Wyoming Books

Jack Creek Cowboy is an American classic. It is sure to please all ages with the most vivid pictures available in a childrens book. I am Corey the twelve year old in the book. I am now twenty and still have people sit stunned by the beauty of the ranch and the way the book is written. I truely feel that this is a book that all people should buy their kids as it appreciates the life we all lead and the hard work and bonding of a family.

Sincerely, Corey Whitlock 10-30-98

Very useful book, details lots of runs in Jackson Hole that are not on the piste map. Explains difficulty of each run very well. Small enough to carry with you in a ski jacket pocket.

Rose Pender was an English aristocrat who accompanied her husband and his business partner on a trip to the US in 1883 to inspect their large cattle holdings in the West. Landing in New York in March, the party embarked on a four-month "grand tour" of the country that would take them across to San Francisco and back again. This book, published five years after their return to England, is her account of the trip, and it's a beauty.

Her observations are fresh and very personal, filtered through the lens of her aristocratic associations. She refuses to shield her prejudices, which are directed mainly against the Mexicans and Irish, though she is sympathetic toward the Indians. She is appalled by the dirt and "wretched quarters" she often finds in the "bar infested" towns they travel through. (Their "tour" covered a lot of ground within a relatively short period, and many of her observations are mere first impressions and thus rather negative, especially of some of the larger towns visited such as Carson City and Salt Lake City). Yet she can be humorous about some of the shortcomings she experiences, even self-deprecating, as for example the night spent in Cook's Hotel in Yosemite Valley, where "the walls are merely lath and paper, and we overheard a funny conversation between a Pennsylvanian bride and bridegroom that was certainly not intended to be public property ... about the 'darned stuck-up Britishers' ... it was very amusing."

They also had their fair share of adventures, including climbing Pikes Peak in deep snow and participating on a round-up in eastern Montana. The last leg of the trip from Miles City back to New York is rapidly dealt with in only a few pages, as if she had seen all she intended to see and now it was time to be off for home again. Ms. Pender impresses one as being something of a whirlwind, which is what makes her breezy and spirited account so entertaining. There have been many books written by travelers to the "Wild West," and this short little narrative is among the liveliest and engaging of them all.

In the Fifties, which have become pretty much invisible years to many people, my family traveled a lot -- economy-style in a folding tent trailer except for one trip to the east coast when we stayed in "auto camps" as motels were then called. We ate cereal for breakfast, sandwiches for lunch and for supper we'd stop in some small town on a blue highway (that's the only kind there was in those days) and have either hamburgers or hot beef sandwiches at the local cafe. My dad had trouble taking his foot off the gas, so sometimes we ate in places that were more bar than cafe, because that's all that was open after seven pm. We traveled mostly in the rural West.

I was between eight and twelve in those years, old enough to observe and even introspect, but without any very powerful ways to interpret what we saw: small town, ranch and farm people struggling to keep their families together and fed, men drinking to numb their trauma, women frustrated by boredom, and what would now be called poverty though we didn't think of it that way then. None of the glitz and sheen that even the smallest towns flaunt now, but on the other hand, not near so many boarded up buildings and deserted streets. If there was a bar, it always had a red neon martini glass with a green neon olive. The Korean and Cold Wars gripped us, teaching that conformity and group identification offered the only safety.

In those years Robert Roripaugh was there in Wyoming, knowing the people and their stories, which he kept in his heart until he was adult enough to spin them into poetry (he was the poet laureate of Wyoming from 1995 through 2002) and fiction, both short stories and novels ("A Fever for Living" and "Honor Thy Father." After service in Japan, post-war, he returned with his wife, Yoshiko, to the University of Wyoming where for thirty-five years he taught creative writing and Western American Literature. He has worked hard to serve and develop Wyoming literature through workshops and seminars around the state.

Reading Roripaugh's stories is a little like reading Richard Ford, who writes about Montana and lives here sometimes but is not really from the state, or Raymond Carver, who turns out not to have intended to be famous for minimalism after all. (Evidently it was a style imposed by his editor, Gordon Lish, whether or not that was a good thing.) They are not exciting romantic Zane Grey epics.

But they are not like the indigenous writers who are best known at present: Ivan Doig is much more inclined to gentle humor and lapidary prose. Mark Spragg, a Wyoming native, is quite a bit younger, which shows in his stories. Roripaugh is often described as "grounded in reality." But maybe that's not the most interesting thing about this collection of short stories.

These stories include some of his earlier works as well as recent stories: each has head-notes that let us know the source of the story and its fate through many rewrites. This anthology amounts to a "story" about being a conscientious writer not inclined to be Hemingway or Kerouac. Perhaps the most important lesson of all is how willing Roripaugh has been to accept advice and criticism while never losing his own core of integrity and conviction about what he was writing. He says frankly that the best way to become a writer is to read and read and read. Clearly a good story is not ruined by rewriting, though rewriting to make his stories shorter tended to paradoxically end up making them longer! Still -- often better. This is about the actual writing -- not "being" a famous personality.

It's clear that Roripaugh's a Westerner when he writes about Native Americans, taking for granted what they are and understanding what they are up against. One remarkable story is simply a set of faux "compositions" written by an Indian girl and supposedly turned in as assignments for the course he taught. It's easy to see what's coming -- esp. if you know this territory -- which doesn't lessen the impact when it does happen. He tells stories quietly and a bit on the slant, so it's possible that Easterners wouldn't be able to absorb what just happened under their noses. But the notorious Gordon Lish, then an editor at Knopf, recommended the story for a Pushcart Prize in 1981.

