Wyoming Books

Jack Turner makes you feel like you're there in his world, a world everyone ought to know more about and care more about. Just reading his book feels like an adventure in itself.

Teewinot - A Year in the Teton Range. Jack Turner. Thomas Dunne Books/St. Martin's Press. New York. 2000. 248pp.

Jack Turner is a mountaineering instructor and guide for Exum Mountain Guides, the oldest and most prestigious guide service in America. He has lived and climbed in the Tetons for over 40 years and so is uniquely qualified to write this book.

A philosophy professor by academic training, Turner has deeply contemplated the essential nature of the mountain landscapes of the Teton Range. Teewinot, named after the peak that looms above the Exum Guides' summer base and climbing school, is an ode to the mountains, streams, plants, animals and people that he loves. However, this book is far more than just an account of one of America's most beautiful mountain ranges or the remarkable climbers, rangers and biologists that know those mountain holds better than anyone ever will. It is also about achieving a tranquil and happy life by strengthening personal connections to the seasons, cycles and rhythms of the land.

Turner speaks of the "gifts of returning" - certain routines observed year after year, season after season, which in time have become personal and meaningful rituals that uplift and reconnect him to the landscape each time they occur: the first circumambulation of the Cathedral Group every Spring; the first snowfall in Lupine Meadows, snow that will not melt until the following summer; battening down the guides' hut for the winter off-season; and the final hike around Jenny Lake each year.

Turner reminds us that such simple gifts are available to anyone who attunes one's self to one's surroundings and the people and places one loves.

In its major themes and conclusions, Teewinot is in a class with Marjorie Kinnan Rawlings' lovely book, Cross Creek. The latter book is a loving testimonial of the joy Rawlings experienced during her long residence in the land between Orange and Lochloosa Lakes in North Central Florida in the 1930's and 40's. Like Teewinot, Cross Creek teaches that meaningful connections with a place are hard-won after patience and persistence and determination.

I recommend Teewinot to anyone who loves and contemplates landscapes and their meaning in our lives, and who believes that developing a sense of place and exploring one's inner landscapes go hand-in-hand in one's attempt to live a deliberate, meaningful life.

Turner's book is a look at a year in the life of a climbing guide in Grand Teton National Park. Turner, an Exum climbing guide, also relates to nature, wildlife, and the overall experience of the lifestyles of those who call the park home throughout the year. As I read the book, I felt like I had been transported to the park with Turner. His vivid descriptions and lively writing style make the book a must read for anyone interested in climbing, mountaineering, or this country's national parks.

In twelve chapters Jack Turner has compiled a representative year in the Tetons, an impressionistic collage of his twenty-two years as a mountain guide in the Grand Teton National Park. His account begins not on January 1, but on the first day of the month of May, the date that the roads in the park are officially opened.

The subtitle - Climbing and Contemplating the Teton Range - is a succinct, accurate description of this intriguing, thoughtful, poignant work. Jack Turner's evocative and meditative account has few peers. Perhaps, Primo Levi's remarkable biography, The Periodic Table, is an apt comparison.

I first climbed in the Tetons in the mid-1960s, about the time that Jack Turner was becoming familiar with these remarkable mountains. Nearly everyone that has climbed in the Tetons has imagined becoming a professional mountain guide. Few actually transform this dream into reality. Jack Turner, clearly the exception, has created a fascinating account of his career with Exum Mountain Guides.

Turner observes that the Exum guides have little in common save their love of the mountains and their shared life, a matrix of old friendships, alliances, feuds, arcane traditions, eccentric preferences, and mutual understandings. Some arrive in old, weathered pick-ups; others drive a Mercedes or Lexus. These friends generally part at summer's end, as guides, like most fauna in the Tetons, migrate annually to warmer climes.

