The Western Star - Craig Johnson

Any other name - Craig Johnson

Bone fire - Mark Spragg

Bone fire - Spragg, Mark

Summary: The inhabitants of Ishawooa, Wyoming have enough to contend with on a daily basis, from runaway children to Lou Gehrig's disease, even before a teenager is found dead in a meth lab and motorcycle rallies and rodeos fill the tiny local jail.



Booklist Reviews 
*Starred Review* Using several of the characters from his two award-winning novels, The Fruit of Stone (2002) and An Unfinished Life (2004), Spragg returns to high-country Wyoming and the struggles of a group of self-reliant individuals to come to terms with their vulnerability and need for connection. Einar, the cranky but tenderhearted horse rancher from An Unfinished Life, has suffered a stroke and is being cared for by Griff, who hopes to move to Chicago to study sculpture. Meanwhile, McEban, another hard-bitten rancher, who lost the love of his life in The Fruit of Stone, faces more loss, when the wandering father of McEban's 10-year-old ward decides he wants back into his son's life. And Crane, the local sheriff, now married unhappily to Griff's alcoholic mother, faces what could be the onset of the same disease that killed his grandfather. A summary of so much angst sounds almost soap operatic, but Spragg's novel is anything but that. It's about the way ordinary people endure life's crushing defeats with stoic forbearance, but also how they deal with the isolation their pinched stoicism brings. "I wish I would've said something like that out loud," McEban says at one point, speaking for all the characters whose silence is both eloquent and tragic. With its many subplots, this novel lacks some of the narrative power of Spragg's earlier work, but it has moments of lyrical beauty, emotional depth, and crisp clarity that make it essential reading for anyone interested in the literature of the West. Copyright 2010 Booklist Reviews.

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The legend of Colter Bryant - Alexandra Fuller

The legend of Colter Bryant - Fuller, Alexandra

Summary: "Colton knew there were a hundred ways to die in Wyoming. That's why he figured there was only one way to live--with all his heart. When Alexandra Fuller set out to write about the oil rigs on Wyoming's high plains, she was expecting the fierce weather and the roughnecks, the big skies and the industry men, but she wasn't expecting to encounter a real-life cowboy. Then Colton H. Bryant happened into her story, a soulful boy with a mustang-taming heart and blue eyes that'll look right through you. The story of his life took over Fuller's writing and a kind of magic ensued, the result of which became this book."--From publisher description.

Booklist Reviews
*Starred Review* Fuller's re-creation of the brief life of Colton H. Bryant is the story of a third-generation oil-patch worker in Wyoming. Spotlessly capturing the distinctive scenes from his life, Fuller takes readers into the Bryant family and the small-town community and oil rigs they inhabited. To know Colton, who "has a way of tearing out of the chute, firing with all hooves at once," one must experience him, and Fuller, with pinpoint detailing and a deadeye aim on Wyoming dialect, teases out a portrait of a young man that is staggering in its spareness, and heartbreaking in its tenderness. But, "like all westerns, this story is a tragedy before it even starts because there was never a way for anyone to win against all the odds out here." The stacked deck belongs to the oil companies, of course, and the lesson learned from Colton's life and death is that human life is small change and protecting it isn't in the best interest of profit. Although it's little consolation, Fuller's deeply moving celebration of Colton's life is bursting with humor, love, and tragedy, like all that is best in life, and without ever having met him, you won't soon forget Colton H. Bryant. Copyright 2008 Booklist Reviews.


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