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Bad Land: An American Romance Paperback – October 7, 1997

by Jonathan Raban (Author)
4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 364 ratings
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NATIONAL BESTSELLER • NATIONAL BOOK CRITICS CIRCLE AWARD WINNER • Startlingly observed, beautifully written, this book is a contemporary classic of the American West. • "As good a book as I have read about rural America in a very long time." —The New York Times Book Review

In 1909 maps still identified eastern Montana as the Great American Desert.  But in that year Congress, lobbied heavily by railroad companies, offered 320-acre tracts of land to anyone bold or foolish enough to stake a claim to them. Drawn by shamelessly inventive brochures, countless homesteaders—many of them immigrants—went west to make their fortunes. Most failed. In Bad Land, Jonathan Raban travels through the unforgiving country that was the scene of their dreams and undoing, and makes their story come miraculously alive.    

In towns named Terry, Calypso, and Ismay (which changed its name to Joe, Montana, in an effort to attract football fans), and in the landscape in between, Raban unearths a vanished episode of American history, with its own ruins, its own heroes and heroines, its own hopeful myths and bitter memories.
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Previous page
  1. Print length
    384 pages
  2. Language
    English
  3. Publication date
    October 7, 1997
  4. Dimensions
    5.2 x 0.87 x 8.01 inches
  5. ISBN-10
    0679759069
  6. ISBN-13
    978-0679759065
  7. See all details
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Editorial Reviews

Amazon.com Review

Jonathan Raban ambles and picks his way across the Montana prairie, called "The Great American Desert" until Congress offered 320-acre tracts of barren land to immigrants with stardust in their eyes. Raban's prose makes love to the waves of land, red dirt roads, and skeletons of homesteads that couldn't survive the Dirty Thirties. As poignant as any romance novel, there's heartbreak in the failed dreams of the homesteaders, a pang of destiny in the arbitrary way railroad towns were thrown into existence, and inspiration in the heroism of people who've fashioned lives for themselves by cobbling together homes from the ruined houses of those who couldn't make it. Through it all, Raban's voice examines and honors the vast open expanses of land and pays homage to the histories of families who eked out an existence.

Review

A New York Times Editors' Choice for Book of the Year
Winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award
Winner of the PEN West Creative Nonfiction Award

"As good a book as I have read about rural America in a very long time." —The New York Times Book Review

"No one has evoked with greater power the marriage of land and sky that gives this country both its beauty and its terror. " —The Washington Post Book World

"Exceptional.... A beautifully told historical meditation. " —Time

"Championship prose.... In fifty years don't be surprised if Bad Land is a landmark." —Los Angeles Times

Product details

  • Publisher ‏ : ‎ Vintage; Reprint edition (October 7, 1997)
  • Language ‏ : ‎ English
  • Paperback ‏ : ‎ 384 pages
  • ISBN-10 ‏ : ‎ 0679759069
  • ISBN-13 ‏ : ‎ 978-0679759065
  • Item Weight ‏ : ‎ 11.2 ounces
  • Dimensions ‏ : ‎ 5.2 x 0.87 x 8.01 inches
  • Customer Reviews:
    4.1 4.1 out of 5 stars 364 ratings

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Jonathan Raban

Jonathan Raban

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Customer reviews

4.1 out of 5 stars
4.1 out of 5
364 global ratings
Man versus nature exemplified.
3 Stars
Man versus nature exemplified.
This books is a classic tale of what happens when humans try to force their desired land use on a region unable to accommodate that use. Like Sod and Stubble, this is another story about the struggles of Plains settlers trying to make their prairie lands produce crops dispite the fact that the soil and climate aren't suited to row crops. Prairie plants grow well in soil with low fertility and soil moisture. That's why the Great Creator, in all his wisdom put the prairie plants there in the first place. The reason the government gave this land away instead of selling it for a market value is because the land was bad for cropping, hence the name Bad Land. When farmers came in and tried to establish wheat, corn and other grains and vegetables, the crops repeatedly failed and the families suffered. The biggest lesson of this book isn't that the immigrant farmers overcame hardships, it's that people shouldn't try to force unsuitable uses on the land, and if the government wants to give you something for free, you should ask why.
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Top reviews from the United States

David V. DeRosa
5.0 out of 5 stars This is a great book
Reviewed in the United States on July 31, 2009
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I drove through Montana in June when my friend and I took a cross country trip so my friend could settle in Seattle. The most unusual landscape we came across was the badlands. I really fell in love with Western Montana and intend to visit again, but Eastern Montana was an alien enviornment. I never realized it existed in the United States. When you are out there, you can get only one radio station, and you rarely, if ever, see another vehicle on the road.

