Critical Praise

"In this assured and moving memoir, Blunt chronicles the wars-and-all realities of modern ranch life. . . . Remarkable."

——Outside

"Scarily good–so right on, so focused, so in-your-face that you have to take the book slowly to cushion the blow."

——National Geographic Adventure

"A beautifully written memoir that is a meditation on how land and her life will always be intertwined . . . Blunt's life has furnished her with the kind of strength most of us can only envy."

——The San Francisco Chronicle

"Staunch and unblinking, with sentences as strong and upright as well-tended fenceposts. A valuable addition to the literature of place and the literature of passage."

——The Washington Post

"Riveting . . . This masterful debut is utterly strange, suspenseful and surprising–a story whose threads connecting past and present are as transparent as cobwebs but as strong as barbed wire."

——Time Out New York

"Unflinching. . . . A sense of mourning underlies [Blunt's] account, and she honors the land that she still loves by making us intimate with its smallest details."

——The New Yorker

"Breathtaking. . . . Blunt's writing is visceral, yet never without humor and a raw, fierce honesty."

——The Chicago Tribune

"[An] astonishing literary debut, a dramatic and heartbreaking memoir . . . honed from difficult circumstances and crackling with energy long pent up . . . A fascinating, ferocious coming of age."

——Elle