Mountain City [Paperback]

Gregory Martin (Author)

Book Description

Publication Date: June 4, 2001 | ISBN-10: 0865476160 | ISBN-13: 978-0865476165 | Edition: 1st

By the end of Gregory Martin's unsentimental but affecting memoir, only thirty-one people live in remote Mountain City, Nevada, and none of them are children. The town's abandoned mines are testimony to the cycle of promise, exploitation, abandonment, and attrition that has been the repeated story of the West. Yet the comings and goings at Tremewan's, the general store Martin's family has run for more than forty years, reveal a remarkably vibrant community that includes salty widows, Native Americans from a nearby reservation, and a number of Martin's deeply idiosyncratic Basque-descended relatives. Martin observes them as they persist in a difficult but rewarding existence and celebrates, with neither pity nor regret, the large and small dramas of their lives and their stubborn attachment to a place that seems likely to disappear in his lifetime.

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Tucked away in the northern reaches of Nevada, the small boom-and-bust mining town of Mountain City may seem like a ghostly speck on a map, but for Martin it is the quickened heart of the universe. In this gorgeously written, meticulously observed memoir, he probes the lingering old age of the town he romped in as a child and continues to visit. The center of the story, and of the town, is Tremewan's, the general store run by Martin's extended family, which serves the 30-odd residents of Mountain City and others from the outlying areas. Martin stocks shelves, bags groceries and absorbs the history of the town's bust, along with the news and jokes of the people who eke out a living in a place they continue to love. Most of the time, Martin's hometown is warm and homey, but it becomes less agreeable as the winter drags on and folks tire of the routine and limited company. A keen and witty observer, Martin captures the local characters with humor and nuance, never averting his eyes from the small flaws that make this community real. People bicker, the town widows form a tight-knit clique and his Basque uncle Mel, usually the effervescent town wag, hits the Black Velvet one hour before close every night, which sometimes turns him downright mean. Throughout, Martin shows how frailty is woven into the fabric of relations; he maintains an immediacy that highlights the humanity of his subjects and frames the steady press of time that is forcing an era of the American West deep into memory. Agent, Doug Stewart and Curtis Brown Ltd. (June)
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

From Library Journal

This small book is more than memoir or simply a tale about sense of place in a small northern Nevada town. It is the beautifully rendered story of a dying Western community. In this, his first book , Martin, who now lives in Seattle, portrays life in remote Mountain City, 84 mile from Elko. He centers his telling around Tremewan's store, where his Basque uncle Mel and aunt Lou Basanez, grandma and Gramps Tremewan, and cousin Mitch sell groceries to the town's 33 residents, area miners and ranchers, and the Indians from the nearby Duck Valley Reservation. And a good story it is. He weaves the history of this boomtown with its dwindling present, tells an intelligent and compelling story within a story, and describes the relationships between the people of Mountain City with precision and care. Of his uncle Mel, whose elaborate and wry humor entertains the town, his Martin writes, "He has a gift, an artist's gift, and it has to do with story telling, with creating a certain kind of atmosphere." This can also be said for Mel's nephew, Martin. Highly recommended for all libraries.
Sue Samson, Univ. of Montana Lib., Missoula
Copyright 2000 Reed Business Information, Inc. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

See all Editorial Reviews

Product Details

• Paperback: 204 pages
• Publisher: North Point Press; 1st edition (June 4, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0865476160
• ISBN-13: 978-0865476165
• Product Dimensions: 8.3 x 5.5 x 0.6 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 4.4 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (16 customer reviews)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #1,123,088 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

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Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Strong and spare, like the desert, January 6, 2002

By A Customer

This review is from: Mountain City (Paperback)

I was fortunate to hear Greg Martin give a reading from this book. Reading this book from end to end I heard the echo of his voice, the caring for his family, the strong feeling of place and anchoring he gets from Mountain City. Driving by, I have often wondered what it must be like to live in some of the small, lonely, almost-empty towns that aren't too hard to find in the West. I wonder where the people came from-and went to, and what happened, and this book gives me a glimpse into one such place. The smallness and sparseness aside, there's more history and depth than I would have thought driving by it. I'll look more carefully at other small places now.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars The Literature of Loss, May 1, 2001

By 

Ken Lamberton (Tucson, Arizona) - See all my reviews

This review is from: Mountain City (Hardcover)

Thomas McGuane says that "...all literature is about loss, or the recognition of loss..." and Gregory Martin's debute memoir certainly shows this to be true.

