The Dutton drama is coming to an end with the first season of 1923. Although the series has already been renewed for a second outing, for fans who still want more, the wait for a new season can seem endless. So for now, to fill the Montana-sized hole in our hearts (and TV schedules), here are some of the best books with characters, themes, and subject matter reminiscent of the latest Yellowstone prequel to add to your reading list.
The Grapes of Wrath
While the Joad family lacks the influence of the Duttons, this classic novel highlights the trials - personal, spiritual, and economic - and occasional triumphs of a family during the Great Depression in a way that’s sure to resonate with fans of 1923.
Buy: The Grapes of Wrath
The Power of the Dog
Before it was an Oscar-winning film, this tense drama was a 1965 novel. Centered on two brothers who run a ranch in Montana in the 1920s, it follows the dramatic aftermath of one brother’s marriage to a widow and the arrival of the widow and her son in their home, inspiring cruelty and derision in the other, which is destined to end in tragedy.
Buy: The Power of the Dog
The Sun Also Rises: The Authorized Edition
Amidst Spencer and Alexandra’s whirlwind 1923 romance are shades of the romantic characters in Hemingway’s iconic novel-Jake Barnes, an American ex-patriot whose wounds from World War I still haunt his daily life, and Lady Brett Ashley, a free-spirited British aristocrat who revels in the sexual freedom of the 1920s. As they party and indulge in hijinks from Paris to Pamplona, the budding couple finds their love affair doomed, thwarted by jealousy and pain.
Buy: The Sun Also Rises: The Authorized Edition
Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
While the 1923 natives fight in boarding schools in the 1920s Oklahoma, the Osage Nation was among the richest in the world, per capita, thanks to the oil reserves found on its land. But all that soon changes when members of their community begin to die under mysterious circumstances. This book tells the story of these people, as well as the agents on the case for the newly formed FBI, and how they uncovered one of the deadliest conspiracies in American history.
Buy: Killers of the Flower Moon: The Osage Murders and the Birth of the FBI
Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
If it’s the lure of Old West cowboy culture that draws you to 1923, this comprehensive history is sure to delight.
Buy: Cattle Kingdom: The Hidden History of the Cowboy West
Education for Extinction: American Indian and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928
If 1923 has left you wanting to learn more about the tragic history of American Indian boarding schools, this book details the policies that led to the creation of these institutions, as well as the day-to-day experiences of those who were forced to live there and those they had after returning to their people.
Buy: Education for Extinction: American Indian and the Boarding School Experience, 1875-1928
Lonesome Dove
Although the time period is closer to 1883 than 1923, if you can’t get enough of the traditional western atmosphere of the latest Yellowstone prequel, you’ll want to add this essential novel to your list as soon as possible. Centered on a cattle drive between Texas and (you guessed it) Montana, this novel is not a classic Western for nothing.
Buy: Lonesome Dove
The Son
It featured the rise of the McCullough family from uneventful farmers to powerful land barons over the generations in this evocative Western novel that inevitably recalls the Duttons - and the way power, love, and brutality intertwine in the Old West.
Buy: The Son
