BROTHERS ON THREE WINS THE 2021 MONTANA BOOK AWARD
The 2021 Montana Book Award winner is Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana by Abe Streep, published by Celadon Books. This annual award recognizes literary and/or artistic excellence in a book written or illustrated by someone who lives in Montana, is set in Montana, or deals with Montana themes or issues. Presentations and a reception for the winning authors will take place on August 3, during the Montana Library Association Conference in Missoula.
From journalist Abe Streep, the story of coming of age on a reservation in the American West and a team uniting a community
March 11, 2017, was a night to remember: in front of the hopeful eyes of thousands of friends, family members, and fans, the Arlee Warriors would finally bring the high school basketball state championship title home to the Flathead Indian Reservation. The game would become the stuff of legend, with the boys revered as local heroes.
Brothers on Three: A True Story of Family, Resistance, and Hope on a Reservation in Montana centers on the community of Arlee, on the Flathead Indian Reservation, home to the Confederated Salish and Kootenai Tribes, and tells the tale of a remarkable group of young people who also happen to be remarkable basketball players. It follows Will Mesteth, Jr. and Phillip Malatar, starters for the Arlee Warriors, as they balance the pressures of adolescence, shoulder the dreams of their community, and chart their own individual courses for the future. Brothers on Three is not simply a story about high school basketball, about state championships and a winning team. It is a book about community, and it is about boys on the cusp of adulthood, finding their way through the intersecting worlds they inhabit and forging their own paths to personhood.
Four honor books were also chosen by the 2021 Montana Book Award Committee:
Blood is Not the Water by Mara Panich
From the opening poem to the final lines, author Mara Panich addresses issues of being a woman in this world. She exposes that accepted normative fiction compelling women to question themselves, apologize for their perceived body failures, and above all to stand aside when others, especially men, are present.
In this debut collection of poems governed by the body, and like a prism held up to the light, Panich’s book reflects and refracts: the body’s heat, its desire, and the myriad ways it fails and betrays us. — Keetje Kuipers, author of All Its Charms (BOA Editions, 2019)
Note: Mara is the current owner of Fact & Fiction, Missoula's premiere independent bookstore!
Home Waters: A Chronicle of Family and a River by John N. Maclean.
In the spirit of his father's beloved classic A River Runs Through It, Maclean writes a gorgeous chronicle of a family and the land they call home. This is a meditation on fly fishing and life along Montana's Blackfoot River, where four generations of Macleans have fished, bonded, and drawn timeless lessons from its storied waters.
“The trout completed its curve in an undulating, revelatory sequence. A greenish speckled back and a flash of scarlet on silver along its side marked it as a rainbow. One slow beat, set the hook … in those first seconds I felt a connection to a fish of great size and power."
So begins John N. Maclean's remarkable memoir of his family's century-long love affair with Montana's majestic Blackfoot River. Maclean returns annually to the simple family cabin that his grandfather built by hand, still in search of the fish of a lifetime. When he hooks it at last, decades of longing promise to be fulfilled, inspiring John, reporter and author, to finally write the story he was born to tell.
Ridgeline by Michael Punke
In 1866, with the country barely recovered from the Civil War, new war breaks out on the western frontier—a clash of cultures between the Native tribes who have lived on the land for centuries and a young, ambitious nation. Colonel Henry Carrington arrives in Wyoming’s Powder River Valley to lead the US Army in defending the opening of a new road for gold miners and settlers. Carrington intends to build a fort in the middle of critical hunting grounds, the home of the Lakota. Red Cloud, one of the Lakota’s most respected chiefs, and Crazy Horse, a young but visionary warrior, understand full well the implications of this invasion. For the Lakota, the stakes are their home, their culture, their lives.
Spanning the mid to late 20th century and set in the Elkhorn Valley of southwestern Montana, The Stone Sister is told from three points of view — a father’s, a nurse’s, and a sister’s. Together they tell the unforgettable story of a child’s birth, disappearance, and finally discovery in a home for “backward children.” Robert Carter, a newly married man just back from World War II, struggles with his and his wife’s decision to entrust the care of their disabled child to an institution and “move on” with family life. Louise Gustafson, a Midwestern nurse who starts over with a new life in the West, finds herself caring for a child everyone else has abandoned. And Elizabeth Carter, a young journalist, uncovers the family secret of her lost sister as she struggles with starting a family of her own.
The Stone Sister explores the power of family secrets and society’s evolving definitions of “normal”–as it pertains to family, medicine, and social structure. The novel sheds light on the beginnings of the disability justice movement as it follows one family’s journey to reckon with a painful past. Incredibly, the novel is based on Caroline Patterson’s personal story. As an adult, she discovered she had an older sister with Down syndrome who had been written out of her family history.
The Montana Book Award was founded by the Friends of the Missoula Public Library in 2001 and winners are selected by a committee of individuals representing areas throughout Montana. Members of the 2021 Montana Book Award committee include Gloria Behem, Chester; Amanda Allpress, Missoula; Della Dubbe, Helena, Hannah Mundt, Bozeman, Kim Siemsen, Glendive; Debbie Stewart, Great Falls; Starla Rice, Hot Springs; Chris Brea, Livingston; and Gavin Woltjer, Billings.
Nominations for the 2022 Montana Book Award are now being accepted.
To order copies of winning books contact Fact & Fiction
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