Vardis Fisher was judged by Dale Morgan-- among other critics--the first American writer from the Rocky Mountains to create significant literature about that region. But Fisher's place in American literature does not rest solely on his being a regional writer. Alfred Kazin has called him America's last authentic novelist of the frontier. Unquestionably Fisher demands attention for his regional writings: his frontier isolation made him unique among twentieth-century writers.

Vardis Alvero Fisher was born in the pioneer Mormon settlement of Annis, Idaho, to Joseph Oliver and Temperance Thornton Fisher. Vardis was the oldest of three children: he had a brother, Vivian Ezra, and a sister, Viola Irene. When Vardis was six, he and his family moved to the Antelope Hills, on a remote piece of land adjoining a fork of the Snake River. There the Fishers, almost in total isolation, struggled to be successful farmers. Their only neighbors...