Winter Range

A Montana sheriff’s marriage and reputation are put to the test when the cattle of his wife’s ex begin to starve in this “gripping” literary debut (Booklist).

Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for Best First Novel and the Mountains and Plains Booksellers Award for Best Novel

“This debut novel by a Pushcart Prize winner brilliantly weaves the intimate everyday details of ranching and small-town life into the story of three very complicated people struggling to survive, to belong, and to love in a chillingly bleak landscape. Davis's descriptions of the land are breathtaking.” —Library Journal

Ike Parsons is a small-town Montana sheriff whose life is stable and content; his wife, Pattiann, is a rancher’s daughter with a secret past. But when Ike tries to help a hardluck cattleman named Chas Stubblefield, he triggers Chas’s resentment and finds his home and his wife targeted by a plot for revenge.

“This is a novel of social class and a dreadful climate, of Americans in desperate circumstances trying—and sometimes failing—to live peaceful lives.” —The Washington Post

“With lyrical precision, Daviss describes a way of life in which actions are more eloquent than words.” —The New Yorker

“Fresh and provocative . . . Davis’s literary ethos rivals Larry Watson, Kent Haruf, and Ivan Doig.” —San Francisco Chronicle