Montana 1948 Quotes
"A narrative that can be read purely for the pleasure of a good story. But Watson is after something smaller and larger—a quest for personal integrity within a community that doesn’t seem to want the truth; an understanding of the complexity of justice; a look at corruption behind the ideal of American white men as conquering heroes." – San Francisco Chronicle
"The unspoken life of any small town, especially a small, hardscrabble western town, contains a motherlode of raw emotion, morally ambiguous and potentially devastating." – Booklist
"Wonderful. . . . Be prepared to read this compact book in one sitting. Start at 10 P.M. By 11, you’re hooked. You finish in the wee hours, mesmerized by the fast-moving plot, the terse language, uncompromising characterization and insights into life." – Baltimore Sun
"Utterly mesmerizing. . . . There’s something eminently universal in Watson’s ponderings on the human condition, and it’s refracted through a nearly perfect eye for character, place and the rhythms of language." – The Nation
"This short, swift novel . . . packs a wallop. . . . Watson sometimes evokes echoes of Ivan Doig and, of all authors, Harper Lee." – Milwaukee Journal
"Taut, memorable. . . . In crisp, restrained prose, Watson indelibly portrays the moral dilemma of a family torn between justice and loyalty; by implication, he also illuminates some dark corners of our national history." – Publishers Weekly
"Larry Watson handles each of his characters with considerable skill. . . . The memoir-like tone of Montana 1948 is one of its great merits and pleasures." – Washington Post Book World
"A lean, gaunt narrative rich with implication. . . . A literary page-turner, morally complex and satisfying in its careful accumulation of detail and in its use of landscape to reveal character." – Kirkus Reviews
"Straight-to-the-kill . . . [with] vivid, living characters who speak truly. The style of Montana 1948 is as thin, clear and crisp as a North Dakota wind." – Los Angeles Times Book Review
"A novel whose power comes not just from fine writing, but from a fast-moving plot." – The Sunday Oregonian
"Having only one shot was a great incentive for learning to make that shot count."
"I felt strangely calm, as if I had been in a state of high agitation but had now come down, my pulse returned to normal, my breathing slowed, my vision cleared."
"Sins—crimes—are not supposed to go unpunished."
"I needed that, I thought; I hadn’t even known it but I needed to kill something."
"That extraordinary mixture of power and sadness, exhilaration and fear."
"I could have kept going and taken with me the truth of what had happened in that house."
"It was nothing she could see, she said, but every time you entered a room it felt as though someone brushed by you as you went in."
"Your granddad said it means knowing when to look and when to look away."
"Let's all sit down and talk about this calmly and reasonably."
"There's something to this. Please. Don't make me say more."
"For the moment it felt safer to remain alone on the bedroom floor, within earshot yet out of sight and reach."
"If Grandpa should come here when I'm not home, you're not to let him in, understand?"
"But that night I cried myself to sleep because I believed that I would never see my horse, Nutty, again."
"This isn't for any of us to stop or start. This has to go its own way."
"We don’t have anything to eat. Why don’t you run down to Butler’s and get some of those frankfurters, and I’ll boil them. That’ll be quick."
"Before I left the house I turned back to look at my parents. They were simply standing in the kitchen."
"I suddenly felt a great distance between us, as if, at that moment, each of us stood on our own little square of flooring with open space surrounding us."
"My father and mother, in their pajamas, were sitting on the couch. They were not touching each other, and they looked frightened and tired, like children who have been awakened during the night for an emergency."
"Nevertheless, I wished at that moment that I could stay there, stay and feel the reassuring pressure of my father’s hand upon my shoulder."
"One more night, David. Just one more night and he’ll be out of here. Things will be back to normal."
"This was the day he would put his only brother in jail. There would never be another day like it in his life."
"David, I believe that in this world people must pay for their crimes. It doesn’t matter who you are or who your relations are; if you do wrong, you pay."
"And David, don’t let your mother come down here. Don’t let her!""
"I needed time to compose myself, to make certain I could keep concealed my satisfaction over what had happened."
"We moved from Bentrock on a snowy day in early December 1948, a day, really, when we had no business traveling."
"I wanted one last look, to see what our house looked like without us in it."
"Don’t blame Montana! Don’t ever blame Montana!"