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The Bitter Roots
When fourteen-year-old Pauly takes a swim in the Clark Fork River one summer day, he doesn't expect to see a boy drown. Surrounded by everyday violence in his Montana town, Pauly is determined to prove himself, navigating the awkward fumbles of boyhood against a backdrop of strikes, gang fights, soldiers headed for war, and Prohibition.
First published in 1941 and never before reissued, The Bitter Roots is a largely autobiographical novel full of evocative details of a time and place, including a glimpse of the young Norman Maclean, author of the classic, A River Runs Through It. It's a frank, unvarnished portrait of an America struggling with racism, class prejudice, conflicts between labor and capital, and sexual stereotypes. A vivid coming-of-age story, The Bitter Roots reminds us that finding and holding on to your identity is one of the greatest battles there is.
"Passages of genuine poetry, but above all, he has succeeded in capturing the life of that period, in retaining the feel of it so that any reader can see the time as it was." Louis L'Amour
First published in 1941 and never before reissued, The Bitter Roots is a largely autobiographical novel full of evocative details of a time and place, including a glimpse of the young Norman Maclean, author of the classic, A River Runs Through It. It's a frank, unvarnished portrait of an America struggling with racism, class prejudice, conflicts between labor and capital, and sexual stereotypes. A vivid coming-of-age story, The Bitter Roots reminds us that finding and holding on to your identity is one of the greatest battles there is.
"Passages of genuine poetry, but above all, he has succeeded in capturing the life of that period, in retaining the feel of it so that any reader can see the time as it was." Louis L'Amour
330 pages, Paperback
Published September 5, 2024
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About the author
Norman MacLeod
280 books1 followerLibrarian Note: There is more than one author by this name in the goodreads data base.
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Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews
December 5, 2024
Out of print since its publication in 1941, Macleod's autobiographical novel offers a more visceral recollection of Missoula, MT, circa 1917–20, than that found in Norman Maclean's 1976 bestseller A River Runs Through It. Rather than a fly-fishing idyll, readers first encounter that river as the watery grave of a 12-year-old boy who never resurfaces after being tossed in by neighborhood toughs, including Augie Storm, a character loosely based on Norman Maclean's younger brother Paul. Clashes between the patriotic fervor of World War I and the revolutionary zeal of the IWW (Industrial Workers of the World), documented in news snippets that punctuate each episodic chapter in the style of Dos Passos, are mirrored in young Pauly Craig's ardent struggles to measure up as a man in a place of often brutish masculinity, while drawn toward poetry by the rugged majesty of the Bitterroot wilderness. A welcome afterword by Missoula author Gabriella Graceffo outlines the later life of the unjustly forgotten Macleod, whose success as a proletarian poet took him from New York to Russia before returning home to grapple with his tangled Western roots. Anticipating the historical fiction of Ivan Doig and Ken Kesey, Macleod vividly immerses the reader in the adolescent angst of one young man, and of a nation.
February 13, 2025
The Bitter Roots / Norman Macleod. The main appeal of this 1941 novel for me is the local setting. Set during WWI, it is an historical, fictional consideration that centers on a group of teenagers influenced by the patriots and the anti-war socialists of their time. There is, moreover, the eternal features of adolescence: sex, sports, alcohol, etc. It did hold my attention and the characterization was fairly strong, but I think this “recovered” book needs more polishing, a bit more reality.
January 7, 2025
Many books require a second reading. For me, this is one of them. I struggled with the short chapters as i felt they stunted the flow and made it difficult for the characters to be really fleshed out.
The setting, period, characters, and narrative make this a Steinbeck story, but, unfortunately, without the Steinbeck magic, however, I will give it another go.
The setting, period, characters, and narrative make this a Steinbeck story, but, unfortunately, without the Steinbeck magic, however, I will give it another go.
Displaying 1 - 3 of 3 reviews