A review by liberrydude
Badluck Way: A Year on the Ragged Edge of the West by Bryce Andrews

4.0

A soulful memoir by a young man in which the mythic and romantic West collide with the harsh reality of the place-beauty and brutality in full spectrum. Bryce is a city kid from Seattle who gets a job as a range hand on the beautiful Sun Ranch south of Ennis, Montana. He chronicles his apprenticeship of hard work and his thoughtful introspection of the land he works. It's a lot like the 2011 book, Fire Season by Philip Connors-an ode to nature. But Andrews' reverie is cruelly jolted when the wolves he has admired fleetingly and from afar creep up and start killing the cows instead of the elk. These cows are his responsibility. He is their protector. Reluctantly he realizes he must do the unthinkable. His compatriots wonder if he is up to the challenge to go after the wolves and kill them. Andrew is no shirker. He does his duty and it continues to haunt him. Just a beautiful but also at time an elegiac book on man and nature.