Customer Reviews

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

5 star:		(18)
4 star:		(3)
3 star:		(2)
2 star:		(3)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

There is a Talmudic expression "He who destroys a life, destroys a world entire." Alexandra Fuller captured a "world" from beginning to end. By the end of it, and after it...you are set to wondering about every anonymous teenager you see working in a fast food joint - for that was one memory I had of Wyoming - but it might as well be anywhere these days . You wonder about the things they are going through (or will go through) and whether you would be in tears if you knew. The more you think about that, the more likely the answer is yes. Which brings up the second half of the saying, which concerns saving a world by saving a life. If you read this book, you will get to know Kaylee and Bill, Jake and Colton, and you will be the better for it. And you will be forced to wonder if Jake had an anxious premonition about his buddy the night of the accident. You will wonder about the timing of the sun dog and about other things that we don't much talk about. And after a while you wonder if UPL can afford handrails on their rigs or requirements that rigs should always have at least one experienced person around at all times. You wonder about the safety officer whose main concern while Colton lay dying was obtaining a blood test to exonerate the company(!). Lots of things to wonder about. If you don't want to be set to wondering, don't buy this book.

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.

One of the best books I've ever read. As a new resident of Wyoming(Jackson Hole), this book introduced me to the real Wyoming, lending a personal feel to the towns and people among the "vast emptiness". My drives through La Barge, Marbleton, Big Piney, Kemmerer and the like, will never be the same, enhanced by the understanding of the people that work and live in these towns. That being said, this is a book for those who have never set foot in Wyoming, for those who have never ventured from big city America. This book writes about the unsung heroes of our country.

The character development and dialogue will have the reader racing through pages while at the same time pausing frequently to postpone the end to some of the best reading since A Tree Grows in Brooklyn was published.

Through her investigative reports of the effect of the oil industry on the western way of life, Alexandra Fuller stumbled across a story that grabbed a hold of her heart and pen. A generational oil patch worker didn't say enough about this simple Wyoming boy with a spirit for forgiveness and laughter who had but one wish: to be like his father. Fuller takes on the voice of Wyoming's brutal elements, endearing family and friends, and the soul of its society to present a gut-wrenching story that will haunt you after the final page has fallen flat between the covers. She delivers this story in prose alive with the harsh vastness of the wild Wyoming west and the loyalty of the souls who live it, work it and love it.

I sojourned quickly through "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant," tugged along by a steady, poetic voice that drew me into this poignant story of an American boy who lived a short life as a grown man. This sheds light on big oil and our country's glutton thirst for more--at all cost.

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.

This is a heartbreaker of a book that will also make you angry. Based on a true story - though the author herself says at the end that she took some liberties with the material, so it's hard to know how "creative" the book is as creative nonfiction. Nonetheless, you come to know its central character, Colton, as a young man who's the product of an LDS upbringing in small-town and rural Wyoming. Not much of a student and pegged as a "slow learner," he compensates for the meager hand he's been dealt with an enthusiasm for living, a love of his friends and family, and a talent for overcoming obstacles ("Mind over matter" is his motto - "I don't mind, so it don't matter") that leaves everyone else shaking their heads in disbelief.

We learn a lot about southwestern Wyoming, the winds, the extremes of weather, and the limited opportunities for a young man, which are mostly comprised of the ups and downs of oil extraction in desolate areas of the state. Here, at the age of 25, he is employed and working to make ends meet for a young wife, her son that he's adopted, and their own infant boy. And that's where the story ends. Although not without a final comment about the indifference to human safety in the pursuit of profits by Colton's employer, Patterson-UTI. This is a slim volume, made up of short chapters that are often little more than vignettes, each capturing a moment in a young life and ending up finally as a eulogy.

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.

I've decided to review on Amazon the top ten books I've read in the past five years. This is absolutely one of the top 2 (can't choose between Knockemstiff or this one for #1).
I loved this book. I really did. Because of limited space there are few books I buy after reading them at the library but "The Legend of Colton H. Bryant" quickly found a spot on my shelf. Another reviewer mentioned that this story could be found in most rural, poverty-stricken areas. I don't believe that's so. Colton is one-of-a-kind. I know a little of what I speak as my husband was a rough neck in the oil fields of Texas and I know the culture. And it is a culture that can't be found anywhere else.
Colton was a good man. An inspiring man. He was very human. He worked hard and gave much. I took something from this book that will stay with me always. An attitude that "if I don't mind then it don't matter". This book gave me a "memory" of a man I'd never met but surely wish I had.

In The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, Fuller presents us with a wonderful portrait of a man, a society and a place. The man is happy-go-lucky cowboy with deep ties to his family and Wyoming. The society is the community which embraces and loves this man through both tough and soft love. The place is the open and desolate plains of Wyoming, a last frontier in America. Fuller presents these portraits with compassion and warmth, using terse and effective prose. I highly recommend this wonderful book.

I won't ever look at Wyoming or oil rig sites the same. This book has stayed with me. That's what a good story should do.