This totally surprised me. I found it on the library discard book shelves and the fact that both Lily Tomlin and Barry Goldwater blurbed it made it too intriguing to pass up. It's the story of a woman's life in early 20th c. Arizona, unceasingly harsh, but beautifully written and with some wonderful twists. The hardships she endures may make you feel the tiniest bit lazy if your job is cushier than cooking for miners or laboring as an itinerant farm worker. I'll certainly be complaining less!

For fans of The Moonflower Vine and The Good House. ( )

This moving novel of pioneer life in Arizona has become a classic. Based on the life of the author's mother, it overturns every stereotype of western womanhood.

"Comes closer to the truth and the validity of the so-called winning of the West than anything I have ever read. It is terrifying, heartbreaking and remarkable. . . . Filaree is also one of the most magnificent portraits of a woman that exists in our literature."--Howard Fast

"I loved Filaree, I didn't just read it, I crawled between the pages and lived it."--Lily Tomlin

"An extraordinary performance. . . . a powerful antidote to the romantic illusions some people have about ranch people and life on the range. . . . As a writer, Mrs. Noble makes no compromises. She tells her story in plain country American dialect, offers no exaggerated sex or violence, no vulgar talk. She is a realist in the best sense, a breath of fresh air in these free-wheeling times."--C. L. Sonnichsen

ABOUT THE CONTRIBUTORS

Marguerite Noble (1910 - 2007) was an important Arizona novelist, teacher and community member.

ACCLAIM

"The literature style of Filaree is simple, fitting to the people, time, place."
-- Library Journal

"Filaree . . . celebrates her adaptability and accomplishment. This novel is a spunky commemoration of the stubborn spirit of the frontier to resist, survive, and prevail."
-- Western American Literature

". . . an engrossing tale . . . recommended for historical fiction readers."
-- The Midwest Book Review

This book by my beloved seventh grade teacher, who taught me just about all I know about the English sentence structure, is a fictionalized account of her mother, who rode a wagon trail from Texas to Arizona in the early 1900's. If you are interested in what life was like for pioneering women in the West, this is a book that will lay it out for you. Marguerite Nobel was the real deal, a Westerner through and though, who was as cowboy tough as she was literate. ( )