“We’re getting it wrong in this beautiful, ravaged place,” writes creator Bryce Andrews (Down From the Mountain) in Holding Fire: A Reckoning With the American West. “Over and over, we find a lovely valley, shoot it through the ecological heart, grind its bones to dust, and pour the foundation of an edifice less interesting than what existed before.” It is his ah-ha second on this vibrant, candid account of his experiences working as a cowboy in Montana.
Although it’s labeled as a memoir, Holding Fire additionally has many parts of regional nonfiction, pure historical past and even social science. As a outcome, it’s structured in a recent and unpredictable method, with every chapter opening a brand new window into Andrews’ ideas, emotions and prior experiences. Framed across the inheritance of his grandfather’s gun, a Smith & Wesson revolver, every reflection focuses on a selected concept that has helped Andrews comprehend the fragility of life and inevitability of dying.
As Andrews ruminates on his private historical past, he dots his musings with descriptive, emotive prose. “In quiet moments all through childhood,” he writes, “I entertained a Western fantasy in which the sky’s broad dome appeared first, its sun a magnet tugging upward on my heart.” Guns have been by no means an enormous half of his life till he lived and labored on a ranch, the place he needed to hunt and maintain critters at bay. These encounters offered life classes and new proficiencies, notably when searching with fellow rancher Roger, whom he calls “the lodge’s wrangler and outfitter.” But the extra Andrews lived with the gun, the extra it led him to appreciate the destruction prompted by violence. He ultimately solid the gun right into a helpful gardening device, studying blacksmithing within the course of.
Holding Fire is a meditation on the previous, current and future of not solely Andrews’ personal life but in addition the lives of all mortal creatures.
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