Fall is Creeping In! Time to Read!

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News First!

SALMON MOON: River of No Return (Encircle Publications, 2024) won a Finalist Award from the WILLA Award for Mystery/Thrillers in this year’s contest!   https://bookshop.org/p/books/salmon-moon-river-of-no-return-julie-weston/5d226d44bd181c06?ean=9781645995814&next=t Salmon Moon, Front Cover

My story “Blue Shades,” about a madam in northern Idaho in the 1920s won a place in the anthology She Rode West (Saddlebag Dispatches, 2025).  https://bookshop.org/p/boShe Rode West Front Coveroks/she-rode-west-tales-of-courage-dust-and-destiny/5676d3d9c20446eb?ean=9798892990608&next=t  

You can find both at Bookshop.org .

Now on to fall reading suggestions:

Fiction:

C.J. Box – Joe Pickett series. I spent a couple of months this summer reading most of these books. They took me into the wilds of Wyoming with game warden Joe Pickett and falconer Nate Romanowski. I really ripped through them, enjoying the thrills and chills they offered, until the brutality of some of the situations stopped me cold. Still, I recommend them for anyone who likes James Lee Burke’s books set in Louisiana.

I have previously mentioned William Kent Krueger’s series featuring former sheriff Cork Corcoran and James Benn’s series about Billy Boyle. New books are coming out from these two excellent writers in September and October. I can hardly wait and am placing holds in my library for both of them.

Another series both my husband, Gerry Morrison, and I have been following is one written by Sulari Gentill, whose main character is Rowland Sinclair, a rich Australian hero. Rowland shares his wealthy situation with three impecunious artists. The four of them find adventure in Australia, Germany, China, and the USA in the 1930s. Gentill’s writing warrants the pleasure we found in these books, and we recommend them to you. (I first found Sulari Gentill when I wrote a review for the New York Journal of Books a couple years ago. I only recently re-found her stories. She, or her publisher, have been busy re-naming them, so they aren’t all that easy to find, but the search is worth it.)

Tana French’s mysteries have absorbed my attention this summer. Writers Jane Haddam and Rennie Airth are worth following as well.

Outside the mystery genre:

Although I do devote a lot of my reading to mysteries, I also read other books. I recommend these: A God in the Woods by Liz Moore, Wild Dark Shore by Charlotte McConaghy, So Far Gone by Jess Walter, Atmosphere by Taylor Jenkins Reid, and Peace Like a River by Leif Enger (that’s an older book).

Non-Fiction:

Much of my reading concentrates on nonfiction, often with nature writing themes. C. Marie Fuhman wrote Salmon Weather, a series of essays by this McCall, Idaho, author about wild animals and wild surroundings. It is a wonderful book! Craig Childs, one of my favorite authors and often mentioned in my blogs, issued a new book through Torrey Press: The Wild Dark about light pollution as he and a companion left Las Vegas, Nevada, on bicycles to reach truly dark skies. Both of these books inspired my interest in the diverse world around me in central Idaho. I realized how lucky I am to have read them and to live here.

The Writers’ Conference here in the Wood River Valley occurs every July and brings well-known and inspiring writers. It really should be called a Readers’ Conference. This year, two standouts were Doris Kearns Goodwin talking about her special memoir An Unfinished Love Story, largely about her husband who wrote speeches for John Kennedy and Lynden Johnson during the 1960s and beyond. Her presentations were worth the whole price of admission, which is considerable. The other standout for me was Sonya Purnell who wrote The Kingmaker about Pamela Harriman. It is a delicious read.

You should be occupied all fall and winter with these books! I am already looking for another mystery series to engage my reading time, too. Suggestions, please! And, of course, I am working on Nellie Burns and Moonshine #7. More news about the next Moon mystery in the future.

FALL BOOKS

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Spring flowers passed us by this year. Late frosts arrived instead. Summer scorched us and then smoke choked us. As much as we love our surrounding mountains, fear of fire felt like a sword of Damocles that would drop at any moment. Flames almost reached our favorite lake and mountain retreats: Redfish Lodge and Lake and the Stanley Basin.

Fall has been a welcome relief in so many ways. Late in coming—summer just wouldn’t let go—its colors delighted every sense: the sight of yellow, orange and red; the sound oof trees rattling and swaying in the wind; the touch of crispy leaves; the taste and smell of metal and frost in the air. Temps at night have already dipped to the 20s, while days have cooled to the 50s and 40s, a duo that reaches out to each of us to savor from front porches and walks in the woods. Special effects of northern lights, super moons, and the ATLAS comet have thrilled our world!

            In October 2020, I bemoaned the pandemic and the death of Ruth Bader Ginsburg. The resulting Supreme Court has waged war on women’s health and crimes by presidents. The election this year will affect not only our immediate future, but our long-term pledge to democracy. In the fall of 2022, I wrote about many books by and about strong and brave women. This year, strong and brave women are speaking up and acting.

I hope to read a new mystery by Louise Penny in the next few days.  She has always been one of my favorite mystery writers. And then I will have to wait at least a year for another one. I suspect that is true for many mystery lovers. Mysteries distract me from the events of fall, the news of hurricanes and floods, and inspire my own writing. So, I decided to write about other series to fill your book loves for months to come. They have filled mine for the past two years, since Louise’s last offering.

