The Legend of Colton H. Bryant

Colton is the young son of an oil rig worker. Never much good at school and always looking to follow in his father's footsteps, it was practically inevitable that Colton himself would one day end up working on the rigs. Fuller paints a picture of a mostly happy go lucky, good hearted kid, growing up on the high plains of Wyoming, breaking horses, hunting, camping, going out on the rodeo circuit but ultimately heading to work for big oil.

In this lightly re-imagined telling of Colton's life, Fuller manages to bring out that spirit Wyoming seems to wear on its face, indescribable open spaces and mountain vistas that only thinly disguise a harder edge. The people she introduces readers to are hard living, hard working, decent types carving show more a life out in a place that's not quite hospitable. At the same time, Fuller is writing a scathing indictment of big oil, an industry that dominates Wyoming's economy, preying on a lack of other opportunity and an often undereducated workforce trying to eke out a living.

Fuller expertly draws out the lives of Colton and his family and friends, showing us a big hearted, loyal boy who grew into a young family man trying to earn a living to support his wife and kids. Fuller, just as skillfully, lets readers in on the issues with the oil industry in Wyoming - the hours, the undertraining, the under-penalized safety violations, and countless underhanded ways of sticking it to a labor pool that doesn't have much other opportunity.

The Legend of Colton H. Bryant is heavy with foreshadowing. There isn't a moment in the book, even while Fuller amuses us with Colton's childhood antics, that doesn't carry the weight of looming tragedy. This book is a true heartbreaker of a story and a powerful call to action against the sort of corporate greed that ruins both landscapes and lives. Highly recommended. show less

I just finished this and boy did I cry! My cat was sitting on my lap and got quite damp when I got to the funeral and how they put ketchup packets in Colton's pockets and a toy horse in the coffin.

This is not something I would have normally read but was recommended to me. Alexandra Fuller has dug beneath the surface of what seems to be an unremarkable part of the world and into an ordinary seeming family and came up with a diamond in disguise.

Colton was an extraordinary guy. A tough cowboy with a heart of gold and a helping hand to any who needed it.

I hope Ultra Petroleum and the whole drilling industry get a hard kick up the arse from the exposure of their greed and indifferent attitude to their occupational health and safety show more standards. Furthermore, I hope this book exposes what they are doing to the environment in such breathtakingly beautiful places like Wyoming and Montana. show less

“This is the story of Colton H. Bryant, and of the land that grew him.”

And so this true-life tale begins, as we follow this young man, as he grows up on the wide open plains and oil fields of Wyoming. He is a good-hearted boy, with the simple goal of being just like his Dad, a roughneck on the rigs. Colton’s favorite saying is “Mind over Matter: If you don’t mind, it don’t matter.”
Most of his wishes come true…
I read Fuller’s first memoir, “ Don’t Lets Go to the Dogs Tonight” and knew immediately she was a first-rate writer. Here she kicks it into a higher gear, capturing a time and place, with such aching beauty, that I found all my emotions coming to the surface, including a rush of tears.
This is Fuller’s love show more letter to the dying West and an indictment on the ruthless drive of “big business”, as it succeeds in suffocating this beautiful land.
My only issue with Fuller’s approach, is her decision to put this in novel form, creating much of the dialogue and admittedly taking “narrative liberties”. I have conflicting feelings about this but in the end, I cannot recommend this book any higher. show less

Gee, what a lovely book this is. The story of one man's life, one that wouldn't rate as much more than a footnote in any other context, and really beautifully told. Very political in the most un-political format imaginable, the absolutely clear and simple point being: Everyone counts.

This books takes narrative liberties to tell the true story of a real Wyoming cowboy, Colton H. Bryant. Born in 1980 to a loving and close family, Colton is often teased in childhood for his short attention span and simple outlook, but he never loses his love of life and grows up to be a decent and kind husband, father, brother and son. With stunning blue eyes and a truly beautiful soul, Colton becomes one of Wyoming’s favourite sons, but as he and his friends grow up, reality bites and he starts working on one of Wyoming’s Oil Rigs, a dirty and dangerous job, but the only option for many young men in the area.

The book tells Colton’s life in a series of short vignettes and ‘snapshots’ from his youth and adulthood. It is mostly show more told in short chapters (about 3 – 5 pages long) and through these chapters, we not only get to know Colton, but also his family, best friend Jake and wife Melissa. (His family and friends were completely open and honest with Fuller in describing his life.)

This book made me cry – and that isn’t something that happens very often when I’m reading (I love to read, and books often make me laugh, but rarely do they make me cry). Alexandra Fuller’s writers is incredible – beautiful, evocative and poetic. This is an author who can bring such emotion to the reader. She finds the hero in Colton, and really made me feel for this sweet young man, in a way that I almost didn’t even realise until tragedy hits in his story. At times, I found myself re-reading passages simply because the writing was so lovely.