I have read Teewinot at least twice. I now enjoy reading a chapter at random. Turner intertwines his personal philosophic observations with detailed, highly knowledgeable descriptions of the flora, fauna, geology, and weather that uniquely define the Teton Range. His accounts of difficult climbs are fascinating. Reading Teewinot is a rare pleasure.

This beautifully crafted narrative presents a month-by-month, May through April, description of a 58 year old mountain climbing guide's recollections and reflections on living and working Grand Teton National park. Teewinot is the nearest peak visible from the author's seasonal cabin in the park.

Each chapter is an essay about climbing, wildlife, plants, environmental management or personality profiles related to events that happened during that month. The book begins in May because that's when spring begins to overtake winter, covers the intense summer climbing season, describes autumn wildlife viewing treks to remote corners of the park and tells about winter ski treks. The lifestyle and habits of climbing guides, rangers and other professional outdoors people are profiled throughout.

One of the best aspects of the book is that while it's written by a technical climbing guide and has interesting stories about both guided and highly challenging climbs, the book goes beyond that to reflect the author's wide-ranging, eclectic interest and knowledge about everything related to the Tetons.

Highly recommended to anyone interested in mountaineering, national parks, wildlife and the contemporary American West. There are 11 unexceptional color photographs, two maps with sufficient detail to follow the ground covered in the essays, and a six-page bibliography of reference sources for the Tetons and other topics covered, although many books cited are probably available only in large reference libraries.

I am told I am a distant relative of Nick Wilson. My Whole famile has all of the copy's of this book and the movie of this story also. It is very well written and very captivating. You cant go wrong buying this book or any of the Nick Wilson stories!!! A must read and must see!! L.J. Gittins, Utah.

Fast service - thanks a lot.

I felt like I was reading a diary of actual events. The historical insight was enlightening. History is hard to write about from the frame of mind of the people that lived it unless it is written by someone that did just that. "The White Indian Boy" transports us to the time of the settling of Wyoming through the eyes of the author.

If you are interested in America's early frontier west - the days of cowboys, pioneers, explorers and Indians - you will be fascinated with two western classics, The White Indian Boy and its sequel The Return of the White Indian.

The White Indian Boy, first published in 1910, is the story of Nick Wilson, a young Mormon pioneer boy who became the adopted son of Washakie, famous chief of the Shoshone Indians who inhabited areas of western Montana, eastern Idaho, western Wyoming and northern Utah. Nick later became a Pony Express Rider, a driver for the famous Overland Stage, a guide for General Albert Sidney Johnston, and co-founder of Wilson, Wyoming in Jackson Hole.

Years later Nick's son Charles A. Wilson wrote a sequel to his father's famous book, telling of his father's later years and of his own adventures in early Jackson Hole. His book, The Return of the White Indian, is equally as interesting as his father's, telling of Jackson Hole's earliest days, of cowboys and Indians, of big game hunting, lake and stream fishing, world famous celebrities, development of Grand Teton National Park.

These two books, published by the University of Utah Press as a single volume, vividly bring to life a unique time and place in American history. There is considerable humor mingled with historical fact, and enriched with early day photos.

A delightful Foreword has been written by John J Stewart, author of several books and chief founder of the National Association and Center for Outlaw & Lawman History.

I read the book and then recommended it to a book club I was organizing. We used it as our first book and everyone enjoyed it. I found the stories spellbinding and the history was very interesting. Nick Wilson led a fasinating life and I would recommend this book to anyone interested in history from the old West.

Jeffe Kennedy has created a special window on the world. She appears to have the sharp mind of a scientist combined with the beautiful soul of a poet, and this allows her to take us by the hand and lead us to some simple truths about life and death and the world around us - truths which we might otherwise miss. Ms. Kennedy's book is an engaging and revealing journey, and I would recommend it highly.

I could not put this book down; I literally read it in one sitting. The fresh new voice of Jeffe Kennedy will make readers laugh and cry. I especially enjoyed her descriptions of her family, lover, and tribulations of being a woman in a male-dominated profession. Jeffe is one to watch! This book of essays should only be the first in a line of fantastic books to come. My favorite chapters include "Appliances," "Girfriends," and "Home Ec."