ANNOUNCEMENT!

First, I want to announce my own next mystery–#6—arrives on November 20: Salmon Moon: The River of No Return. Just in time for Christmas giving! Here is the cover, front and back. I will launch it at the Ketchum Community Library on December 12. Please share the evening with me! You can pre-order at your favorite bookstore or bookshop.org or Amazon.

SalmonMood Cover

Another favorite series is that of Billy Boyle in WWII by James Benn. His newest, Phantom Patrol, is just out. The first in the series is Billy Boyle: A World War II Mystery. Billy is a cop in Boston, a shirt-tail relative of Eisenhower, and ends up in Eisenhower’s headquarters in Europe to solve mysteries. Billy, Kaz (a Polish officer), Diane (an SOE spy), and several others appear in most of the books in the series. Billy gets assigned to solve various crimes taking place during the war and travels to many different sites at Eisenhower’s behest. I have become fond of and worry about each of the characters over all the books, now up to #19. I have also learned fascinating information about our armies, the war itself in places such as North Africa, Italy, Norway, Germany, and the beaches of Normandy. Begin at the beginning, although each book tells its own story.

Elly Griffiths’s books are worthy alternatives to Louise Penny. Her protagonist is Ruth Galloway, a forensic anthropologist who teaches at a university in England. I read the first few in order and then skipped around based on what I could find. It didn’t matter too much until close to the end. Most of the mysteries involve ancient bones found in various archaeology digs. Here is the description in a compilation of several of her books:  “Archaeologist Dr. Ruth Galloway turns amateur sleuth once Detective Chief Inspector Nelson calls her for help when a child’s bones are found on a desolate beach. Gone are the days of digging up artifacts and living alone with her cats—Ruth is pulled into the world of shadowy murders, resurfaced bones, historical mysteries, twisted secrets, and a dash of romance.” The series ends in Book 15.

 

Another series where I sped through the numerous offerings were those of William Kent Kruger and his protagonist “Cork” Corcoran. The first one hooked me so thoroughly, I checked out two or three at a time from the library and then exchanged for two or three more in a few days. I didn’t always go in order, but I do recommend doing so. Cork is a former sheriff in northern Minnesota and part Indian. Many of the stories take place in the border lakes area and also involve tribal members with whom he shares affinity and history. His family and an ancient shaman are important characters in the books, too. The 20th came out this year. I look forward to more.

Those are a few of the mysteries occupying my reading time. I also recommend Anne Hillerman, Marvin Walker, Tana French, Susan Macneal, Jaqueline Winspear.

I do read books other than mysteries. Many are nonfiction and occasionally science fiction or fantasy.

 Babel by R.F. Kuang – a fascinating Oxford-set story about words, among all else.

Without Exception: Reclaiming Abortion, Personhood, and Freedom by Pam Houston – A book to read now.

James by Percival Everett – a novel from the perspective of Jim in Huckleberry Finn

 

I hope you all voted! Please add books you have enjoyed in the Comments!

 

Tree photos by Gerry Morrison. Painting on the Salmon River book is by my mother, Marie Haasch Whitesel.

 

 

FLASH NEWS:

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Flash One:  On Monday evening, September 23, 2024, at the Sun Valley Museum of the Arts in Ketchum, Idaho, Julie Weston will present information and stories about her forthcoming book, SALMON MOON: The River of No Return. This presentation is part of the SV Museum’s Idaho Rivers exhibition.

The sixth book in Weston’s series following photographer Nellie Burns and her black Lab, Moonshine, the story takes place along the Salmon River from the Sunbeam Dam to Riggins, Idaho. “In and out of the Salmon River, Nellie, her husband, Nurse Janie, Moonie, and river sweeper Ace, chase a criminal gang who stole a miner’s poke and left two men for dead. Mystery and adventure all in one!”

Please register at https://julieweston.com/wp-admin/post-new.php .

Flash Two:

Julie Weston will launch her sixth book in the Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery Series, SALMON MOON: The River of No Return at the Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho, in December. Look for the date soon!

WRITING IDAHO

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On a full moon night at Galena Lodge, my husband and I ventured on snowshoes out into the dark, lit by the moon, round and the color of bone. On our way home after dinner, we drove to Last Chance Ranch, a log cabin sited north of Ketchum. My husband Gerry said he wanted to photograph it in the moonlight. We crawled through the wood fence poles, he with his large format camera and I carrying his tripod. We hiked down the snow-covered driveway to get closer to the structure. The moon lit our way.As he set up the camera on the tripod, pulled the black cloth over his head to focus, and took several photos, I studied the cabin. I spoke to Gerry. “I bet there is a dead body in there.” Dogs barked, not near but getting so. We hurried to pack up his equipment and scooted back through the fence.

            That began my second career of writing mysteries.

As I mulled over a dead body in Last Chance Ranch, I needed someone to find it. I settled on Nellie Burns, a photographer from Chicago, inspired by Nellie Stockbridge of north Idaho fame. Burns is a family name, associated with photography in Boise. I also wanted a time period. The 1920s in Idaho created stories of women seeking independence, days of Prohibition, and opium. No wars to contend with, and Sun Valley wasn’t even a glimmer in Averil Harriman’s brain yet. What about a companion? Aha! A black Labrador dog named Moonshine after a similar pet of ours, now long-gone.