Though Roripaugh is well known by the Western Writers of America and has received awards from the Cowboy Hall of Fame, he is not on the Manhattan radar and that may have been an advantage. He's had the place and opportunity to "grow" his stories quietly. Most of them were begun in the era of the TV Westerns, a time when writers were feeling around for a new moral center between war and passivity, and to find a new balance between the epic inflations of early outlaws and the grinding reality of day-to-day survival in the droughty West. "The Legend of Billy Jenks" puts the Billy-the-Kid kind of myth-making over against a mere delinquent who gets pushed out to the margins and then cut off at the knees, so to speak.

In small conformity-based Western towns, there is a special fascination for the young in the different, rebellious, un-containable, renegade outlaw. Differing in degree and kind of exceptionalism, from young woman carrying Indian blood to old man trapper living primitively, they interest a thoughtful young man who writes. Stories tend to be about them, trying to explain or come to terms with their lives.

A second common theme is that of the relationship of father and son as father tries to teach what he knows. "Morning Flight," the most recent story, seems to be one of those accounts where little happens except that the boy shoots his first duck. There's no fuss about killing birds. Rather there's a confusing web of war/sex/death/competence for a boy, even one with a protective and guiding father. It is the accuracy and justice of observation that makes the story real, rather like Walter van Tilburg Clark or Wallace Stegner.

I often puzzle about how there can be so many first-rate writers, especially locally, who produce such fine work without much fuss or hoopla while at the same time the media and even the academics spend all their energy re-examining the same dozen latest stars who have already been analyzed a dozen times. When someone like Roripaugh quietly offers examples from his life work, we're fools not to reflect closely on what he says.

I first read "Letters of a Woman Homesteader" by Elinore Stewart. I enjoyed it so much I bought this one too. It is the same kind of writing . Just a continuation of the previous book. Excellent writing of a truly gifted writer and woman from the turn of the century, 1900 on. She has a way of bringing you into her time as though you were on the journey with her. You can visualize all that she talks about. She has a way about her that you don't see much anymore. A love of her fellow man.
The stories in this book are from an Elk hunt that she made with her husband and neigbors. It isn't really about hunting but what she endures on the trip. How everyone pitches in to help one another and help those they come across. When they come across homesteaders out in the middle of nowhere they always are welcomed in. She tells in her own way what the people she comes across are like and how they behave. the letters are quite heartwarming and fun to read. I enjoyed every word. I highly recommend this book to those interested in Wyoming life at the turn of the century. Or just interested in how the people interacted with each other back then.
I'll be getting another of Elinore Stewarts books soon.

This is a thorough and comprehensive chronological history of the Overland Trail and Union Pacific Railroad from the Laramie area westward past Rawlins, Wyoming. Kinnaman first gives us a brief introduction of the land area, along with the Indians, trappers and explorers who frequented the region up through the 1840's and 1850's. Citing from more diaries, journals, letters, official government documents, books, etc. he then carefully guides us through the establishments of the Overland Stage Stations and life on the Overland Trail itself with its many hardships during the early 1860's. With Fort Halleck as a pivotal point, we then see how the military influenced the region, still with Indian depredations occuring and the perils of existing in those days. The chapters on the railroad making its way through this area are captivating. Again, many Indian hostilities and other occurences too numerous to mention. It is a fascinating read, I had no idea so many events occured in this region. I must disagree though with what I believe is an historical inaccuracy. On page 19 Kinnaman states that when Ashley left the Rawlins area he went north to the Sweetwater River in 1825. According to Dale Morgan's scholarly work, "The West of William Ashley" which is based on Ashley's own diaries, from Bridger's Pass Ashley went west, then just a little north to the Dry Sandy which is a tributary of the Big Sandy, which drains into the Green River. So, he did not go to the Sweetwater. Ashley did go along the Sweetwater River the following year, 1826.

Sensitive, beautiful portrail of real life in Wyoming--- the beauty and sometimes even the harshness. "Settling for more" is settling for the best... I loved it. Senator Alan K. Simpson

Beth was beautiful. It was a plain and simple fact. But not many people understood that a gutsy woman was beneath the beauty. It takes Quaid several weeks to find that out.
A wonderful book that keeps you on edge. It's no surprise it was one of Booklist's top ten romances for 2006. It was a delight to read.
Carolyn Brown

Loving Lana is the third in Nancy J. Parra's Morgan brother series and she just keeps getting better. Lana Tate is a plucky heroine with a dream as big as the Wyoming wilderness, but Taggart Morgan has his own dream and they soon discover that their dreams are at odds. Taggart realises that he must compromise to win his dreams, but in the process he loses his heart.

Nancy J. Parra writes heros to fall in love with and this one is my favorite. I love the way Taggart's always trying to feed Lana. He's a big man with a heart of gold.

I can't wait for the next Morgan brother's story.

Before 1976, Wright, Wyoming, didn't exist. But because of OPEC and high oil prices in the early 1970's, clean burning coal became a feasible option in our energy policies. In the Powder River Basin lies a huge area of coal, but few people live close enough to it to work it. So the town of Wright was created.

The book studies the problems of building a new town from scratch - the cost of housing, services, etc. Trailer parks, which do not foster permanence, were not to be the way for Wright. It is a well-established town now, but its existence depends on a single product, a fickle one at that. If and how long Wright exists is for the future to decide. (With the price of oil at all-time highs right now, Wright's future looks bright indeed). A well-written and insightful book.