Missoula author Pete Fromm will discuss his latest book, “The Names of the Stars,” during an author talk Friday, Oct. 20, at 7 p.m. at the library presented in partnership with The Well-Read Moose. The event is also sponsored by the Friends of the Library.
At 20 years old, Fromm heard of a job babysitting salmon eggs, seven winter months alone in a tent in the Selway-Bitterroot Wilderness. Leaping at this chance to be a mountain man, with no experience in the wilds, he left his normal world. Thirteen years later, he published his beloved memoir of that winter, “Indian Creek Chronicles ? Into the Wild with a Twist,” which was recently discussed by the Pageturners Library Book Club.
Twenty five years later, he was asked to return to the wilderness to babysit more fish eggs. But, no longer a footloose 20-year-old, at 45, he was the father of two young sons. He left again, alone, straight into the heart of Montana’s Bob Marshall wilderness, walking a daily ten-mile loop to his fish eggs through deer and elk and the highest density of grizzly bears in the lower 48 states.
“The Names of the Stars” (St. Martins, 2016) is not only a story of wilderness and bears but also a trek through a life lived at its edges, showing how an impulsive kid transformed into a father without losing his love for the wilds.
Fromm is a five-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award for his novels, “If Not For This,” “As Cool as I Am,” and “How All This Started,” his story collection “Dry Rain,” and “Indian Creek Chronicles.” The film of “As Cool as I Am” was released in 2013.
He is also the author of four other story collections and has published more than 200 stories in magazines. He is on the faculty of Oregon’s Pacific University’s Low-Residency Master of Fine Arts Program and lives in Montana.