Many people who write mysteries prepare extensive outlines. I find a setting into which I can place my characters and see what happens. I sometimes have a rough plot in my head, but mostly, I write by the seat-of-my-pants. I am what is known as a “pantser.”

The place or setting determines in large part the action of my novels. Moonshadows, my first, takes place in winter with deep snow, the Big Wood River with ice caking its edges and snow bridges, ghostly empty aspen trees, and coyotes.

Two novels are set in the Stanley Basin. One features cowboy and Basque sheepherder confrontations and magnificent scenery and sheep. The 1920s conjures bootleggers, so they appear, too. Basque Moon.

View from Lower Stanley

The second focuses on the Chinese population of the period and the now deserted ghost town of Vienna. Moon Bones.

Imagine a setting in Craters of the Moon and what could happen there—ice caves, lava, spatter cones and all. Moonscape.

I grew up in Kellogg, Idaho, a mining town, and I used the mines operating during Prohibition and the flapper days for exciting events both inside and outside the diggings. Miners’ Moon.

Figuring out when and where a murder takes place, who did it and why, has been a thoroughly entertaining second career. Learning from my husband about photography and researching at the Community Library Regional History Center, plus reading books of the period, fill my days and my thoughts. Upcoming is an adventure on the Salmon River, the River of No Return.

Try it! Pick a setting, add some characters, and see what happens!

Book recommendations:

Every year, I sign up for the Goodreads Challenge. I usually list 100 books as my goal. I don’t always get there. This year, I am trying to read more. Some of the best books I have read so far:

Fiction:

William Kent Kruger hooked me last year and I have been reading his series. I am caught-up, I believe. I highly recommend his books with his series character Cork O’Connor and his family. The first one is Iron Lake, although I found it didn’t matter all that much to read as I could get them, in all orders.

Remarkably Bright Creatures by Shelby Van Pelt – An octopus is the star of this story in an aquarium along the coast of Washington state. The book is a delight.

Susan Matley has written a series of fascinating novels about the Pantheon of Greek gods and goddesses. I just finished Crisis in Big-G City, the fourth. I highly recommend all of them. They are fascinating reads with lots of excitement and knowledge about the myths and god- and human-frailty.

Nonfiction:

The Ledge by Jim Davidson and Kevin Vaughn – A climb gone wrong on Mount Rainier.

Prequel by Rachel Maddow – The rise of home-grown Nazis before and during WWII. I was amazed at what I didn’t know about that period.

True West by Betsy Quammen – an excellent book about the myths of the West.

Desert Notes, River Notes by Barry Lopez. We saw a reference to River Notes in a column by Terry Tempest Williams in High Country Journal about Lopez. Any of his books can be read and re-read with discoveries each time.

An Unfinished Love Story by Doris Kearns Goodwin – This is a wonderful book about the ’60s, told by one of the best writers we have. Her husband, Richard Goodwin, was a speech writer for John Kennedy and Lyndon Johnson, plus being an articulate and prolific essay writer during that time. Highly recommended.

 

Photos of my mystery series locations by Gerry Morrison, except Down the Shaft. Map by Poo Wright-Pulliam. Chinese and flapper photos courtesy of The Community Library in Ketchum. Painting by Marie Whitesel

This blog appears in a recent communication from the Community Library in Ketchum in a slightly different form in its May issue.

 

 

 

THE END OF SKIING

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View from Gondola going up Bald Mountain

When I was seven years old, I began skiing, a lifelong learning process. It was a sport I have enjoyed my whole life—until this year. I skied along with my brother and my sister and my mother at Lookout Pass on the border of Idaho and Montana.

Lookout Pass, age 10

Lookout Pass, age 10

There was a line through the lodge designating which state we ate in, pulled on and tied ski boots, donned mittens and hats, and tromped out the door to the three rope lifts that pulled us up to our freedom rides downhill.

By fifth grade, I was ski racing with my friends for the Lookout Ski Club as a Mighty Mite and then an Intermediate. We wore red and white pullover wind jackets and traveled around to nearby ski hills, just like football and basketball boys did, on winter weekends. Art Audette was our leader, instructor, and all-around good coach. We rode in individual cars driven by parents, sometimes even my dad. Spokane Mountain, Spout Springs in the Blue Mountains, White Pass near Yakima, and our home base Lookout. There was no Schweitzer Basin or Silver Mountain in those days. One memorable winter, we were stuck between avalanches on White Pass and ended up spending the night at the lodge and still racing the terrifying downhill the next day. I wrote about that in my book, The Good Times Are All Gone Now: Life, Death, and Rebirth in an Idaho Mining Town (University of Oklahoma Press, 2009).

Our skis changed from wood slats without edges to Gresvigs, my first skis with metal edges screwed in. Then Head Standards—metal skis without peer—followed by Head Masters and Head 360s. At my adult height, I bragged about the length: 195s. Then skis began to shorten and widen and I made more transitions when I lived in Seattle. Ski boots changed from leather to plastic, from ankle high to mid-calf high, from Henke to Nordic to Dalbello.

