Elise Atchison Home

CRAZY MOUNTAIN

CRAZY MOUNTAIN

Elise Atchison

♦ High Plains Book Award

♦ Montana Arts Council Grant

♦ Eludia Book Award

♦ Barbara Deming Grant

BOOK TRAILER

Watch Crazy Mountain Book Trailer created by Craig Lancaster.

BOOK REVIEWS & INTERVIEWS

The Write Question Interview:

Lauren Korn interviews Elise Atchison about Crazy Mountain and the concept of relating to the land as commodity or community in the rapidly changing West.

High Plains Book Review:

“A literary tour de force unfolding in an unusual format that is effective and compelling. Fifty years. Fifteen chapters. Fifteen perspectives, each molded by deeply human needs. ... Throughout this bold, unorthodox structural choice, Atchison continues to surprise her reader and, as each new character and perspective is explored, invites the reader to see things anew and in a more comprehensive manner. ... Crazy Mountain is a wise and wonderful book.” – Sue Bach

The Open Mic Interview:

Richard Ehisen interviews Elise Atchison about Crazy Mountain, rebel writers, and Georgia O’Keeffe.

Kirkus Reviews Book Review:

“An elegant, eco-minded collection of tales set in a Montana valley.”

Big Sky Journal Book Review:

“Who owns the land? ... This question is often debated in the Northern Rockies at bars, cafes, and, most aggressively, on social media sites. It’s also the question posed with fervor and precision in Elise Atchison’s debut novel Crazy Mountain ... in a swirl of voices that builds to a symphony of soul-stirring humanity.” – Marc Beaudin

Breakfast in Montana Interview:

Russell Rowland and Aaron Parrett interview Elise Atchison and discuss Crazy Mountain and Tom McGuane’s Panama.

Montana Quarterly Book Review:

“With telling, true-to-the-West descriptions, Atchison’s moving story sits heavy with a deep love for wild open spaces.” – Jennifer Bisbing

Mountain Journal Interview:

Todd Wilkinson interviews Elise Atchison.

Livingston Enterprise Interview:

Liz Kearney interviews Elise Atchison.

Craig Lancaster’s List of books featuring characters navigating the contemporary American West:

“It’s easy to live on the fault lines of conflict in the West today and be judgmental about who’s right and who’s wrong. What I love about Elise Atchison’s debut novel is that she avoids those binaries and instead tells the story of a changing Western town through the lens of the land, which bears the transformations—for good or for ill—but also has its own say.”

RECENT NEWS & EVENTS:

Short story forthcoming in Deep Wild, June 2024.

Saturday, April 27, 2024: Come celebrate independent bookstore day with Elise Atchison, Mark Fiege and Christina Hill at Country Bookshelf, Bozeman.

April 21, 2024: Honored to have been a finalist for the de Groot Foundation Courage to Write Grant.

Tuesday, April 9, 2024: Maggie Anderson and Elise Atchison at the Boulder Community Library.

April 8, 2024: Thrilled that Crazy Mountain is a First Horizon Award Finalist.

March 13, 2024: Pleased that Crazy Mountain is included on Craig Lancaster’s List of “books featuring characters navigating the contemporary American West.”

Saturday, February 24, 2024, Author Night, Western Legacy Center, Whitehall. Sorry to have to miss this! Drop by and support the authors and WLC if you are in the area.

Thursday, Feb 15, 2024: The Write Question interview with Lauren Korn, Montana Public Radio.

October 7, 2023: Crazy Mountain won the High Plains First Book Award.

Saturday, October 7, 2023: High Plains Book Festival: Literature and the Land Panel with Elise Atchison, Taylor Brorby, Bobb Budd, and David Carpenter, Billings, Montana.

Thursday, October 5, 2023: Visting Author, Capstone English Class with Prof. Bernard Quetchenbach, Montana State University Billings.

September 7-10, 2023: Montana Book Festival: Stories as Communal Narratives Panel with Elise Atchison, Sindya Bhanoo and Steve Fox, moderated by Robert Stubblefield, Missoula, Montana.

Monday, August 28, 2023: Craig Lancaster in Conversation with Elise Atchison, This House of Books, Billings, Montana, 6:30 p.m.

Tuesday, August 15, 2023. Moderating Elk River Writers Workshop Panel: Writing Through Trauma with Maggie Anderson and Brad Orsted, Tuesday, 1:30 – 3 pm., Chico Hot Springs, Montana.

June, 2023: Crazy Mountain is a finalist for the High Plains First Book Award. Winners announced in October.

Friday, June 30, 2023: Crazy Mountain Reading at Western Legacy Center, Whitehall, Montana.

Wednesday, June 21, 2023: Crazy Mountain One Book Big Sky discussion, Big Sky Library, Big Sky, Montana.

Thursday, June 15, 2023: Moderating Local Authors in Conversation with Maggie Anderson and Doug Peacock, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, Montana, 6:00 p.m.

Thursday, April 13, 2023: Local Authors in Conversation: Allen Morris Jones and Elise Atchison, Country Bookshelf, Bozeman, Montana, 6:00 p.m.

Saturday, February 11, 2023: Author Night at the Western Legacy Center, Whitehall, Montana, 5:00 p.m.

January 4, 2023: Guest Author, The Open Mic Podcast with Richard Ehisen.

PRAISE FOR CRAZY MOUNTAIN:

“Crazy Mountain is a powerful story about possession and dispossession. Gritty and tough and gut wrenching ... Crazy Mountain ignites a firestorm.”

– Debra Magpie Earling, author of Perma Red and The Lost Journals of Sacajewea

“Crazy Mountain is a grand tale of the power of wilderness to heal wounds ... This is a crazy and wonderful book.”

– Doug Peacock, author of Grizzly Years and Was It Worth It, filmmaker, Disabled Veteran

Crazy Mountain is “the real thing—complex, sophisticated stories of the American West ... From subdivisions to resorts to the homeless, from wilderness to ski slopes to private land, we find an accurate, sensitive, and nuanced view of rural Montana.”

– Laura Pritchett, winner of PEN USA and author of The Blue Hour and Stars Go Blue

“In this artful, lyrical, deeply moving novel, Elise Atchison follows a piece of landscape through several lifetimes, capturing the dramatic complexity of the disrupted West through a full cast of characters, one lens after another.”

– Allen Morris Jones, author of A Bloom of Bones and Sweeney on the Rocks

“Elise Atchison's prose is a vessel of precision and depth, unafraid to draw the reader into the more shadowed crucibles of life and help us emerge with light in our hands.”

– Shann Ray, author of American Copper and Sweetclover

“With great insight, intelligence, and intimacy, Elise Atchison explores a singular dilemma: How do we live in paradise without destroying the very thing we love? ... Crazy Mountain serves as a reminder that what we think we own may not be ours after all.”
– Kim Barnes, author of In the Kingdom of Men and In the Wilderness

“I am blown away by Crazy Mountain. I knew I would like it, but I didn’t know I’d be staying up late because I can’t put it down-kind of like it. Bravo!”

– Andrea Peacock, author of Libby, Montana: Asbestos and the Deadly Silence of an American Corporation and owner of Elk River Books

Crazy Mountain “accomplishes with subtlety and engaging prose what the melodramatic series "Yellowstone" can only dream of. Required reading for all Westerners (and those who dream of becoming one).”

– Ken Egan, author of Montana 1889 and former director of Humanities Montana