Spotlight – Elk Love by Lynne Spriggs O’Connor
Synopsis
Having spent ten summers on the Blackfeet Indian Reservation near Glacier National Park, part of her doctoral fieldwork for a PhD in Native American Art History, forty-two-year-old Lynne Spriggs thinks of Montana as her healing place. When she moves to “Big Sky Country” from the East Coast in a quest to reset her life, she has high hopes for what awaits her.
Great Falls, a farming and military town in central Montana, is not what Lynne imagined when she decided to leave city life behind. But her dream of being more connected to nature in the American West comes alive when she meets Harrison, a handsome rancher thirteen years her senior. Wary but curious, with her dog Willow by her side, she leans into the seasonal rhythms of Harrison’s hidden valley and opens her heart to a wild language that moves beyond words. In a modern world where listening is rare, Elk Love explores an intimate place where loneliness gives way to wonder, where the natural world speaks of what matters most.
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Praise
“In all the love stories I love best, it is impossible to tell whether the real object of desire is the man, or the mountain he lives on, or the elk that stands on that mountain and bugles to his mate. So it is for Lynne Spriggs, who works her way into the hearts of all three with a savvy combination of curiosity, independence, and tenacity. In prose that is by turns rapturous, bawdy, hilarious, and serene, Elk Love sings a song of relationship; with the man, yes, but also with the Earth.” — Pam Houston, author of Deep Creek: Finding Hope in the High Country
“Elk Love is a beautiful memoir about love, grief, intimacy, and finding one’s place in the world. Throughout the vivid seasons and daily rhythms of rural Montana, Lynne Spriggs O’Connor deftly illuminates her own transformation through a unique relationship to this wild place and a man who makes his home there. Art, ranch life, and romance converge in this remarkable love story that distills the truth . . . and so much more.” ― S. Kirk Walsh, author of The Elephant of Belfast
“In the midst of stampeding elk, mating birds, birthing cattle and all the viscerality of a working Angus ranch, Lynne Spriggs O’Connor has composed a lyrical memoir. I devoured this enchanting book about the sensual landscape of animals, budding love, and the intrinsic wildness of it all. This unflinching saga teaches the ancient knowledge that hope begins again as we traverse the cycles of life and death.” ― Nani Power, author of New York Times Notable Book of the Year Crawling at Night
About the Author
Before moving to the rural West at age forty-two, Lynne Spriggs curated exhibitions of folk and self-taught art at the High Museum in Atlanta. She spent ten summers on northern Montana’s Blackfeet Indian reservation while pursuing fieldwork for her PhD in Native American Art History at Columbia University. She also worked in the film industry as Production Coordinator for Spalding Gray and Jonathan Demme on the iconic Swimming to Cambodia. After landing in Montana, she curated Bison: American Icon, a major permanent exhibit for the Charlie Russell Museum on bison in the Northern Plains. Elk Love is her first memoir. For the past fifteen years, she and her husband have lived on a cattle ranch in an isolated Montana mountain valley east of the Rockies, where her life centers on writing, animals, and family.