I loved this book! What a delightful documentation of the transformation of a child into a mature woman! I particularly related to her story because she straddles two worlds--the sophisticated life in the city with art and culture, and the Wyoming West of men, trucks and being tough. My own family comes from both those worlds and I found Jeffe's book a validation of my own feelings.

Note: I submitted another review on this book about three weeks ago, but have not seen it yet, so am submitting this.

This book came into my life almost accidentally, and I took my time getting it to the top of the stack. But as soon as I finished it, I wrote Jeffe Kennedy to offer my congratulations for a job superbly done. I now plan to purchase at least three more copies: one for my newlywed nephew in Colorado, because the book has such an emotional impact from a uniquely western point of view; one for my sister and brother-in-law, North Carolinians who have fallen in love with the west; one for a sister who just likes to read, and who, like Kennedy, inherited her husband's children. I list these recipients to illustrate that this book is for everyone. Yes, it's a woman's book, but only in that it was written by a woman. There's a wry voice, full of wisdom from life's lessons learned, ripe with humor and the author's ability to laugh at herself, and perhaps most important, laced with valuable information about the ecology of the region. Webster's defines ecology: The totality or pattern of relations between organisms and their environment. That's exactly what Kennedy gives us in this book...she's the organism and the many settings in her book are the environment. Buy this book. Read it and pass it on as a gift to someone you love; you'll be giving a gift of hours of pleasurable reading.

Wyoming Trucks, True Love, and the Weather Channel is one of those books that is difficult to categorize. It's memoir, essay, American West, magazine articles, all of that and yet not quite any of it. The title tells you how wide-ranging these pieces are, and it actually refers to only one of the essays in the collection. Even Amazon.com has had trouble pigeon-holing the book, since it appears here on a children's books page.

The strongest essays are the ones about Kennedy's family. The first piece is about visiting the site of her father's death in a plane crash twenty-five years earlier. She visits with her mother and they recall a time that Kennedy doesn't quite remember, when she was only three years old. By the end of the essay, you have a good idea of who Kennedy is.

Subsequent essays discuss her childhood, her friends, her relatives, and her long-time boyfriend. A chapter called Thanksgiving is one of the best essays, about her awkward relationships with the children of her boyfriend and with their mother, her boyfriend's ex-wife. The awkwardness comes to a head when one of the children is hospitalized and Kennedy realizes that although she has no formal or recognized relationship with the children, she feels responsibility and love for them.

For such a slim volume of essays, there's a lot to think about here.

Frederick Dellaenbaugh was a young man when John Wesley Powell tapped him to participate in Powell's second trip down the Colorado River. Powell had made the journey already a few years before, so the second voyage was less pure exploration and more science; the crew included Almon Harris Thompson (called affectionately "Prof." throughout), a professional geographer who also happened to be Powell's brother-in-law. With several boats and men of widely varying experience, the expedition sailed the Green river (thought at that time to be the upper Colorado) to its junction with the Colorado, and the Colorado itself as far as the middle of the Grand Canyon. Swirling rapids, maggotty food, blistering heat, sudden blizzards beset the adventurers, who still though it all made their geographical, geological, and ethnographical observations which resulted in (among other things) the first maps of the four corners region and the Grand Canyon (reproduced in the book).
While wild adventure, humor, and a real sense of the Old West permeate the book, there is a certain sadness, too. The Native Americans whom Dellenbaugh encounters are people clearly already defeated -- fearful, distrusting, sad. We catch glimpses of the Navaho trying to accommodate themselves to the new reality of white (especially Mormon) settlement, creating new networks of trade focused on growing frontier towns. But the seeds of the end are planted already in the irrigated fields of the Mormon settlers, and sometimes it seems as if the natives knew this too. Also, the topography through which the explorers travelled has now partly vanished behind the dams that have ruined Glen Canyon and other stretches of white water and canyon scenery. No one can now do what Dellenbaugh and his companions did; the sense of loss hovers unintentionally about every page.
Dellenbaugh was a keen observer (though perhaps a bit naive) with a talent for making even the monotony of running rapid after rapid spellbinding. One does feel that he may have veiled some of the conflicts that must have arisen in two (non-continuous) years of isolation, though if so this trait is refreshing in a world where we now expect everyone to tattle on everyone else. Every now and then just a shimmer of impatience with one of the crew seeps through. But the real hero who emerges from this book, somewhat surprisingly, is not the leader Powell -- the young Dellenbaugh seems never to have gotten close to him -- but rather the Prof., who rises to every challenge with decency and humaneness, and of whom Dellenbaugh seems to have been genuinely, and for good reason, in awe. Like Powell he is buried in Arlington Cemetery. He deserved that honor, but where he lives is in the pages of this book.