When I left home to go to Seattle to attend the University of Washington, my home ground changed: Crystal Mountain, Stevens Pass, Ski Acres, Alpental, and Hyak. They were all so much larger and grander than Lookout Pass, I reveled in the challenges. In 1963, I discovered Sun Valley, an area I had only visited in the summer until then with my parents for my dad’s medical conventions. I already loved central Idaho. Skiing was the cherry on top. Nearly every year after that first time, I spent at least a week and sometimes weeks in Sun Valley, skiing. I met my second husband in Sun Valley. With him, I skied regularly at Stevens Pass and enrolled my daughter in the Buddy Werner ski class. Melanie never took to skiing in the same way I had, but she hung in until she married a man who didn’t ski. Such an event like that happened with my first husband, but never again.

 In 1980, I married Gerry Morrison, a skier who loved skiing as I did: it was like food and shelter, necessary to live life. The fact that we were both lawyers sealed the deal. Since then, we have moved to the Sun Valley area and built a house to live here full time. For a while, we kept two houses going. That became impossible, so we sold Seattle and put our roots down in central Idaho, leaving the practice of law and taking up two vocations in addition to frequent skiing in winter: writing and photographing.

My skis kept changing–from Pre to Fischer to Elan to Rossignol. Friends in the ski industry recommended new varieties, all of which we tried. Then the skis grew fat for powder skiing—a development that kept me skiing probably ten to fifteen more years. Cold Smoke, red skis, and Scott Mission skis. Finally, age caught up with us. Skiing powder became impossible: we couldn’t get up if we fell! And then I couldn’t keep up with my wide-tipped, slender-waisted Rossignols. Gerry found Volkls and managed well, until he, too, had difficulty staying upright on them.

I explained some of my love for skiing in “The Perfect Day: How to Ski Heaven,” IDAHO Magazine, November 2008.

Last year, because of several years of heart problems, I learned I finally could not breathe at the altitude on Bald Mountain of the Sun Valley Ski Resort. A different heart problem emerged: a broken one. Now, I dream of skiing—whooshing down powdered snow slopes, whizzing around steep groomed turns, riding chairlifts and gondolas. I watch Mikaela Shiffrin—the best skier in the world with 93 firsts on the world cup circuit–and relive in my head my own racing days, not even a candle to her talent. This year, we wake to day after day of brown hills, frosted sage and bunchgrass, and long for snow, even though we know we won’t be sliding downhill in it. For now, the memory almost suffices.

Book Recommendations:

With my days no longer occupied by skiing, I have read more. I seem to devour mountain climbing stories, such as:

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson

Annapurna: A Woman’s Place by Arlene Blum

No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts

A sampling of books I read in 2023:

The Six by Loren Grush – the story of the first six women astronauts depicting other mountains to climb.

Oath and Honor by Liz Cheney—A detailed description of the January 6, insurrection. I learned a lot about how the Republican side of the House of Representatives works in Congress

The Last Honest Man by James Risen—A book about Frank Church, Idaho Senator

A Traveler’s Guide to the End of the World by David Gessner

Novels:

Legends of the North Cascades by J. Evison—a tale of family and survival in the woods

The Long Flight Home by Alan Hlad—a story of pigeons

The Secret Diary of Sacajawea by Debra Magpie Earling

A friend recommended a new mystery series, which I have been indulging in between the non-fiction books: William Krueger and his main character Cork O’Connor, a former sheriff:

Iron Lake, Boundary Waters, Tamarack County, Manitou Canyon. Great reads!

All photos except the second and last are by Gerry Morrison.

Please share to friends and add comments if so inclined.

THEN AND NOW

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Three years ago, the pandemic raged around the world. In the Wood River Valley, all of us were locked down, only left our homes to get take-out food and groceries, wore masks everywhere, washed our hands 4 or 5 times a day, and used hand sanitizer to be sure we weren’t spreading the virus. Baldy had closed down in one day, and the snow melted by April.

We attended zoom meetings to learn how the people in our towns got along, how many people checked into the hospital, and who had died. All the people in two choruses came down with Covid-19. A wedding party from Seattle brought the virus to our valley in March, and it had spread like wildfire—a phenomenon we were all familiar with, having lived through several large fires in the recent past.

Evenings, we stood on our porch facing west and banged pots and pans and shouted, “Thank you!” to the nurses and doctors who managed the front lines at the hospital, the grocery workers who braved the store customers, and ambulance drivers taking patients to Twin Falls and Boise. I put together 1000-piece puzzles, one after another.

Sometimes, I wrote, but the steady stream of bad news interfered with Nellie’s jaunts through forests and ghost towns. More dangerous and deadly situations cropped up in MOON BONES than might otherwise have occurred. By the time I finished in mid-2021, though, I could bring in a happy conclusion. And vaccines succeeded and we bared our arms for all.

