a ferry dock in Resurrection Bay, Alaska, to a two-room school in the Bitterroot Valley, from brash, backpacking college students to young new mothers on the edge, from the 1920s to the 1990s. In Ballet at the Moose Lodge, Patterson explores in delicate and searing prose the visible and invisible negotiations women make to navigate lives bound by the rugged western landscape.”
–Sarah Aronson, Montana Public Radio
“In Ballet at the Moose Lodge, Patterson explores what it is to grow up female in the American West. Her narratives reveal the lives of travelers, homemakers, radio show announcers, mothers, teachers, dancers, shop clerks, and the subterranean world of girls, and they take the reader from a ferry dock in Resurrection Bay, Alaska, to a two-room school in the Bitterroot Valley, from brash, backpacking college students to young new mothers on the edge, from the 1920s to the 1990s. Patterson explores in delicate and searing prose the visible and invisible negotiations women make to navigate lives bound by the rugged western landscape.” —Fact & Fiction Books for All Ages
“Patterson explores what it is to grow up female in the American West. Her narratives delve into the lives of travelers, homemakers, radio-show announcers, mothers, teachers, dancers, shop clerks, and the subterranean world of girls. They take readers from a ferry dock in Resurrection Bay, Alaska, to a two-room school in the Bitterroot Valley, from brash, backpacking college students to young new mothers on the edge, from the 1920s to the 1990s.”
—Lively Times