Synopses & Reviews
For more than forty years the prairies of South Dakota have been Dan OBriens home. Working as a writer and an endangered-species biologist, he became convinced that returning grass-fed, free-roaming buffalo to the grasslands of the northern plains would return natural balance to the region and reestablish the undulating prairie lost through poor land management and overzealous farming. In 1998 he bought his first buffalo and began the task of converting a little cattle ranch into an ethically run buffalo ranch.
Wild Idea is a book about how good food choices can influence federal policies and the integrity of our food system, and about the dignity and strength of a legendary American animal. It is also a book about people: the daughter coming to womanhood in a hard landscape, the friend and ranch hand who suffers great tragedy, the venture capitalist who sees hope and opportunity in a struggling buffalo business, and the husband and wife behind the ranch who struggle daily, wondering if what they are doing will ever be enough to make a difference. At its center, Wild Idea is about a family and the people and animals that surround them—all trying to build a healthy life in a big, beautiful, and sometimes dangerous land.
Review
"Interconnected lives in the small western Nebraska town of McDermot navigate the rocky transition from rustic old ways to new money opportunities and opportunists in the slow-burning latest from O'Brien."—Publishers Weekly
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"[Dan O'Brien] gives a fairly large number of characters individual attention, making them, with their good traits and bad, all quite memorable."—NPR's All Things Considered
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"Some books take you beyond reading. They take you inside, into your feelings and emotions. I "felt" this book. I believe that anyone with any land ownership in their lineage will also feel Stolen Horses."—Nancy Simpson, Book Vault Bookstore
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"Like a runaway team of Clydesdales, O'Brien's writing grabs the reader and pulls them along page by page. Grab the covers tightly, and ride along with Stolen Horses."—Alan J. Bartels, Nebraska Life
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"[Wild Idea] is a sweet little sagebrush soap opera of extended family joys and travails."—Jim Sterba, Wall Street Journal
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"A deeply humane book that looks at ranching as a sustainable enterprise, a way of life more than an economic engine. . . . There may be plenty of disappointments out on the Plains, but this book is not one of them."—Kirkus
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“Wild Idea is a lyrical tribute to the idea of buffalo back on the plains, the rewards and challenges of putting them there. But it is so much more. Its about all the life on the prairie, on the hardscrabble ranches and in the small towns. With this book, Dan secures his place as our modern prairie muse.”—Tom Brokaw, NBC journalist and author
Review
“Dan OBriens book strikes me as a gentle but badly needed confrontation. . . . Figuring out how to realign the way we live with the health of the ecological systems that support us is the single most important challenge of the twenty-first century, and that makes OBriens book an essential meditation.”—Edward Norton, actor and UN Goodwill Ambassador for Biodiversity
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“Making strong, lasting connections between the rugged land and the strong people is a staple of life on the Great Plains. Dan OBriens gift is helping people understand this connection and the basic and difficult truth that sustainable living is not simple; it is as matted and dense as the thick fur that defines the buffalos very nature.”—Tom Daschle, former U.S. senator from South Dakota and former U.S. Senate majority leader
Review
"[
Wild Idea: Buffalo and Family in a Difficult Land is] a book that elegantly explores the tension between hope and futility in one mans effort to kindle restoration on the Great Plains."—Carson Vaughan,
High Country News Synopsis
McDermot, Nebraska, is a pleasant, scenic western cattle town situated in the Pawnee River valley—just the place for people seeking refuge from their hectic city lives. It is also just the place for those who have made their homes on this haunting prairie since the late nineteenth century. Ideal for both, McDermot means everything to those native inhabitants and something very different to those who are looking for a new life. As the native residents wrestle with the arrival of outsiders, a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal epitomizing the problems facing the divided community. After the death of two men, it falls to the ancient but powerful district attorney to mediate a resolution between the clashing interests of the new and the old West. And the Thurston family, descended from the towns first citizen, sets out in its own way to fight the forces threatening to destroy it. This is the story of new and old interests colliding, of small western plains towns confronting the forces of “progress.”
Synopsis
Honor Book, 2011 Nebraska Book Awards, Fiction Category
Foreword Reviews, 2011 Book of the Year, Silver Award, General Fiction
McDermot, Nebraska, is a pleasant, scenic western cattle town situated in the Pawnee River valley--just the place for people seeking refuge from their hectic city lives. It is also just the place for those who have made their homes on this haunting prairie since the late nineteenth century. Ideal for both, McDermot means everything to those native inhabitants and something very different to those who are looking for a new life.
As the native residents wrestle with the arrival of outsiders, a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal epitomizing the problems facing the divided community. After the death of two men, it falls to the ancient but powerful district attorney to mediate a resolution between the clashing interests of the new and the old West. And the Thurston family, descended from the town's first citizen, sets out in its own way to fight the forces threatening to destroy it. This is the story of new and old interests colliding, of small western plains towns confronting the forces of "progress."
Synopsis
Willa Cather said that
O Pioneers! was her first authentic novel, “the first time I walked off on my own feet—everything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired.” Cathers novel of life on the Nebraska frontier established her reputation as a writer of great note and marked a significant turning point in her artistic development. No longer would she let literary convention guide the form of her writing; the materials themselves would dictate the structure.
Cathers O Pioneers! is the sentimental and somewhat controversial story of the Bergsons, a family of Swedish pioneers that settles for life on the American prairie. While Alexandra, the family matriarch, is able to turn the family farm into a financial success, her brother Emil must grapple with the solace and tragedy of forbidden love. A novel surprisingly ahead of its time, this protofeminist work touches on a wide range of enduring themes, including love, marriage, temptation, and isolation.
About the Author
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia; her family moved to Nebraska in 1883 and eventually settled in Red Cloud. After graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1895, she returned to Red Cloud briefly before moving east to work on Home Monthly and eventually McClures. Her first published books were the poetry collection April Twilights and the short-story collection The Troll Garden. O Pioneers! is part of Cathers Prairie Trilogy, which includes The Song of the Lark and My Ántonia, all available in Bison Books editions. In 1923 Cather received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel One of Ours.