The Legend of Colton H. Bryant,   ISBN:B001H31NJ6

Customer Rating: 

Alexandra Fuller has created an exceptional story detailing the life of an American original, Colton H Bryant. What might not have occurred to her is that his story is not all that uncommon in virtually all parts of rural America. A tough man, loyal to his family, friends, and freedom, who is willing to do whatever it takes to provide for them is less a legend and more of a cliche in heartland America. This is something many people born elsewhere or educated in urban America don't realize about people like Colton Bryant and his family who are the backbone of the country. His story is a tragedy, and if it becomes a legend it will be so because of this book.

The story's historical accuracy and detailed accounts of Colton's life could only have been rendered so well by someone with an immense compassion for the Bryant family, which is obvious throughout the book. The story could have been told and offended fewer people without the predictable swat at George W Bush which comes near the end of the book. The energy industry has a long, long history of using up the very people who provide the country with it's insatiable need for fossil fueled power. I traveled to many of the areas featured in the book this summer (2009) and even under President Obama the Wyoming oil and gas industry thrives as never before.

Customer Rating: 

In The Legend of Colton H. Bryant, Fuller presents us with a wonderful portrait of a man, a society and a place. The man is happy-go-lucky cowboy with deep ties to his family and Wyoming. The society is the community which embraces and loves this man through both tough and soft love. The place is the open and desolate plains of Wyoming, a last frontier in America. Fuller presents these portraits with compassion and warmth, using terse and effective prose. I highly recommend this wonderful book.

Customer Rating: 

This is a heartbreaker of a book that will also make you angry. Based on a true story - though the author herself says at the end that she took some liberties with the material, so it's hard to know how "creative" the book is as creative nonfiction. Nonetheless, you come to know its central character, Colton, as a young man who's the product of an LDS upbringing in small-town and rural Wyoming. Not much of a student and pegged as a "slow learner," he compensates for the meager hand he's been dealt with an enthusiasm for living, a love of his friends and family, and a talent for overcoming obstacles ("Mind over matter" is his motto - "I don't mind, so it don't matter") that leaves everyone else shaking their heads in disbelief.

We learn a lot about southwestern Wyoming, the winds, the extremes of weather, and the limited opportunities for a young man, which are mostly comprised of the ups and downs of oil extraction in desolate areas of the state. Here, at the age of 25, he is employed and working to make ends meet for a young wife, her son that he's adopted, and their own infant boy. And that's where the story ends. Although not without a final comment about the indifference to human safety in the pursuit of profits by Colton's employer, Patterson-UTI. This is a slim volume, made up of short chapters that are often little more than vignettes, each capturing a moment in a young life and ending up finally as a eulogy.

Customer Rating: 

I won't ever look at Wyoming or oil rig sites the same. This book has stayed with me. That's what a good story should do.

Customer Rating: 

This is an entirely enchanting novel revealing the unmatched power of living life with an open heart. We are led through a poetic exposure of the enormous wealth in this young man's soul, and the indomitable force of living life in love. I balled like a baby at the end, then I turned the page and saw Colton H. Bryant was a real person (up to that point I thought the book was a piece of fiction), and my heart exploded! I immediately came to Amazon to order copies for my family and friends.