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Summary and Reviews of Wyoming by JP Gritton

Wyoming by JP Gritton

Wyoming

by JP Gritton
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  • Nov 2019, 246 pages
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About This Book

Book Summary

A cross between Daniel Woodrell and Annie Proulx, Wyoming is about the stubborn grip of inertia and whether or not it is possible to live without accepting oneself.

It's 1988 and Shelley Cooper is in trouble. He's broke, he's been fired from his construction job, and his ex-wife has left him for their next door neighbor and a new life in Kansas City. The only opportunity on his horizon is fifty pounds of his brother's high-grade marijuana, which needs to be driven from Colorado to Houston and exchanged for a lockbox full of cash. The delivery goes off without a hitch, but getting home with the money proves to be a different challenge altogether. Fueled by a grab bag of resentments and self punishment, Shelley becomes a case study in the question of whether it's possible to live without accepting yourself, and the dope money is the key to a lock he might never find. JP Gritton's portrait of a hapless aspirant at odds with himself and everyone around him is both tender and ruthless, and Wyoming considers the possibility of redemption in a world that grants forgiveness grudgingly, if at all.

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Reviews

BookBrowse Review

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There is not much action, but the character and situational dramas are so deep and vivid that Wyoming never bores. Fire is the principal theme; the book begins with a forest fire, and proceeds to run through a series of fiery relationships and smoldering guilt. It ends with the reader trying to find salvation through the smoke and ashes. Is Shelley a guileless dupe? His own worst enemy? An anti-hero? The author succeeds at making the reader care enough to find out...continued

Full Review (576 words)

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(Reviewed by Ian Muehlenhaus).

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Beyond the Book



An Interview with JP Gritton

JP Gritton author photoI took some time to ask the author about his background, and the origins and themes of his unique and tightly-crafted debut novel, Wyoming.

Q: Could you tell me a little about yourself? Where are you from originally, where are you now, and how did you come to write this novel?

I was born in Boulder, Colorado, which was a funky, hippyish town back in the day, and still sort of is. I love Boulder, but being honest I don't know how much growing up there informed this novel. Except, my first job out of college was working on a construction crew all over Boulder Valley. I wrote the opening chapter-or-so for Wyoming over the course of that time, but I figured out pretty quickly that, if I wanted to write and talk about books (which I ...

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Read-Alikes

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