Writer Kevin Holdsworth copped Wyoming’s
tourist slogan “Big Wonderful” to describe a place of
both risk and hope, a beautiful, battered landscape rich in myth
and fact. He presents it through the complementary perspectives of
a mountain climber, family man and friend, describing both Utah,
the state of his birth, and Wyoming, the home of his heart, in a
collage of essays, poetry and fiction.
Holdsworth was
raised in a traditional Mormon family, but chose a life outside the
faith. In his idealistic youth, he moved to New Jersey to write
(failed) Western novels. Missing the mountains and spurred by
wanderlust, Holdsworth returned to the West. “The problem was
and to some extent still is the re-entry. … I fell for all of
Nature’s tricks. I fell in love with her, with her scrub oak
and stream crossings, sunsets and snow slopes.”
Holdsworth explores nature’s tricks — and her truths.
They’ve taught him to balance his yearning for a solitary
life in the mountains with the even richer life he discovered in
his personal relationships. No stranger to Wyoming’s harsh
weather, he recounts near-death adventures on icy roadways with
black humor. The book’s centerpiece is his examination of the
Mormon Church’s role in, and its rewriting of, the disaster
that befell his ancestors on the Mormon trail in the winter of
1856, when their handcart company was stranded near Martin’s
Cove.
Holdsworth invites us to sit down at his literary
campfire and listen to vivid, unforgettable stories. We look on as
he dodges lightning bolts, fishes for brookies, and rescues
drowning dogs. He reflects on the death of his close friend, the
illness of his father, and the difficult birth of his young son. He
shares his conflicting feelings about the West’s energy boom
and the toll it takes on the environment. In the poem “Seven
Horseshoes,” readers join his company of friends for a grand
day of camping, fishing and imbibing. “Later, in the fireside
dark, someone is certain to slur / My friends, it does not get
significantly better than this.” Neither does most writing
about the contemporary West.
Big Wonderful: Notes
from Wyoming
Kevin Holdsworth
192 pages,
hardcover:
$26.95.
University Press of Colorado, 2006.
This article appeared in the print edition of the magazine with the headline Notes from a place of risk and hope.
Republish our articles for free, online or in print, under a Creative Commons license.
