FROM THE BACK COVER...
Bill McGee recaptures life growing up in the small cattle town of Malta, Montana, during the hardscrabble years of the Great Depression.
He sets the stage for his coming-of-age story by taking us “Westward Ho!” as his pioneering forefathers — curious to see what was on the other side of the mountains—migrated west generation by generation until a genteel young school teacher from Iowa (his mother) meets a handsome cowboy (his father) on her brother’s cattle ranch in 1919 Montana.
In his signature spare and straightforward style, Bill McGee recounts the hardscrabble years on the Montana Hi-Line with its summer droughts, brutal winters, and how his family scrambled to make ends meet.
“I’ve always felt fortunate to grow up in Montana during the Depression. Those tough years gave me and my family—strength.” —Bill McGee
William L. McGee’s writing career has spanned six decades. He has written 22 books; nine of them with his co-author/wife Sandra McGee. Bill McGee has garnered critical praise for his World War II memoir, Bluejacket Odyssey, 1942–1946, and his cowboying memoir, The Cowboyin’ Years, 1947–1950. Bill and Sandra are members of Western Writers of America.
“Bill McGee is no armchair historian…He’s lived what he writes about.” —Barnaby Conrad, Founder of the Santa Barbara Writers Conference and author of Matador
“Though too young to have experienced an era firsthand, Sandra McGee captures in her writing the essence of a time that seems now like part of a bygone culture—a past more colorful than the present (but most everything is these days).” —Charles Champlin, former film critic and arts editor of The Los Angeles Times
"Very easy reading. It was hard to put down. I would read another book by the author. It was a good synopsis of what life was like during the depression."
"I read the manuscript in a single sitting because I couldn't put it down. Bill McGee's firsthand account brought to such vivid life a world I knew of, but had never experienced. Thank you for writing this book."
