The Bower Atmosphere
A Biography of B. M. Bower
by Victoria Lamont
Pub Date01 Mar 2024
University of Nebraska Press |Bison Books
Biographies & Memoirs|. Nonfiction \(Adult\)
Netgalley and University of Nebraska Press/Bison Books have provided me with a copy of The Bower Atmosphere to review:
B.M. Bower was the first author to make a living writing Westerns. During the course of her literary career, Bertha Muzzy Bower published over sixty novels and hundreds of short stories. Her westerns were among the first adapted to film, and the exploits of her cowboys at the fictional Flying U ranch established a tradition that continues today. She began writing short stories in 1900, desperate for money so that she could end her unhappy marriage to a cowboy who worked for the McNamara ranch.
The Bower Atmosphere, a story of Bower’s remarkable life, is based on research in Bower’s personal archives and publishers’ records, as well as interviews with some of her descendants. She began on a Montana cattle ranch and went on to write serial westerns, dealing with the conflicting demands of editors, husbands, children, and her own creative ambitions while battling the conflicting pressures of her editor, husband, and children.
I give The Bower Atmosphere five out of five stars!
Happy Reading!

I had never heard of the author B.M. Bower before! She was one hundred years ahead of her time in many, many ways. Victoria Lamont writes a very well researched and unbiased biography of Bower. You really feel as if you are back in time to the old west with all of her adventures including stints in the early days of Hollywood. Historical And a fun read!