When I Came West (Part Twenty)
In July, after the photographs were chosen, I set myself to the task of writing captions. Then I needed to write a short description of the book and make a list of selling or promotional points to emphasize.
Here's what I came up with: According to renowned historical nonfiction author Dale Walker, When I Came West is "a genuine tour de force, a brilliant, utterly candid and unforgettable, autobiographical memoir."
When city-raised college student Laurie Wagner left the Chicago area in January 1975 to live on the edge of civilization with a man she had never met before, little did she know what passionate encounters and challenging experiences awaited her where the Northfork of the Flathead River, the Canadian border and Glacier National Park marked the parameters for several intense years of life on the land.
Here where grizzlies, wolves and cougars still roamed, Laurie comes face to face with a Vietnam vet who has carved out a singular and vehemently undefended existence.
Far away from family and friends, with the nearest neighbor four miles away as the crow flies, and snowed in for seven months of the year, Laurie must learn to snowshoe and ride horseback, grow a garden and preserve foods, raise domestic animals and hunt and trap game animals for meat, as well as explore the great reaches of silence and aloneness.
Open, honest, and unflinching, When I Came West is about learning tough lessons and overcoming extreme hardships in one of the West's last wilderness strongholds. It is clear that Montana's isolated and unforgiving landscapes forged Laurie's life as a poet and writer.
Selling points? Do you know how hard it is for a writer to talk about why they think their book is worth reading? I wanted to simply jot down that I had rewritten the dang thing so many times that anyone would want to read it just for that experience alone.
Instead, I quieted my complaining mind and wrote: strong-willed but vulnerable female protagonist, implacable and talented male protagonist, rich and unforgettable wilderness setting, intensely paced--a real page turner, hard to believe this is real life, not fiction, and readers will want to know what happens to these two people.
