The Blizzard of '32 - Paperback

by Richard Sterry (Author)

The Blizzard of '32 is a dazzling novel about family and fate.

To support herself and her two youngest children, Adelia Anderson teaches at a tiny school on Montana's remote Hi-Line. They live in a two-room teacherage made from an old grain bin. As the Great Depression tightens its grip on the nation, money and food are scarce, but Christmas is coming and so is Eddie, Adelia's firstborn, after being released from state prison. Her wayward oldest daughter, Rubyann, arrives unexpectedly for the holiday, and so does Swan, Adelia's long-estranged husband. As emotions swirl, a fierce blizzard sweeps across the prairie, and by the time the storm clears, their lives have changed forever.

"Absolutely authentic!" -- Mary Clearman Blew, All But the Waltz

"With prose as clear and fresh as that first breath of subzero air on a Western winter day, The Blizzard of '32 is a crackling good story with an irresistible setting of time and place. I couldn't put it down."

-David McCumber, author of The Cowboy Way: Seasons on a Montana Ranch

Author Biography

Richard Sterry was raised on a wheat farm on the Hi-Line of Montana. He took a B.A. at Northern Montana College, where he had a baseball scholarship and wrote satirical articles for the student newspaper, the NoMoCo. Following graduation, he taught high school English at Chester, a small town on the Hi-Line, and then enrolled at the University of Montana where he took a master's degree. While studying there, he spent two summers manning a fire tower overlooking the Bob Marshal Wilderness. He was awarded a Woodrow Wilson Fellowship and enrolled in the American Studies PhD program at Michigan State. He has taught at Monmouth College in New Jersey and at Idaho State University, and he was a visiting professor at Otaru University in Hokkaido, Japan. He is a doting grandfather and an avid gardener. He's been married to the same tolerant woman for almost fifty years. He lives in Eugene, Oregon.

Praise for Richard Sterry's first novel, Over The Fence

"This crisp comic novel [keeps] simmering briskly to the bitter end." -- New York Times

"Told with rich humor."-- Boston Globe

"More than a typical novel. Much more." -- San Francisco Chronicle