Balsamroot: A Memoir (1994) by Mary Clearman Blew
Balsamroot: A Memoir traces the interlocked lives of three generations of women in the same family: Mary Blew (who now lives in Moscow, Idaho), her aunt Imogene and mother Doris (who grew up on a failed Montana homestead), and her daughters Elizabeth and Rachel. After a life of apparent independent happiness, "Auntie" comes to live near Blew and soon begins to decline, bringing Blew to explore past lives of women in her family and to face her own longings and her own assumptions about what makes a woman's life satisfying and full.
Mary Blew, who teaches English at the University of Idaho, grew up in Montana and is the author of two collections of short stories in addition to All But the Waltz (which won the 1992 Pacific Northwest Booksellers Association Award), and Balsamroot. She co-edited Circle of Women: An Anthology of Western Women Writers.
Essay
Read an essay from the "Tough Paradise" theme which includes information about Balsamroot.
Web Sites
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http://www.ncteamericancollection.org/litmap/blew_mary_clearman_mt.htm
This site was created in partnership with the National Council of teachers of English and written by English teachers and their students. The essay was submitted by a student of Steve Gardiner, a teacher at Billings Senior High School in Billings, Montana. -
Mary Clearman Blew, "Part V. Northwest Schools of Literature." This is a biographical and critical article from the University of Washington's Center for the Study of the Pacific Northwest.
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Find Balsamroot in The Literature, Arts, and Medicine Database,an annotated multimedia listing of prose, poetry, film, video and art that was developed to be a dynamic, accessible, comprehensive resource for teaching and research in MEDICAL HUMANITIES, and for use in health/pre-health, graduate and undergraduate liberal arts and social science settings. This page gives a brief summary of the book with helpful comments.