Before the pandemic arrived, we worked with a talented local designer, Shawn Phillips, to put together our collaborative book, The Magical Universe of the Ancients: A Desert Journal. We found a helpful consultant in Denver who found a printer in South Korea and helped with myriad logistics. In June of 2020, we released the book to the public. Unfortunately, publication during the pandemic curtailed our distribution efforts. We did not do our usual book tours and presentations. Our local libraries supported us, and we presented in Ketchum and Hailey—to cameras and no audiences. Speaking to a camera on a wall was a strange experience. I just watched one of them and invite you to do the same. https://vimeo.com/showcase/tcl-archive. Seek Magical Universe. http://www.bigwoodbooks.com

Magical Universe book cover

*********

Now, the second half of 2023 has just begun. We’ve had a spring full of rain, electrical storms, and sunshine. A super-bloom of wildflowers colors our slopes with yellow, purple, white, blue, and pink. Arrowleaf balsamroot spread its daisy-like blossoms up and down our mountains, trails, and fields. Bitterroot flashed their magic on rocky slopes.

 Mules’ Ear flowers fill fields below the Boulder Mountains. Yarrow, fleabane, penstemon, yellow lupine, and Russian sage fill the empty places behind the dimming early flowers.  Even as I write, buckwheat blossoms are taking the balsamroots’ place behind our home.

Another Nellie Burns and Moonshine mystery rises under my fingertips, either in my writing notebook or on my computer. This one requires extensive research, and I am having difficulty finding just the right resources.

We heard Luis Alberto Urrea speak at the Community Library, giving the annual Hemingway Lecture. He inspired me with his talk about story and how essential it is to all of us. And so, I return to telling Nellie’s stories, encompassing the stories of Sheriff Charlie, Rosy Kipling, and some new characters: Janie the nurse, Frankie the pretend gangster moll, and assorted villainous other characters.

 

Book Recommendations:

Fiction: Good Night Irene by Luis Alberto Urrea – a wonderful story about Red Cross volunteers during World War II in Europe, based on his own mother’s adventures. I highly recommend it.

Ms. Demeanor by Elaine Lipton – a hilarious story about two people confined for 180 days to their homes for various misdemeanors in New York City.

Lost in Paris by Betty Webb – an absorbing story set in the best city in the world, of course, and the beginning (I hope) of a new series by this prolific mystery writer.

The Way of the Bear by Anne Hillerman – another in her series set in tribal Southwest. Her best so far, I think.

Nonfiction: Solito by Javier Zamora – Maybe the best nonfiction book I’ve read all year. A true story of a 9-year old boy struggling to get from El Salvador to his parents in the US – alone.

No Shortcuts to the Top by Ed Viesturs and David Roberts – climbing stories to keep you awake and turning the pages. Highly readable.

Tracing Time by Craig Childs – Stories of rock art, both pictographs and petroglyphs, in another of his mostly Southwest series of books. Begin with this book and go on to all the rest.

Oracle Bones by Peter Hessler – A story of ancient carvings in China found in contemporary China. This book gave me insights into the Chinese world today.

Also check out Everyman a King by Walter Mosley, Exile by Jane Harper, Another Way Over by John Michalik, Night Flight to Paris by Cara Black, City Walls by Loren Estleman. So many books, so little time.

Puzzle photos by me. Flower photos by Gerry Morrison

SNOW, SNOW, SNOW

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“I think we are bound to, and by, nature. We may want to deny this connection and try to believe we control the external world, but every time there’s a snowstorm or drought, we know our fate is tied to the world around us.” 

Alice Hoffman

View from Gondola going up Bald Mountain

Winter is my favorite season. Snow is my favorite precipitation. Blue skies, powdered snow—that was our mantra here in the Sun Valley area of Idaho. Even the words conjure up snow flying from our skis, across our faces, and the illusion of soaring through ice crystals. “No friends on powder days” seconded the first, meaning don’t be late to a meeting spot. We won’t wait. If you’re a skier, read my story “The Perfect Day” in IDAHO magazine. If you’re not a skier, keep reading about snow in our high desert paradise.

Climate change will affect all of us, but perhaps most in areas where snow is important to the economics, production, and enjoyment of winter life. Our snow seasons have grown shorter and often with less snow than we hope for, wish for, and
depend upon. This year has been the exception after several years of less than optimum cold and snowy precipitation. Snow began to fall in November and continued through December. It stopped for a while and our sunny days returned, somewhat to the relief of all. Moderation in all things . . .. More snow in January and not much at all in February, so far.

Blue begins most days, and then clouds roll in. Often, they roll out again without leaving a calling card. Evening sunsets surprise in an array of pinks, lavenders, oranges, and burgundies. Red sky at night is usually a skiers’ delight (as well as sailors’), as it foretells a sparkling next day. We have about three feet of snow all around our house up a canyon near Hailey, Idaho. All the surrounding mountains have been covered in white since early December. Like water scenes, shades of color and shadows morph hourly, sometimes blue, sometimes gray, sometimes pink.

Because we live in a high desert, most of the hills surrounding us have no trees except on the north faces. Sagebrush covers all the south faces and this year, snow has blanketed the brush. Our temperatures have sunk to below zero for days and nights at a time. The colds have hovered in the single digits and teens for weeks at a time. Many days, it is too cold to shovel walks, even if we could lift filled shovels. Never mind, books to read line shelves in our home.

In late February, I have yet to hear a red-winged blackbird or see a robin. Magpies in their formal tuxedos with stripes of blue are ubiquitous of course. Ducks–Barrow’s Goldeneyes, mallards, coots, and mergansers–fill local ponds, disappearing when spring peeks around the corner.

