In Open Spaces: Carter County

Carter County, my county, forms the far southeastern corner [of Montana], sprawling like an old wool blanket spread carelessly across the ground, complete with ridges, wrinkles, hollows, and an occasional hole. The closest thing Carter County can claim to a mountain is the buttes—a series of sandstone flattops that look like the beginning of mountains, as though some ambitious fellow came along and started building a mountain ridge, but didn’t have the energy to finish it. Finger Buttes cross the county at an angle, south to northwest, like giant stones laid out to keep the wind from blowing the blanket away. (2)

Rowland, Russell. In Open Spaces. New York: Harper Perennial, 2002.

About the Book

Horse Tracks

In Open Spaces tells the story of Blake Arbuckle’s coming of age on the family ranch in Carter County, Montana. Beginning in the 1910s and concluding in the 1940s, the novel shows how Blake navigates tragedy, family conflict, tough weather and the ranching business. Blake turns out to be a survivor with a penchant for dry wit and a great curve ball. Rowland’s novel locates the reader in an often overlooked part of the state through the self-effacing but engaging voice of his protagonist.

“Russell Rowland has given us a vivid and distinctive piece of homespun to take its proper place in the literary quilt of the West.”
— Ivan Doig on In Open Spaces

While the settings in In Open Spaces clearly reference actual locales, it is understood that the book—including its places—is ultimately the product of the author’s imagination. The intent of this literary map is to enrich the reading experience by interpreting those places, not to render them literally or definitively.

About the Author

Russell Rowland

Russell Rowland has an MA in Creative Writing from Boston University. He has published three novels. In Open Spaces (2002) received a starred review from Publisher’s Weekly and made the San Francisco Chronicle‘s bestseller list. The sequel, The Watershed Years (2007), was a finalist for the High Plains Book Award for fiction, as was his third novel, High and Inside (2013). He also co-edited an anthology of essays by writers from the West, West of 98: Living and Writing the New American West. He currently lives in Billings, Montana, where he teaches at Montana State University Billings.