The sheep business is in decline. Just this morning on NPR, I heard Diane Josephy Peavy say that the situation is grave. It was quite another story in the days of Emma and Tom Sweringen. Their story begins on a large ranch 30 miles south of Salmon, Idaho, and Emma's sheep number 7,000.

Emma and Tom's children are high-spirited but are kept in bounds by Emma's sense of decorum; she pins her hopes on Beth, the family beauty. So when the railroad comes in from Montana and one of the young surveyors proposes to Beth, she is swept up by her mother's plans for her and agrees to the marriage. The new Steinway for the wedding present is ordered, the date is that close.

If only Beth and Emma had taken the Model T to attend Beth's bridal shower rather than the train, their whole future would have stayed on course. But, alas, on the train is Beth's true future --- a handsome scamp and ne'er-do-well named Benjamin Harrison Burton. He is selling advertising, as it happens, the kind that is plastered on barns across the country: Arbuckle's Coffee, Sloan's Liniment, and Horseshoe Plug. 

The Sweringen barn is white. The whiteness is dazzling. Imagine Emma's shock when she steps from the train to find garishly colored posters splashed across her barn and her daughter head-over-heals for some fast-talking lothario. Here the story gains momentum like the little train that has to be held back by heavy logs when it comes back from Montana. Emma's business instincts are sound, but a daughter in love is not something she's prepared to handle.

Like it or not, Beth and Ben are married. And the years pass. Tom Burton, son of Ben and Beth, lives in Maine, as far from the old ranch as he can get. Imagine his surprise one day to find that a woman in Washington State is searching for details about her birth parents, and that the trail has led her to Beth and the Sweringen family. Both of Tom's grandparents are dead, and his mother as well. How will he handle this and why does it matter so much?  

Thomas Savage has a wit as tart as green apples. It lightens the mix of sharp observations about families and life. I was reminded of THE STONE DIARIES and THE SHIPPING NEWS for reasons that have to do with places that stick in the mind and characters that hang around as if waiting for another chapter to begin.

I can see this book as a movie. I can see that little train struggling up the tracks to the summit, the sheep camps, the Basque herders and their dogs, Beth on the fateful train ride with her disapproving mother, old Tom watching the shearers, and the banker in Salt Lake City. I can see scene after scene of cattle and horses moving against the landscape. I can even hear the noises and music in the background. Someone, call Steven Speilberg and John Williams.