THE LEGEND OF BILLY JENKS: and Other Wyoming Stories
Robert Roripaugh
Here are the real Wyoming stories, set not on Brokeback Mountain but against the Wind River country and the rugged landscape of the oilfields, written by someone who grew up on the land.
Robert Roripaugh has gathered his best short stories from a lifetime of writing and publication in respected magazines and journals such as Atlantic Monthly and South Dakota Review and compiled them for the first time in this collection.
The characters in the eight stories in this collection are fiercely drawn and won’t be soon forgotten: the misfit Billy Jenks; Virginia Shield speaking through Freshman English themes about her home on the Wind River Reservation; Slade Wilson, the man who killed the split-toed wolf; Bill Reno, returning to Wyoming after a military tour in Japan.
"[Few writers know the West, and particularly Wyoming, so well
or have the talent to transport us into the spectacular landscape and lay bare
the hearts of the unique and always engaging characters shaped by that landscape.
The stories made me laugh and made me cry and kept me turning the pages until
the very end. The Legend of Billy Jenks is a literary treasure."
•• New York Times bestselling novelist Margaret Coel
"[These stories are] rooted in Wyoming’s high mountains and plains, and are
powerful with the scent of sagebrush, hay, and human grace. Robert Roripaugh
is a true and wise guide through this rich land he loves."
•• Alyson Hagy, author of Snow, Ashes
•978-0-931271-88-5 • 192 pp • trade paper • $15.95 Order Now!