On Sarpy Creek

By Ira Stephens Nelson

Book Overview

On Sarpy Creek is a deeply moving family saga about a small Montana farming community in the decade after World War I. Many readers consider it a small masterpiece, yet this book was 'lost' for decades before being recently republished. The simple, unadorned style and strong story make On Sarpy Creek a true page-turner about life and love.

"An intriguing story that guarantees hours of escape. The characters are well developed, interesting, and fallible, and the ensemble makes for delightful reading." --Big Sky Journal

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 1931832366
• ISBN13: 9781931832366
• Release Date: October 2003
• Publisher: Riverbend
• Length: 309 Pages
• Weight: 0.95 lbs.
• Dimensions: 0.9" x 5.4" x 8.4"
• Age Range: 14 years and up

Customer Reviews

On Sarpy Creek

I thoroughly enjoyed reading this book. It gives me an image of what it could have been like to homestead on the prairies of Montana. It was actually written by my great grandmother's nephew. Although his parents are said to be his foster parents, Ira is listed as their son on the census. I too wish he had written more books.

Reminds me of my happy childhood summers at Sarpy Creek

I spent a couple of happy summers at Sarpy Creek as a very young child in the early 1970s while my Dad and teenaged brothers worked road construction in the area. It was our home away from home. Although I remember Sarpy Creek as more of an area than a community, the same things Ira Nelson described of the landscape of the 1920s was there in the 1970s. I purchased this book because of the title--nowhere else on earth have I heard the name Sarpy Creek. I knew it had to be the same place. I was captivated by the story of days gone by, of a struggling community of neighbors in an ever-changing world. Although the characters and story could have taken place in any small town in America, I enjoyed it more because it took place somewhere that I knew so well and because of the treasured memories I will always have of Sarpy Creek.

On Sarpy Creek

This is a wonderful book of early homesteaders in Montana. A true dipiction of a very hard way of life. This area is to this day, still mostly barren and sparsly populated. It is quite a shame that this was Ira Nelson's only novel.

A Montana Treasure

Last week while I was coming back from Miles City, Montana, and I saw Exit 72 to Sarpy Creek. I couldn't help but turn off the freeway to see the beautiful landscapes you'll find so wonderfully described in this Montana treasure. If you love Willa Cather, this book is for you. The life of homesteaders out on the eastern Montana prairie is detailed richly with some of the most fully realized women characters I've ever seen in this type of literature. Richly ironic and yet sweetly tender, I thought, too, of Thomas Hardy's *Under the Greenwood Tree* and its evocation of a time long past. The publishers are friends of mine and I thought they were exaggerating when they said what a good book this is because I figured I would have heard of it before if it was worth reading. I was wrong AGAIN. I didn't think anyone could match the lyricism of Jim Harrison's *Legends of the Fall*; you'll find it here. I didn't think anyone could match the hard look at pioneer reality like William Kittredge's short story, "The Stone Corral"; this book does. I didn't think anyone could touch the western romanticism of Owen Wister's *The Virginian"; it's here, too.

A beautiful, powerful novel

A deceptively simple novel, this is a profound work of art, an exploration of love and courage and hope; it tells of a farm family in Montana in the 1920's; tells of the connection of people to the land, in all its beauty and richness and harshness; tells of being connected to other people on the deepest levels. I cannot praise this book highly enough: it has depth but is a joy to read. Published first in 1938, it is a real find.