I was a bit disappointed in this memoir by a Pulitzer prize winner. I mean I read his famous trilogy of the settling of the west (The Big Sky, The Way West, These Thousand Hills) years ago and I loved 'em. And later I read some of his more contemporary stuff - Arfive, Wild Pitch - and enjoyed those too. But this memoir, which Guthrie wrote at the age of about 65 - mid-career, as it turned out - was just 'okay.' There was something too careful and artificial about it, like he didn't want to offend anyone. And he gave rather short shrift to details about his boyhood and youth in Montana back in the early days of the 20th century (although there were hints of problems and tension between him and his father). There was way too much information about his "newspapering" days in Kentucky with its scattered not-very-interesting anecdotes about covering the police beat, local politics, colleagues, and local 'characters.' My interest was briefly rekindled when he talked of his days as a Nieman Fellow in journalism at Harvard, and then his time at Bread Loaf back in 1945, where he was carefully critical of Robert Frost's apparently overlarge ego and the poet's wanting to be "the only bull in the pasture."

The tone of the last part of the book is overly melancholy it seemed, which may have been due to the end of his 30-some-year marriage in divorce. He waxed briefly philosophical about this personal failure. But had very little to say about winning the Pulitzer prize and not a lot more of his days as a Hollywood screenwriter, of which the pinnacle was his work on "Shane." Guthrie did find another soulmate, a wife thirty years younger than him, and stayed married (over 20 years) until his death at the age of 90. But he didn't know any of this would happen when he wrote this book. He was still pretty down, and it shows. According to the Afterword by Guthrie scholar (and long-time friend and protege) David L. Petersen, Guthrie was planning to update this autobiography near the end of his life, but never did.

Once again, this is not a bad book per se; it just wasn't very interesting. It wasn't personal enough. I remember I had the same problem with the autobiography of Louis L'Amour, The Education of a Wandering Man. Both books were a bit too distant in style, too self-consciously stilted and mannered. I ended up skimming significant portions of both books. Sorry, Bud, but I just got the feeling your heart was somewhere else when you wrote this summing up of your life up to that point. I can't help but wonder how the "revised version" might have read, after 20 years of more success, honors and a happy marriage. I'm glad I read this book, but it was simply not A.B. Guthrie Jr at his best. ( )