Whether they were actually Hungarian or Bohemian, "Hunkies" or "Bohunks," or even from Eastern Europe at all, to the old ranchers of the Great Plains, the farmers and settlers who moved in and fenced off the open land were no-account "Honyockers." And to Honyockers like David Mogen's people, who built lives in the face of great difficulty and prejudice, the name came to bear all the meaning and power of their hard-won home place. It is this sense of place, of tenacious if uneasy belonging, that David Mogen traces through his family history in Honyocker Dreams. Beginning with his father's reminiscences as he surveys the Montana landscape, Mogen weaves a narrative of memory and history, of the dreams and disappointments of working-class farmers, cowboys, and miners among his ancestors, and of the post-frontier world of Indian reservations and farming towns that endure on the Montana "Hi-Line," the flat expanse of Big Sky country that lies hard against the Canadian border east of the Rockies. From the frontier world of his parents and pioneer ancestors to the boom-and-bust tales about growing up in the small-town world of his own Montana childhood in the 1950s, Mogen travels full circle to recent journeys that reveal the paradoxical burdens and strengths of his father's cowboy legacy as well as the hidden pain and healing power of his mother's homesteading heritage. His is a journey that opens a window on a unique but little-known region of Montana and the West.
David Mogen is a professor of English at Colorado State University. He is the coeditor of several books, including Frontier Gothic: Terror and Wonder at the Frontier in American Literature, and is the author of Wilderness Visions: The Western Theme in Science Fiction Literature and Ray Bradbury.
Acknowledgments Endings and Beginnings Riding the Yellowstone Trail Journeys East and West Leaving Home Honyocker Dreams Homing in on the Hi-Line Finding Home Strip-Housing Days Hudson Years on the Rocky Boys Reservation The Whitewater Time Warp Two Worlds, Fort Peck Reservation Frazer Lake Cruising Main Boom and Bust Closing the Circle Iniskim Searching for Marcus Daly Beside the Stillwater Will the Circle be Unbroken? Riding the Hi-Line into the Past Epilogue Healing Dreams Bibliographical Essay
A memoir about growing up in Montana and what it means to call Montana home.
"A compelling story and a deeply satisfying read... Honyocker Dreams provides an introspective glimpse at adventures both large and small, a consuming quest for a sense of place and belonging, and on a large scale, life's mystery and tragedy." - Beef Torrey, coeditor of Jim Harrison: A Comprehensive Bibliography, 1964-2008 "[Honyocker Dreams] has the true feel of human memory, the memory that recognizes past and present and future, but experiences them all at once, in the recalling and retelling of the lifetimes that have touched him." - Scott P. Sanders, professor of English at the University of New Mexico "Mogen's story, especially its disruption and unsettling of the idea of home, is both important and new. Often in western American letters, representations swing between the poles of 'stickers' and 'movers,' but Mogen shows that there is another position within the larger narrative. His account of identification and affiliation with place despite the lack of a solid 'home place' adds a key piece to the existing body of literature." - Nancy Cook, associate professor of English at the University of Montana
