Badluck Way - by Bryce Andrews (Paperback)

Book Synopsis

"Much more than a coming-of-age story, Badluck Way is an important meditation on what it means to share space and breathe the same air as truly wild animals, and the necessary damage that can occur when boundaries are crossed" (Tom Groneberg, author of The Secret Life of Cowboys).

In this gripping memoir of a young man, a wolf, their parallel lives and ultimate collision, Bryce Andrews describes life on the remote, windswept Sun Ranch in southwest Montana. The Sun's twenty thousand acres of rangeland occupy a still-wild corner of southwest Montana--a high valley surrounded by mountain ranges and steep creeks with portentous names like Grizzly and Bad Luck. Just over the border from Yellowstone National Park, the Sun holds giant herds of cattle and elk amid many predators--bears, mountain lions, and wolves.

In lyrical, haunting language, Andrews recounts marathon days and nights of building fences, riding, roping, and otherwise learning the hard business of caring for cattle, an initiation that changes him from an idealistic city kid into a skilled ranch hand. But when wolves suddenly begin killing the ranch's cattle, Andrews has to shoulder a rifle, chase the pack, and do what he'd hoped he would never have to do.

Called "an elegant memoir" by the Great Falls Tribune, Badluck Way is about transformation and complications, about living with dirty hands every day. It is about the hard choices that wake us at night and take a lifetime to reconcile. Above all, Badluck Way celebrates the breathtaking beauty of wilderness and the satisfaction of hard work on some of the harshest, most beautiful land in the world.

Review Quotes

"Lyricism draws you in close; blunt, raw honesty holds you there... For Andrews, the mystery, grace, intelligence, and humanness of the wolves is palpable in his encounters... Badluck Way recounts in visceral detail what it means to make a 'living from a hard place' and the immense privilege and sorrow accompanying the work. It's a celebration of the merits of hard work and a tribute to a livelihood... Badluck Way succeeds as a portrait of stubborn grit and hard choice."-- "Camas: The Nature of the West, University of Montana"

"A taut depiction of ranch life that balances ranchers' concern for their domestic animals with his own appreciation of the wild ones nearby."-- "Seattle Times"

"An elegant memoir." -- "Great Falls Tribune"

"An evocative, poetic account of rugged terrain, the men and animals who inhabited it, and the complex realities of sustainable agriculture."-- "Kirkus"

"An important meditation on what it means to share space and breathe the same air as truly wild animals."--Tom Groneberg, author of The Secret Life of Cowboys

"Andrews gives a thoughtful, haunting view of the business of ranching and the harsh realities of living in tandem with nature."-- "Mountain West News"

"Andrews paints the rural landscape with such precision that the land becomes its own character, and his story [is] a finely tuned love song for the West."-- "Booklist"

"Andrews' ... poetically rendered portrait of the wolf pack working the edges of the ranch provides a counterpoint to the humdrum reality of his daily chores. His extended meditation on the pack is also the scaffolding for the book's design. The wolves' tale is in italics, providing a visual voice. Badluck Way is a beautiful book."-- "The Oregonian"

"Exquisitely written and unflinchingly honest, this haunting memoir about one man's complex relationship with wolves and the wild will stay with you long after you finish it, oh so reluctantly."--Patricia McConnell, author of The Other End of the Leash

"Haunting and elegiac... Andrews honors the men, the land and the animals that populate the Sun Ranch... Beautifully written and viscerally honest, Badluck Way introduces a powerful new voice in environmental writing."-- "Bookpage.com"

"In Badluck Way, cattlehand and writer Bryce Andrews takes us on a fascinating ride through one of the most beautiful landscapes and thorniest issues of today's American West--how can the newly reintroduced wolf and traditional cattle ranching coexist? Badluck Way is by turns an adventure story of a young man on a sprawling Montana ranch, a thoughtful reflection on the ranching life, and a visceral exploration of the cruel amorality of the natural world. Beautifully written, Andrews's book delivers a powerful emotional punch."--Peter Stark, author of The Last Empty Places

"In this unforgettable memoir, Bryce Andrews conjures the modern West with all its grit and conflict. At core lies the old grudge between livestock protection and predator control. This fine memoir contains meticulous details of onerous ranch work--the unexpected violence of herding cows, the backbreak labor of building fence. Haunting and lyrical, this marvelous work belongs on everyone's bookshelf alongside other Western Classics."--Craig Lesley, author of Winterkill and The Sky Fisherman

"One could find no better guide than Bryce Andrews for a journey along the shifting border between the wild and the tame; a daunting frontier filled with unsettling truths, blood and beauty. His wonderfully crafted prose is lean, yet rich in the telling details of seasons spent on a Montana ranch overseeing a shaky co-existence between cattle and wolves. Andrews is a keen-eyed ecologist, a skilled ranch hand and, best of all, a self-examining student of life with a young man's inclination to push past fear and caution toward an embrace of risky, life-altering experience. In Badluck Way, Andrews shuns both cowboy romanticism and environmentalist sermonizing and illuminates the inescapable conflict between human economic imperatives and the compulsions of animal instinct. His book is a gripping tale of the West, raw and real."--David Horsey, columnist and cartoonist for the Los Angeles Times

"This book will make you have deep thoughts about our relationships with the land, nature, and animals."--Temple Grandin, author of Animals in Translation

"This memoir of life as a contemporary, ecologically minded Montana cowboy is heartfelt. Andrews' language often sings. Told in a refined version of a campfire ghost story, his narrative took my breath away."--Jana Harris, author of Horses Never Lie about Love

Badluck Way is also a story about a search for an identity, one that readers can identify with even if their own adventures were not quite so gritty. It's about labor, and finding one's purpose in it... His story reaches its crescendo when a pack of wolves start to prey on the cattle he's bound to protect... Andrews offers a fresh and complex perspective..."-- "Missoula Independent"