The last native Yellowstone wolf was killed in 1926, the culmination of a decades-long eradication effort. Many viewed the event as an accomplishment of the same magnitude as the invention of barbed wire. In 1994, wolves were reintroduced, returning to their role as a check against elk populations. A fight over wolf reintroduction, led by ranchers and hunters, has raged since.

Wendell Newman, the protagonist of Joe Wilkins’ new novel “Fall Back Down When I Die” (Little Brown, 256 pages, $26) is a 24-year-old ranch hand whose life has been deeply marked by the wolf controversy in Montana’s Bull Mountains. His mother is recently dead after a long, melancholic illness; his father, long disappeared into myth as a man who stood his ground against government overreach. One evening a government worker visits the Newman trailer and releases into Wendell’s care one 7-year-old Rowdy Burns, the child of Wendell’s incarcerated cousin. Suddenly a father figure and woefully ill-equipped for the role, Wendell feeds the boy slabs of butter on crackers and takes him to work at the ranch.

With Montana on the eve of its first legal wolf hunt in more than a generation, anti-government militia threaten the lives of anyone perceived as a threat. Wilkins, making his fiction debut, delivers a Shakespearean mix of family drama and mortal danger in the crisp and beautiful language that readers already expect from his Oregon Book Award-winning poetry. He renders the effects of violence and trauma on the daily machinations of human lives. One day at school, Rowdy reacts to being teased by pushing a boy off the jungle gym:

“The boy broke an arm, and before the teacher got there, while the boy was crying on the ground, Rowdy straddled him, cocked his finger, and – Pewwhg! Pewwhg! – pretended to shoot the boy in the face. In the office, he did the same thing. Looked right at the principal and fired. You couldn’t do a thing like that these days. Not even way out here.”

The world of the novel is rural Montana, presented with the native realism of someone familiar with the people, language, landscape and controversies of the “way out here.” An associate professor of English and environmental studies and director of creative writing at Linfield College, Wilkins lives in a state with its own wolf controversies. In 2018 the Oregon House voted in favor of eliminating wolf protections, while Gov. Kate Brown declared the increase in the wolf numbers “encouraging.” This novel explores the real human effects of such deep divisions.

Wilkins presents a rural Montana where the government officials charged with wolf protection attended high school with the poachers killing them. He captures the social dynamic of communities of few people spread over many swaths of land. I like to imagine that my father would read and enjoy “Fall Back Down When I Die,” despite the fact that his politics are more closely aligned with ranchers, while mine align with the scientists, game wardens, and rangers. I like to imagine this in the same way that I imagine a dam engineer would appreciate the beauty in Richard Hugo’s poem “Plans for Altering the River.” This novel instills that kind of hope.

Wilkins has produced a remarkable book filled with characters who, despite their inherent differences over how to exist on the land, remind us of the myriad reasons that every person might be loved.

Joe Wilkins readings

7:30 p.m. Tuesday, March 12, Powell’s City of Books, 1005 W. Burnside St., Portland.

3:30 p.m. Saturday, March 16, Grain Station, 755 N.E. Alpine Ave., McMinnville.

7 p.m. Tuesday, April 16, Grass Roots Books & Music, 227 S.W. Second St, Corvallis.

7 p.m. Wednesday, May 8, Broadway Books, 1714 N.E. Broadway, Portland.