The Ploughmen, Kim Zupan
The Ploughmen, Kim Zupan
List: $19.95 | Sale: $13.97
Club: $9.97

The Ploughmen
A Novel

Author: Kim Zupan

Narrator: Jim Meskimen

Unabridged: 7 hr 54 min

Format: Digital Audiobook Download

Published: 09/30/2014

Synopsis

A young sheriff and a hardened killer form an uneasy and complicated bond in this mesmerizing first novel set on the plains of Montana.Steeped in a lonesome Montana landscape as unyielding and raw as it is beautiful, Kim Zupan's The Ploughmen is a new classic in the literature of the American West.At the center of this searing fever-dream of a novel are two men—a killer awaiting trial and a troubled young deputy—sitting across from each other in the dark, talking through the bars of a county jail cell: John Gload, so brutally adept at his craft that only now, at the age of seventy-seven, has he faced the prospect of long-term incarceration, and Valentine Millimaki, low man in the Copper County Sheriff's Department, who draws the overnight shift after Gload's arrest. With a disintegrating marriage further collapsing under the strain of his night duty, Millimaki finds himself seeking counsel from a man whose troubled past shares something essential with his own. Their uneasy friendship takes a startling turn with a brazen act of violence that yokes together the two haunted souls by the secrets they share—and by the rugged country that keeps them.

About Kim Zupan

Kim J. Zupan, a native Montanan, lives in Missoula and grew up in and around Great Falls, where much of The Ploughmen is set. For twenty-five years Zupan made a living as a carpenter while pursuing his writing. He has also worked as a smelterman, pro rodeo bareback rider, ranch hand, Alaska salmon fisherman, and presently teaches carpentry at Missoula College. He holds an MFA from the University of Montana.

About Jim Meskimen

Jim Meskimen is an American comedian and actor, best known for his work on Whose Line Is It Anyway? and his extensive voice acting and television work. Books he has narrated include the Calendar Mysteries series by Ron Roy, The Dark Days of Hamburger Halpin, by Josh Berk, and The Deleted E-Mails of Hillary Clinton by John Moe.

Reviews

Goodreads review by Jeffrey on September 10, 2020

”The distance between reason to rage is short, a frontier as thin as parchment and as frail, restraining the monster. It was there in everyone, he thought. It was there in himself. A half second of simple blind fury and the hatchet falls down.” Deputy Valentine Millimaki is burning the candle at both......more

Goodreads review by karen on March 30, 2022

Darling - come alone to the shed. goosebumps... this is a book written in a dispassionate, matter-of-fact prose, but not so much that it comes across as detached. there is a wonderful filament of restrained emotion running through it that is pure poetry. it's about the uneasy relationship between two m......more

Quotes

“Kim Zupan has captured the feel of Montana: he has made a fine beginning.” Larry McMurtry, Pulitzer Prize–winning author of Lonesome Dove

“A terrific debut novel that evokes its western landscape with gorgeous prose, The Ploughmen is a powerful and at times painful story.” Michael Koryta, New York Times bestselling author

“Mr. Zupan produces pleasurably lush and baroque prose, especially when describing his setting’s awesome and unforgiving topography.” Wall Street Journal

“Set in northern Montana, the novel presents a powerful and implacable landscape, all dry soil and fractured river breaks…The book features plenty of suspense. What it offers in addition are Zupan’s considerable skills with description and mood…A dark and imaginative debut.” New York Times Book Review

“Passionately arresting…Even though Zupan’s novel deals with grim topics, he plows the depths of grief and numbness with such a concentrated dedication that the prose is a character in itself. His sentences are unleashed in a furious splendor…Bleak and brilliant—the best kind of book.” Minneapolis Star Tribune

“Stunning…A remarkable novel…It’s a portrait of the West as a sometimes desolate and cold place, full of possibility, maybe, but also full of danger from every corner. It’s a modern West, caught between the romance of the frontier and the mundane, harsh realities of living in the present day United States. And it’s absolutely beautiful, from its tragic opening scene to its tough, necessary end. Zupan is an unsparing writer but also a generous, deeply compassionate one.” NPR

“The expansive, indifferent, and lonely landscapes that populate the book are as vital as the two main characters and elevate Mr. Zupan’s work from a story about an unlikely friendship to a solemn exploration of the human soul—and how it is formed by the space that surrounds it.” Pittsburg Post-Gazette

“A startlingly beautiful debut novel from a talented craftsman…Spare and emotionally devastating, this cannot be recommended highly enough.” Library Journal

“Nuanced…fascinating…What Zupan offers is a superb, retro prose style, channeling William Faulkner in long passages engorged with vocabulary, and meditations on what it means to be alive, if barely, in rural Montana circa 1980…A rich, morose meditation on death, law enforcement, and friendship.” Booklist

“Jim Meskimen gives a stellar performance in narrating this audiobook gem…Meskimen’s versatile baritone has a gravelly quality that matches the vast Montana landscapes described by the author and the story’s dark subject matter. His performance of the narrative sections is clear, with his tempo adding to the impact of each word. Each character has a unique and credible voice that is consistent throughout the performance. The discussions between Millimaki and Gload on life, death, and their attachment to the land are a splendid match of voice and text.” AudioFile

Awards

  • Amazon Best Book of the Month
  • Barnes & Noble Discover Award
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