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A review by liralen
Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West by Bryce Andrews
4.0
It occurred to me that I had achieved a rare thing: I was living at the center of my heart's geography. And I knew it. (103)
Andrews wasn't raised to be a cowboy, but a cowboy he became, chasing his dreams out to Montana and lassoing them neatly. In Badluck Way he tells a quiet, but occasionally violent, story of his first year out. As a ranch hand, his jobs are generally simple, physical: care for the animals. Repair the fences. Keep watch for wolves. But his commitment is less to the ranch itself than it is to the idea of the wild that the area offers, and it is with reservations that Andrews approaches tasks designed to drive off or kill the wolves that threaten the ranch's animals and bottom line.
And it's true: the wolves make it a more interesting story. It's an I-did-something-for-a-year-and-wrote-about-it memoir, but not entirely; though at the beginning of the book Andrews talks about deciding whether to stay or go, 'go' does not mean 'go back to the city'. Ranching is, for him, a childhood dream come to life, but despite the hardships it's one that he embraces fully. Maybe five years or ten would be enough; I don't know. In any case, he describes a quiet acceptance on the ranch, one that lets him learn the ropes without feeling like a total outsider. It's not clear if this had to do with the ranch (which seems to have been in some ways a hobby ranch?) or Andrews's immediate bosses, but were it not for the threat posed by the wolves—and the possibility of suburbia encroaching on the wild—it sounds as though it would have been an unmarred utopia for him.
Quick read. Interesting book.
Andrews wasn't raised to be a cowboy, but a cowboy he became, chasing his dreams out to Montana and lassoing them neatly. In Badluck Way he tells a quiet, but occasionally violent, story of his first year out. As a ranch hand, his jobs are generally simple, physical: care for the animals. Repair the fences. Keep watch for wolves. But his commitment is less to the ranch itself than it is to the idea of the wild that the area offers, and it is with reservations that Andrews approaches tasks designed to drive off or kill the wolves that threaten the ranch's animals and bottom line.
And it's true: the wolves make it a more interesting story. It's an I-did-something-for-a-year-and-wrote-about-it memoir, but not entirely; though at the beginning of the book Andrews talks about deciding whether to stay or go, 'go' does not mean 'go back to the city'. Ranching is, for him, a childhood dream come to life, but despite the hardships it's one that he embraces fully. Maybe five years or ten would be enough; I don't know. In any case, he describes a quiet acceptance on the ranch, one that lets him learn the ropes without feeling like a total outsider. It's not clear if this had to do with the ranch (which seems to have been in some ways a hobby ranch?) or Andrews's immediate bosses, but were it not for the threat posed by the wolves—and the possibility of suburbia encroaching on the wild—it sounds as though it would have been an unmarred utopia for him.
Quick read. Interesting book.