Winner of the PEN USA Award for Fiction. "An admirable, steely-eyed
collection of stories and vignettes featuring a family of
ranchers."--Publishers Weekly
On Hell's Bottom Ranch, a section of land below the Front Range, there
are women like Renny who prefer a "little Hell swirled with their
Heaven" and men like Ben, her husband, who's "gotten used to smoothing
over Renny's excesses." There is a daughter who maybe plays it too safe
and a daughter plagued by only "half-wanting" what life has to offer.
The ranch has been the site of births and deaths of both cattle and
children, as well as moments of amazing harmony and clear vision.
"Set in the unpredictable West, these stories remind us that we cannot
escape the messiness and obsessions of ordinary life."--Patricia Henley,
author of Hummingbird House
"Displays the talent of a brilliant, new writer."--The Rocky Mountain
News
"With the rugged beauty of the Rocky Mountains as backdrop, Pritchett's
spare yet richly evocative stories portray the stark reality of life on
a Colorado cattle ranch, where three generations of one family tend the
land and animals, devoting and losing themselves to an existence few
would understand or choose to follow . . . Regardless of whether the
songs she hears are sung by a meadowlark or a jailbird, Pritchett excels
at juxtaposing the sensuous with the severe, the rapturous with the
repugnant."--Booklist
"The stories jump back and forth in time, but their message is clear:
this family's ties are as quixotic, fierce, and enduring as the land
that binds them together."--School Library Journal
