Tributary

Winner of the 2013 Utah Book Award and WILLA Literary Finalist Award"e;Richardson takes readers back to 1870 Utah for this tale of strength and survival. Raised as a Mormon, our hero Clair Martin travels to the American South, through Shoshone country, and back to Utah."e;The Denver Post"e;StunningGrittyRemarkable"e;15 Bytes"e;Richardson, whose Mormon ancestors settled in the northern Salt Lake Valley, offers a complete portrait of life in the American West by exploring the struggles of a woman living outside the centers of power. Engaging and beautifully written, Tributary is a welcome addition to the current conversation."e;5280 Magazine"e;As wild and isolating as the determined, defiant Clair, the prairies and mountain ranges seduce both narrator and reader. Richardson has created rich, memorable characters."e;High Country News"e;A quest to belong is the theme of this novel from Richardson, whose lyrical prose and heartfelt characters shine through. This novel has much to offer, including a balanced perspective on a controversial time in Mormon history, but its greatest gift is its wisdom about finding ones own path."e;Publishers Weekly"e;Tributary is a novel whose characters and time are so well inhabited, whose landscapes are so lovingly evoked, we wonder if Richardson is not speaking to us directly from the late 19th century, from a high bench above the Great Salt Lake. The language and writing are surefooted and fresh and often startling the way the best poetry can be startling. Richardson is a new American voice worth listening to."e;Peter Heller, author of The Painter and The Dog Stars "e;This is a gorgeous novel. This book does what art should do, which is to show us our lives with renewed clarity and better insight. Tributary takes the incomplete history and mythos of the West to task, and instead shows us some of the far more interesting and unexplored stories of the American WestMormonism, racism, women who dont need marriage or men. Beautifully written and engaging, this is a story of one woman and her refusal to cave into societal norms in order to seek her own difficult and inspired path."e;Laura Pritchett, author of Stars Go Blue"e;Youll love resolute Clair Martin, the equal of any manor religion. Clairs strength and survival are the heritage of western women."e;Sandra Dallas, author of True Sisters."e;Tributary is a remarkable odyssey of the American West, told in one of the most clear-sighted, unjudging, and original voices I've come across in years."e;Molly Gloss, author of The Jump-Off Creek"e;Seldom does a novel come along that is as beautifully written and emotionally honest as Tributary. Barbara K. Richardson captures the grandeur and harshness of the Old West in a young womans struggle to find a home and a family without losing herself. A lyrical and haunting story not to be missed."e;Margaret Coel, author of Buffalo Bills Dead Now"e;From polygamist Mormon desert settlements to the yellow fever-plagued Gulf to an Idaho sheep ranch, Richardson evokes the 19th Century West and the human heart in all their complexity."e;Barbara Wright, author of the Spur Award-winning novel Plain Language