 

My husband Gerry and I drove up several canyons and around our own canyon to get photographs of snow. They tell a story of cold air, hoar frost, and blue shadows. Even so, the pictures still don’t quite capture the joy I feel when I stand outside and absorb the colors of white, the silvery sheen, the carpets of sparkles, and the connection I feel to this winter wonderland.

Book News:

Get Lit! Festival in Spokane, Washington: I will be on a panel of Women of the West on Thursday, April 20, from 11:00 to 12:00. Please come if you are in town.

Coeur d’Alene Public Library, on April 20 in the afternoon from 5:00 to 6:00 pm. I will present a program about MINERS’ MOON, set in the Silver Valley and in the main mine.

All photos by Gerry Morrison

December is for snow and books

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DECEMBER IS FOR SNOW AND BOOKS

Snow is falling in a serious way. It is the kind of day when I want to grab my latest book and curl up on the couch in front of the fire and read. I have two novels on my bedside stand, one nonfiction on the couch, one nonfiction waiting to be opened, and two books to pick up at Iconoclast books, my local bookstore. Winter weather arrived in mid-November. Snow has piled up all around the house since then, and now piles became heaps in the last few days. These two months—November and December—seem to be busier than other times of the year. And really, I just want to read. 
       Because Christmas and other giving holidays are coming up in the next bucket (an old mining term), I thought I would give the gift of recommended books. I am often asked what I am reading or what I recommend. Here is a list of books important to me this year. If any appeal to you, and I hope they do, please go to your local bookstore to find them or go online to www.bookshop.org to order or check out from your local library.

Nonfiction:

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez – a series of essays published posthumously for one of my favorite authors. He explored the world and especially delved into remote places, often in the Arctic and northern climes, seeking to understand the people, plants, and animals who lived there. He was an adventurer and writer extraordinaire. This book is on my shelf of all-time favorites. Others are Homeground and Arctic Dreams.

Tracing Time by Craig Childs. I have repeatedly recommended Craig’s books, and this one is another special one. The author explores in the Southwest, finding rock art unknown to most people, even archaeologists. His wanderings yield precious stories. It is a book not to be missed if you have ever visited Utah and the Four Corners area. (A side note: Craig rarely states where he is, but I believe we saw some of the rock art he describes and that we featured in our book, The Magical Universe of the Ancients: A Desert Journal, www.bigwoodbooks.com .)

Stone Desert by Craig Childs. I am reading this book right now. It was his first and has been re-issued by Torrey House Press. It is unique in that his early journals from which the book derived are also printed in whole. This book, too, describes rock art and also his and friends’ ramblings in the desert Southwest in wintertime.

The Broken West by Mike Medberry. A book of essays by an Idaho writer about issues facing those of us who live in the West.

Touching the Void by Joe Simpson. This is a mountain climbing story I could not put down. Two climbers in Peru tackling an unclimbed peak in the Andes run into trouble. The courage and amazing spirit of both men are enough to inspire even the most home-bound person (me).

Fiction:

Horse by Geraldine Brooks. This novel mixes history with contemporary times and follows the life of a race horse, extraordinarily famous in its time, but only coming to importance at the Smithsonian in Washington, D.C. in modern times. I found it filled with fascinating characters, exciting horse races, contemporary research and rebuilding of bones.

Fellowship Point by Ann Elliott Dark. This story of two lifelong friends endeavoring to save a piece of land from development along the Maine coast in their old age (their 80s), is a book to savor. One is married, the other is not. Their lives touch and break, re-touch and re-break, as most friendships do. A small circle of characters come in and out of the two women’s lives, as do love and camaraderie, disappointment and ambition. I rarely re-read books and I am tempted to do so with this one.

The Secret in the Wall by Ann Parker, the latest in a series by the author. Set in San Francisco in the late 1800s, this story continues the adventures of Inez Stannert  and Antonia. Inez first came to my attention as the owner of a bar in Leadville, Colorado. She and her young ward run a music store. The history of San Francisco is almost as intriguing as the mystery plot involving Confederate soldiers, Alcatraz prison, detectives, and an ancient murder, or is it? The entire series is worth reading.

The Thursday Club Murders by R. Osman. There are now three of these. A group of elderly people in a retirement home form the club and solve mysteries. They sound a little boring, but the stories definitely are not. The characters are well-formed and the mysteries puzzling. Give these a try.

Other titles:  To Kill a Troubadour by Martin Walker; The Ghosts of Paris by Tara Moss. You Tell the Stories You Need to Believe by Rebecca Brown; Sea of Tranquility by Emily St. John Mandel.

One of our neighbors:

News:

MINERS’ MOON won Bronze in the Mystery category of the Will Rogers Medallion Awards.
Craig Johnson of Longmire fame won Gold. I am in amazing company!

 

I spent a lot of November thinking about and then beginning to write a new mystery with the same characters. It will be a while before I get a real handle on it. I’ll keep you posted!

