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The Legend of Colton H. Bryant | 
 enlarge | Author: Alexandra Fuller
Publisher: Penguin Press HC, The
Category: Book
List Price: $23.95
Buy New: $5.85
You Save: $18.10 (76%)
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Avg. Customer Rating:  8 reviews
Sales Rank: 44900
Media: Hardcover
Number Of Items: 1
Pages: 224
Shipping Weight (lbs): 0.9
Dimensions (in): 9.1 x 5.5 x 1
ISBN: 1594201838
Dewey Decimal Number: 622.3382092
EAN: 9781594201837
ASIN: 1594201838
Publication Date: May 6, 2008
Availability: Usually ships in 1-2 business days
Shipping: Expedited shipping available
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Product Description
From the bestselling author of Dont Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight and Scribbling the Cat, the unforgettable true story of a boy who comes of age in the oil-fields and open plains of Wyoming; a heartrending story of the human spirit that lays bare where it is that wisdom truly resides
Colton H. Bryant was one of Wyomings native sons and grown by that high, dry place, he never once wanted to leave it. Wyoming loves me, he said, and it was true. Wyomingroughneck, wild, open, and searingly beautiful loved him, and Colton loved it back. As a child in school, Colton never could force himself to focus on his lessons. Instead, hed plan where hed go fishing later, or hed wonder how many jackrabbits he might find on his favorite hunting patch, or hed dream about the rides he would take on the wild mare he was breaking. At my funeral, youll all feel sorry for making me waste so much time in school, he said to his best friend Jakeand it was true.
Two things got Colton through the boredom of school and the neighborhood K-mart cowboys who bullied him: His best friend Jake and his favorite mantra, a snatch of a saying he heard on TV: Mind over matterwhich meant to him: If you dont mind, it dont matter. Colton and Jake grew up wanting nothing more than the freedom to sleep out under the great Wyoming night sky, to hunt and fish and chase the horizon and to be just like Coltons dad, a strong and gentle man of few words. When it was time for Colton to marry and make money on his own, he took up as a hand on an oil rig. It was dangerous work, but Colton was the third generation in his family to work on the oil patch and he claimed it was in his blood. And anyway, he joked, he always knew hed die young.
Colton did die young, and he died on the rigfalling to his death because the drilling company had neglected to spend two thousand dollars on the mandated safety rails that would have saved his life. His family received no compensation. But they didnt expect tothey knew the companys ways, and after all as Colton would have said: Mind over matter.
In Scribbling the Cat, Alexandra Fuller brought us the examined life of a Rhodesian soldier; nowin her inimitable poetic voice and with her pitch-perfect ear for dialogue she brings before us the life of someone much closer to home, as unexpected as he is iconic. The moving, tough, and in many ways quintessentially American story of Colton H. Bryants life could not be told without also telling the story of the land that grew himthe beautiful and somehow tragic Wyoming; the land where there are still such things as cowboys roaming the plains, where its relationships that get you through, and where a just, soulful, passionate man named Colton H. Bryant lived and died.
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| Customer Reviews: Read 3 more reviews...
 Excellent Read! August 21, 2008
A friend recommended this book to me and I'm so pleased she did! Fuller is a wonderful stylist and she paints an incredible pictire of Wyoming for the reader. The characters are larger than life, but seem believable in light of the tremendous landscape against which they're set. This is a book that I will be recommending to friends for years to come.
 Great Writing, Strong Story -- It is Real August 19, 2008
A fantastic read. The author writes a great picture. The story lacks for a moment or two because it is real. If it was for drama then things could have been added, but that is not the point. Well worth the read. Tears at the end shouldn't surprise you.
Powerful, affecting, finest kind August 11, 2008
3 out of 3 found this review helpful
I finished this in tears late last night. Deeply affecting, marvelously scribed -- a do-not-miss tome. I'm surprised there hasn't been much fuss about this one in the press since it's quite provocative, especially during this time of frenzied reconsideration of fossil fuel. Kudos to Fuller for the most powerful book I've read in ages.
 The Legend of Colton H. Bryant July 14, 2008
2 out of 11 found this review helpful
I read a few chapters and quit. I found it uninteresting. It now sits on my shelf.
Setting a place for Colton July 5, 2008
4 out of 4 found this review helpful
I recently heard Alexandra speak at the Jackson Hole Writers Conference and she had me at hello. Her passion for finding and telling Colton's story was as essential as breathing, as drinking water. As she worked on the story, spending time away from her family to drive the wide open roads of Wyoming or to spend time on the oil patch, the sacrifice seemed worth it. For as she says, all there is and will ever be is the story teller and the story told. I was most touched by how much she lived the story. When spending hour after hour writing the story, she would occasionally tell her kids, "When you set the table tonight, set a place for Colton." Her compassion and care come across throughout the writing as she carefully weaves together the beauty and tragedy of Colton H. Bryant. She "gave away" the story during reading; and even when I knew the ending, I found the words and scenes and descriptions stacking themselves around me, creating a place of beauty and sorrow and rest. I spent 10 days in Wyoming, paddling, driving, attending a rodeo, falling in love with the vastness of land. Fuller's book gave me a story of people and place to help me come to know this place on an even deeper level.
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