Where Rivers Change Direction

Spragg, Mark

ISBN 10: 022406083X / ISBN 13: 9780224060837

Edité par Jonathan Cape Ltd, London, 2000

A propos de cet article

Clean unmarked copy, close to new. Dust jacket in a new protective mylar sleeve. Different dust jacket art than the US version. Great read.

N° de réf. du vendeur 017040

Détails bibliographiques

• Titre: Where Rivers Change Direction
• Éditeur: Jonathan Cape Ltd, London
• Date de parution: 2000
• Langue: anglais
• ISBN à 10 chiffres: 022406083X
• ISBN à 13 chiffres: 9780224060837
• Reliure: Hardcover
• Édition: First U.K. Edition
• Impression: 1st Printing
• État de l'article: Near Fine
• État de la jaquette: Near Fine

A propos de ce titre

Synopsis

Mark Spragg grew up on the oldest dude ranch in Wyoming, a place of unrelenting winds, pitiless blizzards, fierce rivers, and the men who work there have to be tough to survive. He writes lyrically of this world, its animals - horses, bears, elk - and of its people, in particular his parents and John, an old cowboy who became his mentor.

Extrait

I don't know why I've come awake. I listen for horses. I do not hear their bells, their steps on the frost-stiffened ground. I listen harder. I listen for a bear. I listen for the huffs, snorts, the coughing of a bear come into camp. There is only the deep silence of the night. I imagine a bear standing quietly by the side of my tent. A grizzly. Waiting. Aware of me. The thought of a bear thrills like a horror film escaped from its theater. My own murder stands vividly in my imagination. The dark night grinds down hard. I imagine a bear's small, dark eyes watering and intent in the cold air. I imagine a bear's nostrils flexing, breathing in my scent, its gut grumbling, whining for the taste of me. I think of a bear's teeth, its claws. I listen for the clicking of teeth. I think of the thick, dish-shaped skull--the brain inside that skull anxious for extra prehibernation calories. I pinch my chest, the back of an arm. My body seems soft as lard. I think of myself as food. I pull my woolen watch cap more tightly against my head--over my ears and eyes--and curl my face into the throat of my sleeping bag. I am wearing long underwear--top and bottom--and socks. My jeans and shirt are rolled against my feet at the bottom of the bag. I breathe in the warm, familiar scents of my body and stained clothing--a mixture of woodsmoke, leather, and horse. I think again of the thin canvas wall of the tent. It is black inside. It is black outside. If a hungry bear stands in that blackness the smell of me could draw it against the tent wall. I think of a grizzly's nose pressed against the tent. I think of its mouth watering, scrims of thinning drool sheeting from its black lips. I pull my knees into my chest and flex and imagine my body as unalterable as a knot of steel. I nearly laugh. I've become too old for bullshit fantasies of invincibility. I am now sixteen. I know that if a bear wants me for a meal it can open and spill me as effortlessly as an actual can of beans.