MONTANA 1948 by Larry Watson (Washington...

MONTANA 1948 by Larry Watson (Washington Square Press: $10; 175 pp.). David Hayden, the 12-year-old narrator of this tautly dramatic novel of interracial prejudice, is the scion of small-time Montana big-shots. His carefree existence ends when the family’s Sioux housekeeper develops pneumonia--and refuses to be treated by David’s Uncle Frank, a highly respected doctor and local hero. As her illness progresses, dirty little secrets begin to erode the seemingly irrefrangible respectability of the Haydens. Looking back on the tragedy spawned by these revelations, David concludes, “Who knows--perhaps any region’s most dramatic, most sensational stories were not played out in the public view but were confined to small, private places.”