 

Chinese History in Central Idaho – MOON BONES

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Did you know that at one time one-third of Idaho’s population was Chinese? This was at a time when the railroad connecting the country had been completed and the population of Idaho swelled with mostly men seeking gold. They were desperate to make a fortune in hard times and then anxious to leave Idaho with their pockets and packs loaded with gold nuggets and dust. The Chinese, imported in huge numbers to work on the railroad, stayed in Melica to seek gold for themselves, although they often ended up as slave labor in mineral processing. Many of those men who became miners turned on the Chinese and forced them away from the riches perceived to be found. The white miners passed laws forbidding Chinese to lay claims, to pan for gold, to compete.

Massacres of Chinese bloodied the rivers and woods of Idaho in the 1880s and 1890s. Celestials, as they were sometimes labeled, opened restaurants and laundries, and for a while were tolerated. Then Anti-Chinese Immigration Laws passed in 1882, added to and then extended for decades, forbid Chinese to come to the United States and to own property. Groups of white men and women tried to force the restaurant owners and laundry workers out of the towns where they had settled. Many left Idaho and went to the West Coast where Chinese were accepted, although reluctantly. Others did not, saying they would not leave until they were paid.

MOON BONES tells the story of several people who were Chinese in origin and who lived in central Idaho. This story is entirely fiction but is based on stories told in books, in a local historian’s research, found in archives in the Community Library in Ketchum, Idaho, and in mining ghost towns remaining in central Idaho.

 

The usual cast of characters of this series of books set in the 1920s in Idaho includes photographer Nellie Burns, her black Lab dog Moonshine, Sheriff Charlie Azgo, retired miner Rosy Kipling, Sammy Ah Kee and his mother, Mrs. Ah Kee, and landlady Goldie Bock. The ritual of sending bones from the Chinese back to China for burial, practiced for many years in the U.S., underlies some of the currents in the “Chinatown”s of Central Idaho. Other Chinese come and go, as do several nefarious characters anxious to find gold themselves.

The death of a Chinese laundryman leads to Vienna, a ghost town in the Stanley Basin. Sammy, accused of the murder, and Nellie explore the mine entrance and unearth a secret cache. Mayhem and murder follow the individuals who become embroiled in the investigation. Sheepherder Alphonso, first met in an earlier book, tends sheep near Vienna and helps save one of the wounded. Greed and evil lurk once again in this Western landscape.

Book News:

MINERS’ MOON, a Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery, set in north Idaho, is a Finalist in the Will Rogers Medallion Award! Final results come out October 29, 2022.

MOON BONES, a Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery, set back in central Idaho in Ketchum and Stanley and the ghosttown of Vienna, will be published October 5, in hard cover, paperback and ebook! Check your local bookstore and/or order from Encircle Publications, Amazon, Barnes & Noble, and Indiebound! www.julieweston.com 

My first three books, MOONSHADOWS, BASQUE MOON, AND MOONSCAPE are now all available in paperback and ebooks from Encircle Publications and the usual bookstores and on-line locations!

Recommended Books:

American Baby by Gabrielle Glaser – An in-depth story of unwed mothers in the 1950s-1970s, forced adoptions, orphanages and agencies.

Embrace Fearlessly the Burning World by Barry Lopez – a posthumous collection of essays

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett – a collection of essays

Fellowship Point by Alice Elliott Dark – a lifetime of friendship on the coast of Maine between two women

Sacred Bridge by Anne Hillerman – a Bernadette Manuelito and Jim Chee mystery

Ghost town photographs from Gerry Morrison. Chinese photographs are from the Ketchum Community Library.

Women’s History Month

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March 20 marks the first day of spring this year. We have already done the “spring forward” two-step. As important, Women’s History Month is celebrated in March. My mother’s birthday was March 19, so this month is a concurrence of events in my life. Many famous women are being noted in March. I prefer to note the wonderful women in my own family.

My great Aunt Apal Friedline, my mother’s aunt, gathered our family stories together and wrote a book, Generations (Caxton Press, 1941), illustrated by my mother, Marie Whitesel.  Apal used her imagination in telling the tales of my forebears and their push to move West, along with their lives in Boise and Meridian, Idaho. In May, 1878, my great-great-grandparents (Aunt Apal’s grandparents), Isaac and Margrette Pfost and their family of five children purchased a wagon and packed it with all they owned.  They joined with other families to cross the prairies and mountains from Missouri, heading for Oregon. Their trip was hot, dry, and dangerous, although no Indians threatened the journey, only lack of water, death of animals, and sometimes lack of food.  My Aunt Apal describes their first view of Boise in August, 1878: Shouts of joy rang along the wagon train as the beautiful green valley spread before them.  They followed the Boise River to Government Island, where they made camp.  They could see why Boise City had derived its name from the party of French Canadian voyageurs in 1834.

The wagon train rested near the Boise River to re-supply. Margrette was travel weary, as were other women in the camp. She wanted to remain and persuaded Isaac to do so. Isaac found a small house for $40 a month. He took odd jobs—clearing sagebrush and planting trees. Isaac and Margrette shared the one bed they owned and the children slept on feather beds on the floor. Margrette learned she was pregnant. She knew they needed more money, and her daughter Mollie needed decent clothes. Secretly, she worked for a lady down the street, earning some dollars.  Finally, she told Isaac what she was doing: “Women must fight side by side with their husbands for the home that is made in the West, for a chance at better things, for enough food and clothes for the children, and for their right to an education.  Education means clothes.  Life in the West is different: here life is a challenge.”

