Blunt, Judy, Breaking clean.

Random House. Vintage. 303p. map c2002. 0-375-701303. $13.00. SA

Reflecting on a period from the late 1950s through the 1990s, Blunt recounts her life as she grew up on an isolated ranch an hour's drive south of Malta, Montana. Her family--she was one of five children--was not dysfunctional, but from an early age she struggled against the expectation that she would marry, have children, and become another ranch wife. While she loved her mother and admired her capabilities as a homemaker and horsewoman, she didn't want to become like her. She missed doing so by a hairbreadth. While Blunt escaped ranching through divorce and built for herself the life she craved, her life on the range of Montana inexorably shaped her. In appealing vignettes, told in vivid descriptive language, readers learn what that life was like.

Ranching meant a close relationship with animals, the creatures her family raised lovingly and then sold or ate (chickens. pigs, cattle), the ones that served them in a Rind of partnership (cats, dogs, milk cows, horses), and the fauna they encountered in the wild (skunks, rabbits, porcupines, rattlesnakes, deer). Blizzards could come up with little warning, and Blunt recalls one in particular that rattled her family's home, destroyed livestock, and nearly claimed the life of her father.

There were few people within her purview--siblings and parents, neighbors, teachers--but those she related to with a fierce intimacy. Medical emergencies were complicated by Montana remoteness and long distances to care centers. Fire brought out exhausting community effort. School began in a one-room country school taught mostly by local women, but eventually Blunt attended high school in Malta and learned about what the world "outside" was like. Her family's interest in the outside world related mostly to what directly affected the ranchers--commodity prices, weather, local events--but news about the changes tearing at the social fabric in the 1960s and 1970s eventually made it to Blunt's part of the world, and some of it resonated powerfully with her.

Readers will enjoy learning about ranch life through Blunt's stories, but they will also relish a glimpse into the inner life of a remarkable, talented woman. This boor will be popular with readers of personal narrative and should show up in the bibliographies of women's studies and writing courses. Edna M. Boardman, Bismark, ND