Love and respect for the Green and Colorado Rivers is greatly enhanced by Dellenbaugh's narritive of the 2nd Powell expadition. Well written, accurate history, and spell binding from start to finish. An adventure that can only be partially accomplished today is TOTALLY available in "A Canyon Voyage!"

This is an exceptionally well written account of a wonderful adventure through the canyons of the Colorado River. For anyone who loves the West's wildness, and writing most sensitive and humorous, this is a "must read". This book is illustrated with many fine original photographs and etchings.

At the time of the 2nd voyage down the Colorado, Dellenbaugh was on about 19 years old. He didn't write the book until many years later. What a wonderful/spellbinding look at the most beautiful place in North America (The Colorado Plateau). Not only that but I found it extremely hunorous as well. Great Great book!!!

When my mother first began work on her second book, I thought, what is she up to now? At any rate, she saw the project through, and it actually came out very good. It truly gives the reader or looker, a feel for life in Jackson Hole in the early days. My mother gave birth to me in 1951, (not the early days) and I had just opened my eyes, and she said "son, "Life" magazine is for people who can't read, and "Time" is for people who can't think. Her book covers both basis (bases), so is something an entire family can enjoy. If it passes my test, it's worth a peek. Jim Huidekoper Jackson Hole Wyoming 4/11/97

When my mother first began work on her second book, I thought, what is she up to now? At any rate, she saw the project through, and it actually came out very good. It truly gives the reader or looker, a feel for life in Jackson Hole in the early days. My mother gave birth to me in 1951, (not the early days) and I had just opened my eyes, and she said "son, "Life" magazine is for people who can't read, and "Time" is for people who can't think. Her book covers both basis, so is something an entire family can enjoy. If it passes my test, it's worth a peek. Jim Huidekoper Jackson Hole Wyoming 4/10/97

This wonderful book shows you the real spirit behind the town of Jackson. Before it became a resort and a vacation town, Jackson was a gateway through the Teton Mountains.

Through vivid photography, the author relay to the reader the struggles and hardships associated with living in a small western town during the turn of the century while also expose them to the joy and beauty that make people move to the Jackson Valley today.

Seeing Jackson in this early state makes you appreciate what is there today and what is lost of yesterday.

The photos collected in this book, about 150 of them, capture a period in time from 1872 to the early 1930s, when the area along the upper Snake River below Yellowstone was explored and settled. There are photos taken by seven photographers, the earliest of them William Henry Jackson (1843-1942) traveling with a scientific expedition and working with cumbersome equipment and 11x14 wet glass negatives.

The bios of all seven of these men recount the lives of 19th and early 20th century adventurers, intrepid trekkers across the wilderness and frontier to make a visual record of the West during its early years of settlement. Their images are joined by those of scores of amateur photographers, whose snapshots were collected for this edition and fill many of the pages of the book.