Despite the harsh life for many people in Wyoming – which is perfectly illustrated, Fuller makes the place – and its people – incredibly interesting, and it’s clear that despite hating the greedy oil companies who have taken over so much of the area – she has a deep affection and love for the place.

I adored this book, and getting to know Colton, his family and friends. It’s a story that won’t leave me for a long time, and I would highly recommend this book to just about anybody. show less

This book made me do something I have never done and which I'm still reeling from. I cried my eyes out in the last few pages of this book.

Not just a few tears but they were literally streaming down my cheeks and this just doesn't happen with me and words. I love words, perhaps even obsessively at times, but they just don't get to me like images do (I am a movie cryer) and it's always been that way.

Anyway, jumping ahead, part of the reason I was so moved I think is Alexandra Fullers amazing way of writing and making you fall in love with Colton. I wish I had a Colton for a brother and a best friend, he just seems such an amazing human being, full of so much compassion and uncluttered by materialistic worries. A rare genuine soul you show more could say.

The chapters are really short as well, 4-8 pages mostly, so it's as though you get a glimpse into a lot of different episodes of Coltons life and not a running commentary from childhood to fatherhood, which would've taken too long and taken away from getting to know Colton from how he was with his family and friends. I really liked this style and it suited the subject matter perfectly.

Colton H. Bryant. A gorgeous kid with a loving family and startling blue eyes. Teased as a kid, possibly for his ADHD tendacies and his struggles to concentrate on his learning. He was called a retard so often that he made up a mantra which he repeats often through the book - "Mind over Matter: I don't mind so it don't matter."

His family blew me away, they are so close, so real, so tough, so true. Colton had a very good childhood and it was largely due to these wonderful people. His friendship with his best mate Jake also blew me away. These guys are so close, so in tune with each other, it kinda made me jealous that I've never experienced a friendship quite like theirs; but I doubt many people have.

Apart from learning about Colton and wishing he would have a long and happy life, you knew that something was going to happen, something bad. I tried to believe I was mistaken though, almost put myself in denial, as I couldn't believe that tragedy was around the corner for this amazing guy but something does go wrong.

Bravo for the author that she leaves this bit until right in the last few pages. I really appreciated reading about all the good times of Coltons life for as long as possible, you just can't help but really love the guy by this stage. Also good on her for leaving the other message of the book until right at the very end so it doesn't detract from Colton's life story at all.

Colton works on the rigs in Wyoming and in particular, for a rig contracted by Ultra Petroleum. They make a huge turnover drilling for coal-bed methane gas but despite the large profits, the company isn't so great on safety training or safety devices on their rigs. Colton fell and hit his head, falling from a narrow platform which had no safety rails and wearing no safety harness as the area he was working in was too tight and the harness would've restricted his movements. Rails, which would've saved his life, would have cost $2000.

The family never received any decent compensation from the company and the contractor was ordered to pay just under $8000 to the local occupational health safety.

This amazing man becomes another statistic in Wyomings very high workplace death numbers and it would appear that nothing much has changed, despite the worst happening over and over again.

I simply cannot recommend this book highly enough. It is a touching tale of one man and his quest to make all those around him happy and to live his life to the absolute fullest. He is a character you wish you'd had a chance to meet. He is Colton H. Bryant, gone at 25 but never forgotten.

There is another thing that keeps repeating through the book, a saying that Colton says regularly, 'If I should die before I wake, feed Jake.'

It's from a favourite song of his I believe, by the Pirates of the Mississippi, and it obviously sticks to him because of his best mate Jake but it will stick with you as well, long after you read the book. I know I find myself saying it. It makes you think you're homouring his memory by saying it. Corny but true. show less

I loved this book. It is the story of a young cowboy, for lack of a better term and, yes, apparently they do still exist--growing up in hardscrabble Wyoming in the 1990s and early 2000s. The book is the more remarkable because its author was a total outsider when she arrived in Wyoming to live in 1994. An Englishwoman who grew up in Africa, Fuller's knack for capturing the spirit and sound of the rural West seems unerring to my admittedly non-expert eye. The book comprises a series of small, intensely personal vignettes that rely for their impact on detailed reconstructions of characters' thoughts and conversations. It's a very tall order to pull off with the sense of reality that its success depends upon. That she so thoroughly show more succeeds is her triumph in this small but powerful, deeply evocative book. Only very, very occasionally does her dialogue slip into the caricatured and less sincere-sounding that would be the likely and recurring fate of a lesser author. show less