Hardpan

Set in Clark, Wyoming in the mid-1950s, Hardpan tells the story of a young ranch family caught in the vicissitudes of the changing American West after World War II. After returning from the war to manage the family ranch in eastern Oregon, Kurt Glover confronts familial challenges to his new role. His decision to relocate his family to a remote cattle ranch in Wyoming introduces risks to his young family that he never imagined.


It is a tale of external forces tearing at the ranching roots of a family, recounted from the points-of-view of the father, Kurt, and his older daughter, Linda. With the disintegration of the life they have known together, while Linda is thrust into the glamour world of televised wrestling, instant religion, and people desperate to reclaim a daughter they have lost through a tragic accident, her father is struggling to reestablish himself as the family breadwinner by taking on jobs in central California that are foreign to his upbringing.


“Marilyn Skinner Lanier's first novel ‘Hardpan’ reveals her deep understanding of the vicissitudes of life in rural Wyoming for the Glover family in the 1950s as economic conditions, the weather, and human frailty lead them from one difficulty to the next. Her resilient and well-drawn characters, however, show what it takes to overcome the hardships they face and survive with  strength and endurance. They are to be admired as is Lanier for so wisely probing the human heart and family devotion. Her writing is vivid, nuanced, and alive.”


- Maxine Chernoff, Chair of the Creative Writing Program at San Francisco State University, author of 6 books of fiction and 14 books of poetry, winner of an NEA Fellowship and the PEN Translation Prize