BY KAREN BOSSICK

Betsy Gaines Quammen drove from her home in Bozeman, Mont., to Sun Valley when Clare Swanger invited her to speak to her More Than Just a Book Book Club about her book “American Zion,” which they had started reading at the beginning of the COVID pandemic.

Quammen not only attended the book club but ended up writing about it in her new book “True West: Myth and Mending on the Far Side of America.”

“I loved how everyone got along so well, how they were focused on community and the enjoyment of books, rather than politics or differences in socioeconomics. I loved the way they focused on things they could do together during COVID—like gardening and bringing their abundance of produce to senior citizens. They had difference but they continued to be cohesive,” she said.

The book club contrasted with the extremism Quammen had found in Idaho’s panhandle and what some activists called insanity in Idaho politics. Quammen will broach both when she and her husband David Quammen have a conversation titled “Disinformation, Discord and Story” at 5:30 p.m. tonight--Thursday, Jan. 11--at Ketchum’s Community Library.

Those who wish to get on a waiting list to see it in person may do so at https://thecommunitylibrary.libcal.com/event/10977939. The conversation is also being livestreamed and recorded and may be viewed at https://vimeo.com/event/3959766.

Betsy will talk about her latest book. David, who is a frequent contributor to National Geographic, Outside and other magazines, will talk about his books, which include “The Heartbeat of the Wild,” “The Tangled Tree,” “Spillover” and “The Song of the Dodo.”

Their conversational format grew out of a Zoom discussion that the couple started when their book tours were cancelled at the beginning of the pandemic.

“We started the Betsy and Dave show, talking during the cocktail hour over a glass of wine or cup of tea,” Betsy said. “David was working on a book about COVID called ‘Breathless,’ which was a 2022 finalist for the National Book Award. And I had my book. We talked back and forth about overlapping topics in our books and it was a ton of fun. So, I think this is going to be a fun evening.”

Quammen’s book ‘True West,’ which came out in late October, explores how myths shape our identities, heighten polarization and fracture our shared understanding of the world around us. She interviewed a hundred people, including some in Ketchum, Coeur d’Alene, Boise and Idaho Falls, as she investigated the origins of and effects of the myths of the American West, learning how misperceptions about land, liberty and self-determination threaten the well-being of people and communities.

“Everyone has their own true West,” she said. “We are a myth-making species and the way we perceive the West is really foundational to how Americans see this country. Western mythology really undergirds a lot of the ways Americans see themselves.

“I wanted to look at how myths came into play during COVID and during the polarization in our country during a time of disinformation and misinformation. People clamoring to get out West to escape COVID looked at the West as a salubrious and hearty place where somehow miraculously the virus didn’t land. There was the phenomenon of QAnon and there were people coming out West because they watched ‘Yellowstone’ and decided they wanted to have that lifestyle.”

As she considered the exodus to the West, Quammen explored how it put pressure on public lands, which she considers one of the important facets of the West. She explored how it created increased hardships for people and housing. She looked at the myth of the big bad wolf and how wolves have become a target politically in Idaho and Montana. And she looked at the falsehood of irreconcilable differences.

“We live in a moment where everything is tangled together. Unless we understand mythology, we really can’t understand what’s really going on,” she said.

One of the bright spots, she said, was Ketchum’s book club, which included Brent Robinson, whose grandfather was jailed for polygamy; Elaine Phillips, who remembered taking sandwiches to those at the Japanese internment camp at Minidoka; Peggy Grove, who once researched ancient communications on rock walls in Australia’s Arnhem Land; Jorjan Sarich, who was pursuing a PhD in comparative religion focusing on Zoroastrianism, and Jeanne Cassell, who co-founded the valley’s center for domestic violence after being told it wasn’t needed in a resort area.

It also included Dick and Melinda Springs and Mardi Shepard, who grew a giant Giving Garden during the pandemic, given the fresh vegetables to homebound seniors.

Quammen also was wowed by a Boise State University program that invited people from different backgrounds to come together, each sharing their perspective for 10 to 15 minutes.

“It was a chance for each person to hear from people who were different from them,” said Quammen. “And it was sponsored by Greg Carr, who lives in Ketchum and helped fund The Community Library and the renovation of the Hemingway House where I once spent time as the Writer-in-Residence!”