I then saw this book in the bookstore, and picked it up, lost it, and purchased it again from here. I found the book well written, and very insightful travel log into a very unique area of the country. This book is about the mostly unsuccessful attempt to settle this portion of America and illustrates what happens when the best of America ambition meets with an alien enviornment that refuses to bend to American farming or productive development methods.

The author, an English man that has relocated to Seattle, has a keen eye and subtle insight into America and the people that settled Montana 100 years ago. I think he describes the landscape accurately and with great artistry, and humanizes, in a powerful way, a people and the place they created with strong succinct prose. I definitely found myself nodding my head about many of his descriptions, and amazed that he did it.

The author describes that the few hardy folks left out there are like sailors on the sea of the prairie. I am in midst of reading the book, but it paints an incredible picture of the failure of mass settlement in this land, and those few hardy souls who are sticking it out to this day. It truly is an American Romance in every sense of the words.
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C. J. Kemp
4.0 out of 5 stars I enjoyed it
Reviewed in the United States on December 10, 2023
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Okay, mixed review. This is a good book. Maybe a little longer than it needed to be. Four stars, not five. As Raban found his way into the material, the early chapters don't seem to have clear boundaries -- as in, I'm not really sure what each chapter was about, actually. There's a pretty dry spot in the book between around page 100 and page 160. Once you get past it, there's a lot to appreciate here and I enjoyed the book a lot.
2 people found this helpful
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Old School
3.0 out of 5 stars Excellent book but highly over-rated.
Reviewed in the United States on January 7, 2013
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I have mixed feelings about this book. That's probably partially due to the testimonials included in the book which set a very high standard. For example, it's claimed that the book was the New York Times editor's choice for book of the year. Perhaps in a specialized category but it still seems to be a bit of hyperbole along with some of the other testimonials. Perhaps my mixed feelings are also influenced because I read Raban's, "Old Glory" some years ago and had some real issues with it. That book received quite a bit of criticism for having a condescending attitude towards Americans. Although I do agree with those criticisms, I didn't find that it was a big issue for me but I was disappointed by the misinformation that Raban included in that book bordering on - well, outright fabrications. Just one example from memory: Raban claims that, as he was on the Northern Mississippi in his motorboat in Minnesota and Wisconsin, the river was running high and the trees were literally filled with rattlesnakes hanging from the branches and there were so many rattlesnakes, according to Raban, that they were trying to get into his boat! Anyone who knows that area well, including myself, knows that is simply ridiculous. Yes, there are timber rattlesnakes in that area but they stay in the rocky bluffs above the river and would not have to climb trees to avoid high water. Their normal habit is perfectly safe from high water. They are also so rare that they are on the endangered species list in those states, I believe, and they are shy as snakes go, avoiding people. Even locals are lucky to ever see one.

I just mention that as a single example of how Raban's credibility is questionable, in my opinion. He made numerous other questionable claims in Old Glory. Of course, I'm not reviewing Old Glory here but I just wanted to mention that because I was prepared for the same in this book.

Well, it turns out that Raban clearly did a lot of research while writing this book. I learned a lot about a region of the country that is one of the only regions of the U.S. that I know very little about. As a professional landscape photographer who has traveled to just about every nook and cranny of America, the prairies of Eastern Montana and the Dakotas are a region I simply know very little about. I have generally bypassed those areas. In Bad Land, Raban filled in a lot of blanks for me. I know have a much greater understanding of the struggles of the people who homesteaded that region and, as someone with a serious interest in history, I found the book to be very enlightening and entertaining.

That said, because I was on the lookout for false claims by the author because of Old Glory, I did find some of Bad Land a bit annoying. Raban quotes entire casual conversations that took place 100 years ago that he would have no possible way of knowing about. Even surviving members of the families involved would not possibly remember the exact wording of casual conversations that took place when they were youngsters and weren't even present anyway. But Raban even goes further and tells us the inner thoughts of people 100 years ago. The problem is that Raban presents this as historical fact but he is using his imagination to fill in blanks and he is certainly coloring things based on his own experiences and biases. At least late in the book he admits that he is using "imaginative reconstruction." If someone else had written the book using their own imaginative reconstruction, the story may have been very different. The reader should be aware of this. On the other hand, Raban needed to fill in the blanks to give the reader a more complete picture but the way those blanks are filled in can have a great impact on the story.