In Mountain City, Martin writes poignantly about a small town and a huge loss, about a place in rural northeastern Nevada, its people and their way of life--all leaning toward extinction. "Thirty-three people live in Mountain City," he says. "I come and go, but when I'm here that makes thirty-four." The community of ranchers, Native Americans, widows, and Martin's relatives, who are descendants of the original Basque settlers of the area, is already mostly abandoned to the past. There are no young families; one one, in fact, under forty.

"I sweep the floors," Martin writes, providing us with his intimate perspective as he helps out at his Uncle Mel's store. Martin is always in the background, always observing. He lets us see the salient details, without judgment, without pity. From the hub of Tremewan's general store, an anachronism not unlike the town itself, he shows us the slow erosion: a circle of widows who won't allow any other woman to join them until her husband is dead; a grandfather who no longer recognizes life-long friends due to his failing eyesight; an Owyhee Indian who lives from one government check to the next and on many bottles of wine in between.

By the end of the book there are two fewer people in Mountain City. But by then, we've come to see all of them as survivors. We admire them for their fierce tenacity, and we appreciate that Martin has shared their spirit with us.

9 of 9 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Sometimes you can never leave home, October 5, 2000

By 

Charles M. Nobles (Tulsa, OK United States) - See all my reviews
(VINE VOICE)    (REAL NAME)   

This review is from: Mountain City (Hardcover)

In the world of book publishing it seems that 2000 is the year of the memoir. There are literally hundreds of so-called memoirs being rushed to press. Most are a thinly veiled effort to cash in on the latest touchy-feely fad and will soon be piled on the growing remainder pile. A few, a precious few, are of an award-winning caliber and worth the reader's time. This is such a book. Mountain City is the story of a rural mining town in Nevada that has experienced the bust-and-boom times so typical of much of the West. It's population, once numbered in the thousands, now totals thirty-three. The town has experienced the off-told western tale of fame and fortune, good jobs and a promising future, and then the seemingly inevitable exploitation of the land and people and ultimate abandonment by those who promised the elusive pot of gold. Attrition follows soon after and the cycle begins again with every promising rumor or spoken hope by those that remain. It is a story as old as the West itself. So, what makes this book so special? Gregory Martin, unlike so many that grew up in the West, never really left Mountain City. Oh, to be sure he moved away and established a career away from this northern Nevada town that is 84 miles away from anything. However, he kept returning time and again to visit his grandparents and work in his uncle's general store. His memoir of not only the history of the town but its inhabitants is nothing short of wonderful. He has succeeded in telling the story of these descendants of Basque (Bascos) shepherds and Cornish Tin Miners; Native American Indians; and assorted others that at once introduces the reader to a small slice of contemporary western life and the history of much of the West as a whole. The reader will meet many of the 33 permanent residents. People such as Uncle Mel, the owner of Tremewan's. Tremewan's is the town general store. In fact it is the only store in town and thus the social and cultural center. This is, if you don't count the bar frequented by the four widow ladies that meet to discuss town matters and pull the levers of the slot machines. Membership is limited to those whose husbands are dead...not just gone, but dead. It is a story of growing old, watching out for each other, and hoping, always hoping, that things will improve. It is also the story of self-reliance, stubbornness, love, and the acceptance of a most difficult but rewarding experience. This is an honest, moving, touching story of a way of life that in many respects is disappearing from the West. The folks in Mountain City know it's better days are gone, probably for good. Yet a few stay and rather than become hardened where it matters most, in their soul, they maintain a stoic yet determined demeanor that values the individual while it supports the collective community. That is also a trait common to the history of the West. This is a marvelous book not only in the way it is written but also in the story it tells. For those readers interested in the West this is a must read. For those living in the West this book will help remind you of the values still found in places 84 miles from nowhere.