Stegner, whose ambitious works stand as one of the finest legacies of fiction in any language, chronicles his early years in the praries of Dakotas and nearby provinces with some of the most poetic and dignified prose ever offered. Like the author's Angle of Repose, Recapitulation, or Big Rock Candy Mountain, Wolf Willow provides a window to West as experienced by youth; as opposed to merely read. Anyone raised in the West near canyons, who knows the smell of pinon and pepper tress or simple brush of wind over open space of grasslands will identify with and appreciate this gift of autobiography. It breathes like dandelion wine uncorked years after being stored. Highly recommend