The book is organized by various themes, from rodeo (see cover) to farming and ranching, communities, dudes, hunting, and so on. An interesting sequence captures a landslide which blocked the Snake River for 2 years in the 1920s and then gave way, causing a flood that inundated the valley, wiping out the town of Kelly. Another sequence illustrates the years of change at Teton Pass, the only winter access to the valley, transport progressing from horses to automobiles.

Lest we think of this as entirely a man's world, there's a photo of the all-woman town council of Jackson, the first U.S. town to be governed entirely by women (1920-1924). There are photos of the first aeroplane landing, winter dog sled racing, and the environmental devastation caused by the damming of Lake Jackson. Photos record the vists of European royalty and the John D. Rockefellers, whose influence and money helped create Grand Teton National Park.

For lovers of the Old West and old photographs, the images reproduced here are a rich treasure. From significant and historic events to everyday life, the book is a picture album of Americana. I also recommend another excellent collection of old Western photographs in Richard Collins' "The American Cowboy."

Saba called this book "The ARMAGEDDON Network" because he felt he had identified a group of powerful Americans who were unreservedly pro-Israel and supported a highly militaristic American foreign policy coupled with massive support for the Israeli military and Israeli foreign policy. He believed people like Richard Perle and his friend and colleague Stephen Bryen "consistently promote policies that will resurrect Armageddon as the final battlefield for the Middle East--and the world."

This is an extremely well researched book and its information to noise ratio is very high; it gives much evidence and very little simply emotional rhetoric. For those who wish to understand what I believe to be perhaps the most serious foreign policy problem America has in 2006, its "special relationship" with Israel, this book is invaluable.

Muslims do not "hate us for our freedom"; those that hate us do so largely because of our nearly unconditional support for Israel's mistreatment of the Palestinians.

I read this book almost a year ago, and the reason I decided to write this was because I was surprised and glad to see it available in a mainstream source. The book is about a specific, terrifying incident of American statesmen illegally giving top secret American (military) information to Israel. The author is not a professional writer, so it has its flaws, however, one must admire the courage it took for him to write it. The establishment does not appreciate criticism against Israel, an issue which the book also touches on but not nearly in depth enough. Unfortunately, the book probably isn't believed by enough people

I first read The Armageddon Network twenty years ago when it was first published and find it unforgetful. It is the story of a senior US Government official passing secrets to Israel, but the crime was ignored even after verified in an FBI investigation.

Worse, the perpetrator was promoted to the highest levels of the Department of Defense and given more responsibility and more access to vital secrets.

Now we may watch the same story unfolding again in the case of Larry Franklin passing secrets to AIPAC currently being investigated.

How will this play out?

My bet is that Franklin will drop from the news and the case will never be tried.

Jim Ennes
Survivor, USS Liberty

It is books like the Armageddon Network that make people sick, because it reveals how corrupt their government is. It also unveils the blatant arrogance of the self-serving elites and untouchables. The elites genuinely believe that the majority of the people are stupid, therefore, they can get away with anything. I think the majority of people are too afraid to see the truth, because it is extremely unsettling to go against one's own political socialization and training, and the alternative for that is denial. Denial makes a great coping mechanism.
The Armageddon Network is a well documented and written expose. It is highly recommended for the curious mind!

Reading a book by Cris Mazza is like being set down into someone else's life. This is what novels can do for you that non-fiction books can never do. It's what novels should always do, of course, but Mazza does it so expertly that picking up another of her books is like preparing to go on a trip. There's that same anticipation. Whether it's the world of dog shows, or inside a rehab hospital, or playing in a symphony, or in this case doing wildlife research in the badlands, the immersion is immediate, complete, and seamless. Instead of holding your hand and patronizingly explaining the details, Mazza just slides you in next to one of the characters, and the life you're living unfolds with the natural progression of the plot. Would I ever have known all the details of playing in a marching band, without reading Cris Mazza? Would I have ever thought it could be that interesting?

