Customer Reviews

Mountain City

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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.

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.

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.

Most of the interior West is a space to be crossed, an unforgiving swath of rugged mountains and empty plains on the way to somewhere else. The final destination isn't always geographical, but is often a state of mind, of self-worth or of sheer will. And all along the way are places where folks have stopped to catch their breath or gather their wits before moving on to whatever waits at the end of the line.

Such is the place explained in "Mountain City."

On the first page of Gregory Martin's atmospheric memoir, only 33 people still live in Mountain City, just a ragged shred of civilization in remote northeastern Nevada, like a scrap of old newspaper stubbornly clinging to a sagebrush. The town's mining heydays -- and there are a few -- are the stuff of both memories and dreams, "a Western archetype for hope and failed hope and failure":

Less spiritual than "Dakota" by Kathleen Norris and more desolate than "The Meadow" by James Galvin, "Mountain City" celebrates the alternate Western seasons of promise and pessimism, arrival and abandonment. Hardened like the place he sketches against the vagaries of life, Martin writes sensitively without being maudlin, as if pity were something he discovered late in life.

He finds beauty in the abandoned shacks of Mountain City, courage in the elderly people who stay in Mountain City and trust the cycle of prosperity to come 'round one more time. And he sees wisdom in the temporary and mobile, like the trailers that come and go with the capricious fortunes of time and place:

Mountain City, the town, is unlikely to survive our lifetime, but this book preserves it (and other places like it) forever in the collective conscience, like a road sign pointing the way to a place and a state of mind that no longer exist.

I was very touched by the story of the people in Mountain City. I enjoy books about real people, whom from the outside seem as if there is no story but from the inside have warmth and wisdom. How many towns have you driven through and thought ," who lives here, what do they do?" Well now we know. Greg Martin wrote an excellent book and it should be must reading for all people interested in the real heartland of this country.

Gregory Martin has filled a large gap for American literature. With Mountain City, he has captured a region of the country that has often been ignored, not only bringing it to life but making me want to go visit right now. He writes without an ounce of pretense or waste, every portrait he paints containing just the right amount of color--and blank space. I think the New York Times hit it perfectly: Martin feels, and gets us to feel. When I put the book down, I wanted the inhabitants of Mountain City to always be there, Mel pouring his Black Velvet and 7-Up at Tremewan's Store every day at 5. Thanks to Gregory Martin's excellent book, they will always be there.

Gregory Martin's "Mountain City" draws us into a small Nevada community and makes us care deeply about the members of his family who live there and their Basque and Indian neighbors. Martin shows us the ties that bind these last few remaining families and instills respect for their values. No one is given to grandiloquent statements, but people look out for one another and help each other through the seasons, illnesses, tragedies, childbirth and death. Martin's prose is spare, not a word too much -- a bit like the conversational style of his relatives. The stories and fates of his protagonists are sometimes sad but never once sentimental. We know that the town of Mountain City is ultimately dying, but as long as the Tremewans and their neighbors inhabit it, it will still be full of life and an abiding sense of community, rooted in a strong shared Basque past.

When I read about the History of America, two aspects come to mind. And that is that America is made up of many different groups and many small towns. While the USA is perhaps more ethnically diverse then ever, small towns like Mountain City are disappearing from the landscape. I fear that one day we will all be living in cities, and then America will have lost something. Gregory Martin writes of his immigrant community with great affection and feeling. Many of the characters in his book are individuals who had lived in Mountain City when it was a relatively thriving town, and refused to leave when the town declined after the mines played out. It was somewhat chilling to imagine that in our lifetimes Mountain City may well cease to exist. The fact that I would be concerned about this is a testement to Martin's writing.

Ironically, I saw the review for Mountain City in the Arizona Republic newspaper. Imagine my surprise when I read the review and realized the author was writing about 'our' Mountain City. I grew up on one of the neighboring ranches he writes about and I still return often when we camp in the Bull Runs. My g-g-grandfather was one of the original settlers of Mountain City. No one paints a more realistic and compassionate view of this town that has been 'dying' since I was born. I have such fun memories of the rodeos and dances in the Miners Club when all the ranch families gathered on the 4th of July in Mountain City. Our family had the other 'store' at Riddle, Idaho where the Indians also traded. When my sister bought this book for me, I wondered how much interest there could be about this little town in the middle of nowhere. However, by the first chapter, I knew that Martin had written a story anyone would find interesting and heartwarming, even if you had never met the characters he writes about. (I can verify the authenticity of these people!) The phone lines were busy between my sister and I as we read this book. We laughed, cried and remembered a special time in our lives. Our only regret is that our father was not here to enjoy this book...we both kept thinking of Dad, who passed away 2 years ago. He would have loved it! I can't wait for Martin's next book.

My book jacket summary for this book would be "an American Angela's Ashes, only better!" This book is great. Gregory Martin does a fantastic job at pulling you into the middle of this miniscule town in Nevada. I grew up in New York and now live in Los Angeles, but every time I drive through the deserts of Nevada or Arizona I think of this book.