Margrette and Isaac’s daughter Mollie married Martin Burns, my great-grandfather, who also emigrated from Missouri.  He was much older than Mollie and worked in the North Star mine in Ketchum at the time he married Mollie in 1885.  Eventually, they moved back to the Boise area because Margrette was quite ill and soon died. Mollie and Martin had five children, two born on a homestead in Meridian. Grover, the oldest, established the Burns Photography Studio in Boise. My grandmother Elsie was also born in Meridian and attended college at the University of Idaho and then at Albion, a teacher’s college. Almia, Apal, and Waldo were all born in the Boise area where Martin had opened a store selling general merchandise. Isaac and Martin also sought gold in the Seafoam Mining area, north and west of Stanley, Idaho, near the Josephus lakes. A family legend bragged about a bag of gold buried there. Elsie taught school in Cambridge, Idaho, where she met my grandfather Frank, a railroad man. He spent his career with the Union Pacific, beginning as a telegrapher after the eighth grade and rising to be in charge of all the freight in the West. Elsie occupied herself by buying property around Boise and in McCall. She always dressed her best in a silk dress, high heels and hat with a veil, wearing large beads, earrings and rings. She was ready to deal.

My mother, born in Fruitland, Idaho, grew up in Twin Falls. She attended the University of Idaho and the University of Iowa, obtaining degrees in art. She and my father married in 1939 and moved to Chicago where he obtained his medical degree. After the war, they settled in Kellogg, where I and my siblings grew up. Mother taught art and Dad practiced medicine.

On the window sill of my office in Hailey, Idaho rest two photographs from the Burns Studio in Boise. My mother and her two cousins, Marthlyn Burke and Fern Lucille Burns, look out at me. They are young, fresh-faced, and beautiful.

Each cousin grew strong and brave and entered the world. Marthlyn (lower left) attended Stanford and joined the Red Cross, traveling to Europe during WWII. There, under the Eiffel Tower in Paris, she celebrated V-E Day and accepted the proposal of Jim, a major in the US Army. Together, they owned and ran an insurance brokerage for many years.

Fern Lucille (upper left) grew up in Boise, and then followed her father Grover in photography. She worked with Ansel Adams one summer.  When her father fell ill, she took over the Burns Studio when she was nineteen. During WWII, silver for the black and white photographs became difficult to obtain, so she closed the studio.

My mother, Marie Whitesel (right), painted her whole life. She was in turns glamorous, wearing swirly evening clothes and Chanel No. 5 perfume when she and my father went out for the evening to dance, or ordinary—an everyday housewife. She served on many women’s organizations, always rising to the top. Over the years and after my father died, she became increasingly involved with the University of Idaho, elected as the first woman leader of the Alumni Association and serving on the UI Foundation Board. The University awarded her an honorary doctorate degree. It also held numerous exhibits of her artwork, including a major retrospective. One of her etchings hung in the New York World’s Fair in 1938. She painted Idaho.

Sheepherder on horse
Marie painting at McCall
Salmon River

My mother’s generation inspired me to go to law school when few women did. After thirty-some years practicing law in Seattle, I turned to writing about Idaho, the home of my heart. I have traveled to Josephus Lakes where my great-great-grandfather and my great-grandfather mined for gold. My husband and I didn’t spend time looking for gold nuggets. Instead, we fished for rainbow trout. The heritage my ancestors and my mother and father left me was worth more than a sack of gold: a love of Idaho, its high hidden lakes, its sagebrush deserts and the saw teeth of the central mountains tearing the sky. The mountain ranges of both southern and northern Idaho: Pioneers, Smokeys, Boulders, Sawtooths, White Clouds, Bitterroots, Lost River and Salmon River Ranges. The clear waters of Payette Lakes set amid the tall pines of Idaho forests. These are the places my family gave to me.

Smoky Mountains
View from Lower Stanley
Boulder Mountains

And I give to you the titles of books I can highly recommend, books by and about mostly women:

These Precious Days by Ann Patchett

Song of Achilles and Circe by Madeline Miller

We Should All be Feminists by Chimamanda Ngozi Adichie

Powder Days by Heather Hansman

Woman Inscribed by Margaret (Peggy) Grove

Okay, okay—and a few by men:

The Thursday Murder Club by R. Osman

Facing the Mountain by Daniel James Brown

Chasing History by Carl Bernstein

The Apollo Murders by Chris Hadfield

And don’t forget, my newest Nellie Burns and Moonshine Mystery, MINERS’ MOON, came out in December, 2021. You can find it at your local bookstores, Indiebound, or Amazon. Paperback and ebooks of my earlier Moon books should be available soon. I will be giving a program at the Idaho State Historical Museum on May 19. If you’re in Boise, please come!

The Magical Universe of the Ancients, a Desert Journal, with photography by Gerry Morrison and my journal is available at bigwoodbooks.com or on Amazon. If you plan to travel into the Four Corners area, it is a must buy. If you care about the Bears Ears Monument and other monuments and national parks, it is also a must buy. Paintings and drawings by Marie Whitesel Photographs by Gerry Morrison (except the three cousins)

Magical Universe book cover