Another experience this book affords is the ability to like and understand someone that in your usual life you would either ignore or reject. Mazza's main character in _Girl Beside Him_ is rough, irritable, and unpredictable. He's violent and sometimes mean. By all indications, he should be the most unlikeable main character in the history of novels. Not only do you not like the guy, but reading along, you have no doubt that if he met *you* he would definitely *not* like you either. However, by the end of the novel, I was really cheering for this guy, really wanting him to have something resembling a normal, healthy interaction with another human being. I'm not sure, in the end, if I got that, and I'm not entirely sure I understood the ending. However, putting the book down, I felt like I'd been somewhere and had seen something that I never would have looked at before.

If dialogue is what characters 'do' to each other, then they're really 'doing it' in Girl Beside Him. They do it with suspense, with fear, with humor and with chilling intensity. The psychological depth of the protagonists--and their awareness of their own emotional occultation--is alone worth the read, but the save-the-cougars plot line really keeps the pages turning. That and the weird group of dudes back at the bar. From a sociological perspective, the content is fascinating; from a literary perspective, the formal structure is impressive. The documents-within-documents technique provides a lighter rhythmic counterpoint to the actual or potential emotional violence of the dialogue. It makes you want to read everything else this woman's written.

Cris Mazza, author of eight books of fiction, explores the shadowy, often brutal, always disconcerting psychological zone where we humans teeter on the verge of becoming something other than strictly human, whether it's in the short story from her previous collection, Former Virgin (FC2, 1997), where a woman in the midst of surgery falls into a fugue about, not her husband fondling her body, but her doctor fondling her internal organs, or in Dog People (Coffee House, 1997), her last novel, which limns six characters' vaguely dissatisfied lives in suburban San Diego as they connect through the dogs one of them is attempting to breed into a super-species. In the latter, the protagonists' actions continually parallel those of their canines, which go in and out of season, are artificially inseminated, whelped, groomed, and shown, all the while competing with each other, striving to establish a natural hierarchy based on strength, poise, primping, and a simple innate hunger to attack and survive. Here, in her deeply unsettling new novel, she continues to investigate the boundary between human and animal, but this time the comparison is drawn between people and cats. A forty-three-year-old wildlife biologist, Brian Leonard (note the feline embedded in his last name), flies to Wyoming to conduct a study of relocated cougars. Soon after he hires an assistant, Leya, a sensitive woman prone to victimization following an ugly divorce, things turn as turbulent as his flight into Cheyenne. Brian begins to abuse Leya emotionally, threatens to do so physically, and uses her to probe his haunted past. The bedrock of his impassive, sexually inhibited character, it turns out, is founded on his unhinged relationship with his lesbian sister, Diane, who one night long ago committed suicide in the next room at their home while Brian, a teen at the time, masturbated to the gunfire. Overlaid atop this plot is another involving a plan by one of the local ranchers to have a rogue cougar kill one of his horses for insurance money, then blackmail Brian to kill the cougar in turn. Both plots converge in a shocking crescendo that italicizes the nexus between violence and sexuality in the world according to Mazza, and culminates with a final sentence that reminds us that, like cats, we are all at the end of the day either the predators or the hunted-and more often than not some bedeviled complex of both. On the way to that revelation, Mazza's tightly crafted novel creates a resonant sense of the severe non-urban west, takes a number of engaging narrative chances (including several post-mortem dialogues between Brian and his long-dead sister), and reminds us again and again why anyone interested in first-rate alternative fiction should be familiar with Mazza's admirably and unnervingly transgressive work.

Cris Mazza has once again proven herself to be a master of the psychological novel. Brian, a man with a troubled past, enters the Wyoming wilderness ostensibly to track cougars for a wildlife study. He hires a young divorced woman, Leya, who unwittingly becomes a part of Brian's own dangerous experiment: to test his sexual deviancy. Brian believes he might be a sexual predator, and, as he trains his rifle sight on idealistic Leya, he discovers the pith of who he really is.

