In this haunting parable of the American west, a young woman faces the violent past of a remote Montana valley.

In Montana’s Bitterroot Valley, young Ruthie Fear sees an apparition: a strange, headless creature near a canyon creek. Raised in a trailer by her stubborn, bowhunting father, Ruthie develops a powerful connection with the natural world but struggles to find her place in a society shaped by men. As she comes of age, her small community fractures in the face of class tension and encroaching natural disaster, and the creature she saw long ago reappears.

An entirely new kind of Western and the first novel from one of this generation’s most wildly imaginative writers, Ruthie Fear captures the destruction and rebirth of the modern American West with warmth, urgency, and grandeur. Maxim Loskutoff presents this place as balanced on a knife’s edge, at war with itself but still unbearably beautiful and full of love.

About the Author: Maxim Loskutoff is the critically acclaimed author of the story collection Come West and See. His stories and essays have appeared in numerous periodicals, including the New York Times, Chicago Tribune, Ploughshares, and the Southern Review. He lives in western Montana.