Synopses & Reviews
From the bestselling author of Donat Letas Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat, the unforgettable true story of a boy who comes of age in the oil-fields and open plains of Wyoming; a heartrending story of the human spirit that lays bare where it is that wisdom truly resides
Colton H. Bryant was one of Wyomingas native sons and grown by that high, dry place, he never once wanted to leave it. aWyoming loves me, a he said, and it was true. Wyomingaroughneck, wild, open, and searingly beautifula loved him, and Colton loved it back. As a child in school, Colton never could force himself to focus on his lessons. Instead, head plan where head go fishing later, or head wonder how many jackrabbits he might find on his favorite hunting patch, or head dream about the rides he would take on the wild mare he was breaking. aAt my funeral, youall all feel sorry for making me waste so much time in school, a he said to his best friend Jakeaand it was true.
Two things got Colton through the boredom of school and the neighborhood aK-mart cowboysa who bullied him: His best friend Jake and his favorite mantra, a snatch of a saying he heard on TV: Mind over matterawhich meant to him: If you donat mind, it donat matter. Colton and Jake grew up wanting nothing more than the freedom to sleep out under the great Wyoming night sky, to hunt and fish and chase the horizon and to be just like Coltonas dad, a strong and gentle man of few words. When it was time for Colton to marry and make money on his own, he took up as a hand on an oil rig. It was dangerous work, but Colton was the third generation in his family to work on the oil patch and he claimed it was in his blood. And anyway, hejoked, he always knew head die young.
Colton did die young, and he died on the rigafalling to his death because the drilling company had neglected to spend two thousand dollars on the mandated safety rails that would have saved his life. His family received no compensation. But they didnat expect toathey knew the companyas ways, and after all as Colton would have said: Mind over matter,
In Scribbling the Cat, Alexandra Fuller brought us the examined life of a Rhodesian soldier; nowain her inimitable poetic voice and with her pitch-perfect ear for dialoguea she brings before us the life of someone much closer to home, as unexpected as he is iconic. The moving, tough, and in many ways quintessentially American story of Colton H. Bryantas life could not be told without also telling the story of the land that grew himathe beautiful and somehow tragic Wyoming; the land where there are still such things as cowboys roaming the plains, where itas relationships that get you through, and where a just, soulful, passionate man named Colton H. Bryant lived and died.
Review
" [Fuller's] book-set in her new home, the high plains of Wyoming-hangs so faultlessly on its high-altitude, big-sky, oildrilling bones that it seems not so much to have been written as uncovered by the wind and weather of the American north-west."
-The Economist
Synopsis
From the bestselling author of "Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight" comes theunforgettable true story of a boy who comes of age in the oil fields and openplains of Wyoming.
Synopsis
A heartrending story of the human spirit from the author of the bestselling Don't Let's Go to the Dogs Tonight Alexandra Fuller returns with the unforgettable true story of Colton H. Bryant, a soulful boy with a mustang-taming heart who comes of age in the oil fields and open plains of Wyoming. After surviving a sometimes cruel adolescence with his own brand of optimistic goofiness, Colton goes to work on an oil rig-and there the biggest heart in the world can't save him from the new, unkind greed that has possessed his beloved Wyoming during the latest boom.
Colton's story could not be told without telling of the land that grew him, where the great high plains meet the Rocky Mountains to create a vista of lonely beauty. It is here that the existence of one boy is a true story as deeply moving as the life that inspired it.
About the Author
Alexandra Fuller was born in England in 1969 and in 1972 she moved with her family to a farm in Rhodesia. After that country’s civil war in 1981, the Fullers moved first to Malawi, then to Zambia. Fuller received a B.A. from Acadia University in Nova Scotia, Canada. She is the author of Don’t Let’s Go to the Dogs Tonight: An African Childhood, a national bestseller, a New York Times Notable Book of 2002, and a finalist for the Guardian First Book Award, and Scribbling the Cat, winner of the 2005 Ulysses Award for Art of Reportage. Fuller lives in Wyoming with her husband and children.