But this novel is not only about plot. Mazza's language evokes a savage landscape where predators of all types lurk. She takes us into Brian's psyche through creatively constructed flashbacks and into Leya's edited version of reality (which is often hilarious) through letters she sends home to her best friend. Although Mazza is often named among an elite list of experimental writers, her testing of fictional boundaries is never obtuse. GIRL BESIDE HIM is as accessible as any strong selling literary novel.

If you've never read Mazza, start here. You'll wonder why you haven't picked up one of her books before this.

Another writer who weaves words the way artists weave blankets: with knowledge and love.
The book is beyond wonderful and worth reading more than once!

In Search Of Kinship is an achingly luminous epiphany to read. A series of essays by an award winning Western author who honors her sacred connections to the earth through life and literature, In Search of Kinship draws on Native American sacred writings and traditions as well as others. It becomes a rich rainbow fusion seen through a filtering prism of light.

Unself-conscious in form and style, vivid in natural, daily detail, it is a series of testaments to a deeply felt faith in the land and creatures, human and non-human, who people the land set in Wyoming on the visionary back doorstep of the Black Hills near Sundance Mountain, Lambert draws upon numerous rich traditional literary sources, including Black Elk Speaks by John Niehardt, Buffalo Woman Comes Singing, by Brooke Medicine Eagle, and Lame Deer: Seeker of Visions by John Lame Deer and Richard Erdoes, to name a few. She weaves a rich blanket of hope, addressed to the land itself. In the epilogue,'Song of Songs Which is Wyoming's,' she writes of her aging horse, Romie: "Memories cloak and comfort. Time has, for each of us, a different measure. Your decline in many ways frees me to become a new woman whose past is just beginning to catch up with the future.

Actually, it is you , Wyoming, and not Redy, who has taken over Romie's role in my life. Our affair began despite my grudging nature, despite my loyalty to Colorado - land of my youth. At first, these gentle black hills hid their power from me. I compared your eastern edges to the Rockies of my childhood and thought them not worthy of my devotion.

I recoiled from your red-slashed buttes, scoffed at those who called them mountains; these mere places where your face wrinkled with age. I was, at first, deaf to the ancient whispers of those who had found shelter within your arms. I trod the ancient paths but saw only my own footsteps(pp.239-240)."

She goes on to describe the land as an ancestor, even a jealous lover.

"It was not fair of you to tease me with your elusive antelope, to flaunt your whitetail deer before my modern human eyes. You seduced me with the perfume of your summer sage, kindled memories of other women, dark-skinned and light.

But then, when I dreamt of home, of innocent days unburdened by painful truths, of running like the wind upon Romie's back in pursuit of the mythical buffalo, you pulled tight your sovereign rein and let loose the fury of your winter. You taught me that the true mythology of the buffalo, like the words of the Bible, must not be taken lightly. 'Ask the beasts,' it is written in Job. 'Speak to the earth, and let it teach you.'

Your storm raged around me, the vibration of your anger reaching deep chords. When I dared to open my eyes, you offered me a crystalline world, frosted brilliance glittering from every branch, a chance to start anew.

Like a reprimanded child, I pushed thoughts of former places from my consciousness and let you stake your claim on my no-longer-innocent soul.

It would have been easier had I not sifted your red earth through my fingers - had I not breathed in the musky odor of your mountain asters. I should have turned away from your hideless tipi rings, from your bouquets of dried weeds turned to silver sage, and from the shadows of your buffalo bones before it was too late. But I did not.

And now you will not let me go. You demand an enlightened future - whose very hope lies in the lessons of the past - a past that all our ancestors bequeath to all of us (.pp.240-41)."

It is a rare privilege to read such writing. In Search Of Kinship is to be kept, treasured, and returned to, for the glints and patina reflected in it are soul-enlightening.

