Filaree
This moving novel of pioneer life in Arizona has become a classic. Based on the life of the author’s mother, it overturns every stereotype of western womanhood.
"Comes closer to the truth and the validity of the so-called winning of the West than anything I have ever read. It is terrifying, heartbreaking and remarkable.…Filaree is also one of the most magnificent portraits of a woman that exists in our literature."—Howard Fast
"I loved Filaree, I didn’t just read it, I crawled between the pages and lived it."—Lily Tomlin
"An extraordinary performance.…a powerful antidote to the romantic illusions some people have about ranch people and life on the range.…As a writer, Mrs. Noble makes no compromises. She tells her story in plain country American dialect, offers no exaggerated sex or violence, no vulgar talk. She is a realist in the best sense, a breath of fresh air in these free-wheeling times."—C. L. Sonnichsen
Western writers generally depict pioneer ranch women as plucky heroines or depthless sex objects. Not here in this grim corrective, in which the main character is flaming pissed off on the very first page and only encounters fresh—and entirely believable—reasons to be angry as her life shifts from the wilderness outside Globe onto the margins of urbanizing Phoenix.
Marguerite Noble passed away on January 1, 2007.
