Sky Bridge
by Laura Pritchett
Twenty-two-year-old Libby is a supermarket clerk in a luckless town
in the rural West. Endlessly daydreaming, she sees herself becoming an
artist, moving out of her mother’s house to have her own, learning to
play guitar. When her younger sister Tess becomes pregnant, Libby
convinces her not to have an abortion by promising to raise the child,
a promise she never really imagines she’ll have to keep.
Soon after the baby is born, Tess bolts farther west and Libby’s
boyfriend abandons her. The baby’s father, a rider in the Christian
rodeo, shows up and announces he wants custody. Her life spiraling
downward, Libby steals a six-pack and is fired from the supermarket.
Laura Pritchett, whose first book, Hell’s Bottom, Colorado, introduced several generations of a ranching family, creates in Sky Bridge
a surrogate network of support for Libby—from the beekeeper, Ed Monger,
to Miguel, another single parent. An award-winning author, praised for
her ability to ride the edges between cruelty and kindness, Pritchett
here pins the border between dreams and reality. In a deceptively
straightforward way, she takes on the themes of our time.
Laura Pritchett
Author's Bio:Laura Pritchett is the author of Hell's Bottom, Colorado, a
collection of short stories that won the Milkweed National Fiction
Prize and the PEN/USA West Literary Award for Fiction. Her work has
appeared in Sun, Elle, Divide, and Colorado Review.
Pritchett has a BA and MA in English from Colorado State University and
a PhD in Contemporary American Literature from Purdue. Pritchett lives
near Fort Collins, Colorado.
Quotes:“At the center of Laura Pritchett’s Sky Bridge is the
courageous notion that a world that makes us all strangers makes us
also, necessarily, family. The beauty of the book lies in the way
Pritchett, quietly and without fanfare, explores this difficult
balance.”—Kent Meyers , author of The Work of Wolves
and The River Warren
“In this spare yet
haunting portrait of the American West, Pritchett's powerful, poetic
voice speaks with clarity, wisdom, and passion about country, family,
and one young woman's majestic spirit.”—Booklist
"A vivid modern tale of believable goodness—despite all the odds
against that. . . . Laura Pritchett writes with considerable skill and
a fine sensitivity."—Kent Haruf, author of Plainsong and Eventide
“Libby is a
protagonist who is not afraid to confront her fears and loneliness;
this very openness gives her a depth and strength that others draw
on. . . . The primary and secondary plots captivate readers and ensure an
ending that is anything but trite. Remniscent of Billie Letts's Where
the Heart Is (Warner, 1995) this book offers a gritty but redeeming
picture of a family that never quite lets go of hope, and characters
who are not soon forgotten.”—Library Journal
You may also be interested in this/these product(s):
Hell’s Bottom, Colorado
Focusing on one extended ranching family in Colorado, Laura Pritchett
balances gritty material with genuine warmth and understanding of
character. In her masterful hands, the Western landscape becomes a zone
of familial crisis and, sometimes, transcendence.
more...
$ 14.95
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Sky Bridge
New in paperback—from one of the most acclaimed writers of the new American West more...
$ 15.00
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Price:
$ 22.00
Binding: Cloth
Availability In Stock: 90
Immediately
Publisher: Milkweed Editions
Published: 2005
Size: 5.5 X 8.5
Genre: Fiction/Environment
Pages: 298
ISBN: 9781571310461
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