Nancy Lorraine, Reviewer

This book is wonderful! Mrs. Lambert artfully weaves the fabrications of her willful imagination and vivid life into a stunning masterpiece. I would reccomend it to any reader who likes to feel the emotional pulling of heartstrings. Read it!

This beautiful book of reflections about rural life, family values, and Wyoming, is a gem. Page Lambert brings grace and wisdom to her pages, as well as an understanding of what it means to live in the rural West. This is a book about love and courage. Both men and women will treasure this book and this author.

Provided much information about the Knox Mine. It was a big help with my research paper.

This was very good for my project

I saw this thing happen, and have amazed many people with the story of the Knox Mine Cave In. Having grown up in the Wilkes Barre area,and now living outside of that region,it's great to have a chronological sequence of the events that led to the demise of the deep anthracite mining industry. The book also captures the economic and political realities of the region in times prior to and after the mine disaster. Sheds a lot of light on "powerful" people. Definitely not a witch hunt - factual - lets the reader decide what caused the end of the deep coal mining in the Wyoming Valley

It's about time this book is written. I remember that day very clearly. I was only 11 years old and did not know if my father was alive or dead. Thank God he survived, he was one of the last survivors....John Gadomski and his half brother George Mazur.

In 1939 my grandfather ran the grocery store only a few doors down from the bank where the final shootout occurred(see photo). I'm sure he was in the store when bullets started whizzing up and down the street outside. But, amazingly, although I spent a lot of time with my grandfather, I don't remember ever hearing even one word about the Earl Durand calamity as I grew up. It wasn't until 3 years ago when it came up in a discussion between my mother & her twin sister that I learned that such a Bonnie and Clyde type escapade had taken place in their tiny home town. My mother had been at the University of Wyoming at the time but her sister was in Powell. Now, 64 years later, they were 85 years old and not very clear on the details. I read all the old newspaper accounts I could find to try and flesh out the story but still didn't feel I had any clear understanding of the events. This summer on a visit to Powell I opened the Powell Tribune and read about this new book on Earl Durand. I immediately bought it and found it spellbinding. Its style of using eyewitness accounts makes you feel like you were actually there. I didn't mind the repetition at all. On the contrary I found that hearing about the same events from different perspectives was very illuminating. Jerred Metz is to be congratulated for doing it this way. This was a story that needed to be told to fill out the history of the Bighorn basin. Anyone interested in the west of pre-WWII days should read it.

A great factual read about some of the history of Northwest Wyoming and the struggle in the transition from the old west to the modern USA.

A superbly written history of a little-known, bloody story about Earl Durand, who basically terrorized northwestern Wyoming early in the 20th century.
A "must" for aficionados of Western history.

This historical account of the hunt for Earl Durand that captured the hearts and the minds of Americans when it happened is "told by" people involved in the posse, as well as the young poacher who took part in the crime that started Earl Durand's fall from grace. The writer's literary mastery is obvious from the first paragraph of the first chapter. Then the work takes on a reporting tone: simple, honest, and factual, "spoken" in the language of the era and the region, with controversial views on Earl Durand by his contemporaries. It's rather obvious that the writer went thought great pains to research the era, the participants, and the event. The book contains photographs of the posse members; it contains a map of the area, as well as pictures of Earl Durand. Was Earl Durand a clod-blooded killer? Did he go insane? Or, was he a misunderstood free spirit living in a wrong century? Was he only to blame for his demise? Or did his environment have something to do with it? The book, simple on the surface in its reporting style, raises many questions regarding human condition and morality in the industrial/post-industrial society of a "remote" location in Wyoming during the Great Depression. If you were a capable hunter living near the bountiful government-protected land, and your neighbors were starving for the lack of work in a miserable economy, would you go poaching to feed your neighbors? I rate the book at 4 only because there is some painful (for my personal taste), yet hardly avoidable repetition as the storytellers take turns re-telling their versions of the same event.