I probably would have given this book four stars but, unfortunately, near the end of the book, Raban couldn't resist ridiculing and expressing disdain for conservatives that share the very same values as the characters he has written about in Bad Land. Why he felt the need to reveal that he looks down upon people with conservative values is beyond me. In fact, that must have offended the people living in that region who would be the very people most interested in this rather specialized book. He makes it clear in Bad Land that if you are not a "progressive" (read socialist), you are a backwards redneck. I got the feeling that anyone who owned a gun or dared to vote republican would be considered to be a cretin by Raban. This is very unfortunate. That left a bitter taste and I admit that it influenced this review. Raban simply couldn't resist the expressing the condescending attitude towards the people he writes about which he was so criticized for in Old Glory. And it was so unnecessary.
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Top reviews from other countries

Mercurius
5.0 out of 5 stars Masterly creative nonfiction centring in the Euro-American settlement of the Great Plains.
Reviewed in Canada on February 11, 2021
Verified Purchase
Skillful weave of narrative elements evoking the history of the Great Plains, specifically (Eastern) Montana, notably at and after the homesteading of the 1910s. Part proves to stand for the whole as Raban comes to describe pretty much a century of American history, with its destructive political consequences even more apparent now.
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Nick S
5.0 out of 5 stars Magnificent
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on February 19, 2023
Verified Purchase
Bad Land deserves to be better known. It's a beautifully written story about the desolate lands of eastern Montana, the portrayal of them as a potential land of milk and honey by the U.S government and the railroads, both of them keen to populate. And the innocently hopeful homesteaders captivated by the promises and the giveaway land, divided into mathematic grids.
Raban gives a part-historical narrative within a series of personal stories of the people who arrived only to face incredible hardship from the landscape and the weather. He is deeply sympathetic to them, to the families, their resilience, dogged hard work, illusory successes and ultimate failures. I was gripped by the geography, by this (to me) unknown place far away.
The land might be dry but the book isn't. Part of that is reflected in the freedom Raban gives himself to create some dialogue and describe situations in a fictional way, inspired by his depth of research into the factual. It also describes his historical research explorations in the region, in the present (1995) and draws some parallels between the isolation and deception of the 1900s settlers and their descendants, deeply (sometimes violently) suspicious of the big cities and big government.
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J. Solera
4.0 out of 5 stars Badland by Jonathan Raban
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on December 7, 2011
Verified Purchase
The book has been an eye-opener for me on a part of America of which I knew almost nothing and it has made me want to investigate more about the early settler communities in America. What particularly strikes me is how the combination of weather, soil, water and space made such a difficult living for the early farmers and I am amazed by their fortitude in perservering.

What the settlers didn't realise, sadly, is how they were exploited by the Government and their advertising people.

Jonathan Raban made me laugh a lot too, he has such a dry sense of humour.

The book is just the right length, 321 pages, and I was sorry it came to an end.
2 people found this helpful
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Chrissy Frost
5.0 out of 5 stars Hardy settlers forge a life in Montana
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on September 3, 2020
Verified Purchase
Raban's exploration of the early settlers in Montana is fascinating. Lured west by lively advertising brochures extolling the potential of Montana's allegedly verdant farmland, these brave souls found themselves isolated in a harsh climate with hostile weather and dry, unproductive land. At odds with ranchers, these inexperienced farmers strove to cultivate their acres for five years, and claim the homestead rights offered by the US government. Some thrived eventually but many were defeated and turned their back on the dream of a farming future. Travelling through modern day Montana, Raban uncovers the ghosts and stories of those who arrived with such high hopes - and how the rural culture of Montana evolved to the present day. My own Great Aunt Hannah was one of these settlers who, as a young single woman, homesteaded an acreage near Great Falls. She eventually left it behind and the land was divided amongst her nieces and nephews following her death.
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barbara laws
4.0 out of 5 stars Four Stars
Reviewed in the United Kingdom on August 23, 2015
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