Breakfast In Montana

Ryan Busse worked as a top executive in the gun industry for several decades. "I sold millions of guns," he says. But Busse became increasingly disillusioned with the NRA's influence on the industry he loved, to the point that he felt compelled to write about his experience. Gunfight is part memoir, part expose on how this industry has fallen under the influence of the NRA and the Republican party. Ryan's take on the Second Amendment and using is as an excuse for being able to own whatever guns and as many guns as you want is particularly fascinating. We paired Mr. Busse's book with one of our favorite books about Montana's early pioneer years, the memoir by Teddy "Blue" Abbott, who went on his first cattle drive from Texas to Montana when he was 14 years old. Abbott explodes most of the myths about what it was like to be a cowboy in the early days of cattle ranching in Montana.

Thomas Savage was a novelist who grew up in Beaverhead County, Montana, on a sheep ranch. He published a dozen novels but was sadly overlooked while he was alive, despite receiving resounding critical acclaim for his entire career. His work was rediscovered around the turn of the century, thanks in large part to the praises of Annie Proulx and Tom McGuane, and his best novel, The Power of the Dog, is about to appear on the big screen in a film adapted by Oscar winning screenwriter Jane Campion (The Piano), who also directed it.

Alan Weltzien has recently published an outstanding biography of Thomas Savage that not only digs deeply into his personal life, which was complicated by chronic alcohol abuse, and the fact that he lived as a family man despite the fact that he knew from a young age that he was homosexual, as well as a life-long struggle to find the recognition so many people knew he deserved. Weltzien has been researching Savage's work for more than twenty years, and his insights into each of his novels, as well as his complicated relationship with Montana, is extremely well written and meticulously researched, thanks in large part to the cooperation Alan received from Savage's surviving family.

John Maclean, son of Montana icon Norman Maclean, has become a fine writer in his own right, and he recently published what he calls 'a chronicle' of his life with his father and his own relationship to Norman's enormously successful novella, A River Runs Through It. Home Waters is a terrific tale that explores the importance and complicated nature of relationships between fathers and sons, and about how he and his father both become fascinated with fishing and fires. We had the great pleasure of talking with John for a solid hour about what this experience was like for him.

For our twenty-second episode, we had the great pleasure of sitting down for over an hour with Doug Peacock, who has been fighting to save the grizzly bear for decades now, and when you read his fabulous book, Grizzly Years, you get a deeper understanding of why he has such a passion for this cause. After Doug returned from his tour in Vietnam, during the worst years of the war, he escaped into the wilderness to try and find some healing, and Grizzly Years is his account of that period in his life, as well as a powerful memoir of his time in Vietnam.  And we pair Mr. Peacock with one of his dear friends, and one of the legends of Montana literature, William Kittredge, who was director of the Creative Writing program at the University of Montana for decades, and also co-edited one of the classic anthologies of the West, The Last Best Place. We talk about his book The Nature of Generosity.

For this episode, we're breaking out of the box a little by exploring the world of literature from the perspective of a musician. Joey Running Crane is an accomplished recording artist from the Blackfeet Reservation. He has recorded with several bands, including the fabulously named Goddamit Boyhowdy, and Dirty Bird. His solo album, Dog Winter, was released in 2019. And part of the reason we chose to talk to Joey was because he is a huge James Welch fan. James Welch is one of the most highly acclaimed writers in Montana's rich literary history, and he also grew up on the Blackfeet Reservation. So Joey gives us some fabulous insights into what makes Welch such a powerful writer about the Native American experience. We chose one of Welch's lesser known novels, The Death of Jim Loney.

For our nineteenth episode, we feature one of our most recent poet laureates, Tami Haaland and two of her poetry collections, When We Wake in the Night, and What Does Not Return. And we also talk about one of Tami's mentors, Madeline DeFrees, who taught at the University of Montana Creative Writing Department for about twelve years and was a highly regarded poet around the country. We discuss her collection Blue Dusk.

For this episode, Russell and Aaron interview Montana's current Poet Laureate, Melissa Kwasny, about her non-fiction book, Putting on the Dog, which is about the nature of clothes and where they come from. Melissa spent five years traveling all over the world, visiting places a mink farm in Denmark, to explore how people go about growing and preparing the materials we use to make our clothing.

For this episode of Breakfast in Montana, Aaron and Russell talk about two very powerful collections of stories, Black Cherries, published in 1931 by Grace Stone Coates, and The Ballet at the Moose Lodge, by Caroline Patterson.

For this episode, Aaron and Russell discuss one of the classic novels of Native American literature, The Surrounded, published in 1936 by D'Arcy McNickle, along with an amazing collection of contemporary poetry by Sean Hill, who lives in Helena and studied at Stanford, as well as the University of Houston.

For Episode Fifteen, Aaron Parrett and Russell Rowland have a fabulous conversation with John Taliaferro, biographer extraordinaire, about his new book, Grinnell, about George Bird Grinnell, the man who was called the Father of American Conservation at the time of his death. We also talk about a couple of Grinnell's own books, The Fighting Cheyennes, and Blackfoot Lodge Tales.