Dorothy M. Johnson [1905-1984]

Yes I know, we aren't on Thursday, but I just discovered this "meme", is it the real word? and I opened it with that great lady in the French blog...so I couldn't do less than welcoming Dorothy in this page...You must think I'm very familiar with that lady but I'm sure she was not a fussy woman...

In the title of this post, there's a link with the page the Missoulians dedicated to her...That's nice to see how writers are considered in that part of the world...

I'm ashamed of saying I read "The hanging tree" only yesterday...

I love Montana writers, I'm trying to read everything about them...and the people working in the public library of my town managed to find me three books from Dorothy Johnson, in another public library...They're such cute ones...

It was a big shock...like when I read Annie Proulx for the first time...these women writers are just incredible...In France now Annie Proulx isn't read much...and anyway most readers only know "The secret of Brokeback mountains", not even the full book of Wyoming short stories...

but Dorothy Johnson...

Michel Le Bris who wrote the preface of "When you and I were young, Whitefish" said : "she never uses a single useless word"...it's so true...so strong, so direct, so modest...I wonder if that word is the right one...oh dear me, I wish my English was perfect!!!

These characters are so deep inside, so sensitive inside though so rough outside...Like men working in Breton lighthouses, trappers in the north of Scandinavia, or people living high in the mountains...

Frail who looked so terrifying but who only had in mind:"are you the one who will hang me?

"Lost woman" rushing to save the man she loved without a word...

Dorothy was also a great woman, she worked hard, had a difficult life...her mother used to say: "never leave a job before finding another one"...When she managed to sell her first short story to the Saturday Evening post, she got 400 dollars...she used to earn 100 a month with her job. She wrote: "I thought that was it, I was famous...But then it took me a eleven years to sell the next story. I never forgot this lesson..."

READ her, don't watch the films..."John Ford was a tough old bastard, wouldn't give a kopeck..."

I'm actually reading:

-The hanging tree

-When you and I were young, Whitefish, and

-Indian country

and I'm really having a great time...