starry eyed
Happy—like blissed-out never-saw-it-coming happy—to note that Publisher’s Weekly has seen fit not only to review Opportunity, Montana (pub. date 3.26.13), but to review it kindly, and then slap a star on it. You know what the star means? The star denotes a book the PW editors have deemed “of outstanding quality.” Sweet….
Here’s an excerpt for which I’m especially grateful:
Tyer laces his withering descriptions with an outsider’s appreciation for the myth and reality of the 21st-century West, some heartfelt words on the pleasures of canoeing wild rivers, and a moving exploration of his strained relationship with his late father. It’s a complex tangle of themes, but the book finds a concise focus when Tyer observes the ‘perverse poetry’ and grim logic of pouring staggering amounts of waste into a place that’s already hideously polluted, because ‘the waste had to go somewhere. Waste always does.’
Please do READ THE WHOLE THING HERE.
I look forward to the book. I came here a bit circuitously after reading your excellent article in High Country News on Opportunity. I discovered the area by chance on my way to the small town Montana high school graduation of a family member. We were looking for a rest stop and ended up in Ananconda. Seeing “The Stack” from a distance for the first time as we approached the town was a bizarre experience. The scale was immense, even under the big sky, and the story we knew would be awful. That thing is perched on those hills like some kind of awful idol, or vengeful god.
As a photographer, and former reporter, I hoped to return to the area and discover more of its story. It seems deep and awful and somehow encapsulating of both America and man himself.
I’ll read the book first, of course.