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Based on actual events, this is the epic story of Abilene, Kansas, at a time when the cowboy was king, might made right, and the future seemed as unsettled as the endless prairie.
Abilene, 1871. Will Merritt is fiercely protective of the cattle trade that made his father’s fortune. Idolizing the cowboys who flood the streets each summer, Will and his friends are drawn to Abilene’s exotic Texastown district—a powderkeg of saloons and brothels so notorious that the mayor has hired the West’s most famous gunman, Wild Bill Hickok, to police its streets. Yet even with Hickok as marshal, Abilene boils with deep divisions.
The townsfolk resent the migrant settlers whose new farms are slicing up the rangeland. And no one is more intolerant than Will’s best friend, Jasper, who delights in tormenting any farmer he encounters. But Will finds himself torn when he meets the beautiful and beguiling Anna, whose dignity and determination test his deepest beliefs.
Then Will’s father reveals a stunning secret that challenges Abilene’s future, one that makes the Merritts outcasts. And when Wild Bill’s tenure as marshal comes to a violent head, Will realizes that everything—his family, his friends, and the only home he’s ever known—could be gone in an instant, leaving only an empty wilderness once again.
- Sales Rank: #1025553 in eBooks
- Published on: 2012-06-05
- Released on: 2012-06-05
- Format: Kindle eBook
Review
"Countless novels have been written about Wild Bill Hickok and the rough cattle town of Abilene, Kansas, of the 1870s. Larry Bjornson, however, makes the story fresh, unique, and moving."--Johnny D. Boggs, Spur Award-winning author of East of the Border and Northfield
"From the raucous saloons kept in check by Marshal Wild Bill Hickok, to the farmers living in sod houses as they struggle to scrape by, Larry Bjornson brings the wild west alive with such detail and clarity, if I didn't know better, I would think he lived through it." --Louis Sachar, author of Newbery Medal winner Holes
About the Author
A long term resident of Southern California, Larry Bjornson graduated from the University of California with degrees in history, political science, and public administration. His family owns and operates a North Dakota farm originally purchased 70 years ago by his grandfather (who once played a violin piece for Buffalo Bill Cody). Currently, he does marketing for a yacht dealer in Newport Beach, but storytelling has always been his true love. Larry won both the Spur Award and the Forward National Award for his fiction.
Most helpful customer reviews
6 of 6 people found the following review helpful.
A Fantastic Read
By Natalie
"Wide Open" delivers every element I want in a book: good writing, realistic characters, and a great story. And as a bonus, the book also supplies a good dose of page-turning suspense, historical information about a pivotal time in the settlement of the American West, and most importantly, it left me feeling richer as a person, richer to have known Will Merritt, his family, and all the other folks who live on the pages of Bjornson's novel. "Wide Open" takes an honored place in my bookshelf as one of those treasures I will return to over and over, for the sheer pleasure of experiencing that richness again.
Author Larry Bjornson draws the reader in right away, with wonderful, well-crafted prose, and keeps us riveted until the last page, painting one cinematic scene after another, in luscious detail, transporting us to the time and place of the American frontier just after the Civil War, during one summer which historically couldn't possibly pack more punch, action-wise: this was the summer feared gunman Wild Bill Hickok was called into Abilene, Kansas to keep order, just as the interests and tempers of two clashing populations - the carousing, cattle-driving cowboys and the dirt-poor, hard-working settlers - were flaring into an unstoppable showdown.
Bjornson puts the reader right in the middle of the action with an extremely likeable fifteen-year-old narrator named Will Merritt, whose father becomes the agent of the turmoil that erupts in Abilene that summer. Will's life is turned upside-down as he finds himself torn between loyalties, facing not only danger and loss but also his own conscience.
Will gives us a wide-eyed, youthful window on all the action, and there is more action packed into this 380-page novel than I would have believed possible. There are cattle drives, barroom brawls, accidents, emergencies, stunts, and adventures, too many to count. Each one is drawn in sprawling cinematic detail, full of sights and sounds and smells of Old West life that put the reader right in the middle of things. There's the time the longhorn steer falls through the....well, I don't want to give anything away, let's just say there is one surprise after another, all woven into a meaningful whole by the thoughtful narration of young Will.
Possibly the most compelling reason for me to recommend the book is the quality of Bjornson's writing. His prose is so well-crafted that it bears reading slowly, so that one can savor the language. Bjornson's ability to evoke the sensory experience of being present at a scene is remarkable. His ability to make the reader feel like his characters are absolutely real people, through wonderfully observant external and internal dialogue, brings not only a caring for these characters, but also a recognition of the ways we share the same foibles, and we feel what they feel. The poignancy of situations encountered by Will are handled with such sensitivity by Bjornson that I was moved to tears many times.
Bjornson treats us to unexpected little moments of self-honesty and insight from his narrator that are rare in a novel. Will screws up sometimes, and he knows it, but we are happy to forgive him, because his humanity always shines through. Will's initial attraction to his first love, Anna, is fraught with conflicting emotions that Bjornson delights in sharing with us, and not without a considerable amount of humor. All the characters in "Wide Open" - whether cowboy, settler, or townie, whether young'n or adult - are complex and deeply human. Bjornson says in an interview, "Everyone in the book, even the best of them, at some point behaves badly. And even the worst are capable of honorable actions."
"Wide Open" is traditional in style - unapologetically old-fashioned, and I want to call it "reader-friendly." There is no graphic violence, no cynicism, and not even any bad language that I can recall. In summary, it's a very satisfying read - wonderfully written, fun, emotionally satisfying, with sympathetic characters, a palpable sense of time and place, and cinematic action and lots of it. I can't wait for Bjornson's next offering.
4 of 4 people found the following review helpful.
Engrossing historical fiction for readers of all ages.
By Rontonio
I like to be entertained, and this book delivered. It's the story of a boy growing up on the outskirts of one of the most raucous towns in the old west, Ablilene, Kansas in 1871. It's part mystery, authentic western action, a love story, and real history from a time long ago - You'll be floored by the twist half way through when you read what Will's father had been planning.
Danger was all around. Emotions were peaked. The streets of Texastown, rampaging cattle, and Wild Bill Hickok had the ability to change lives in an instant, and they did. Tenderness and the meaning of real friendship are here, too. You will remember what it was like for kids during the long days of summers past, before they were hijacked by baseball and soccer practice. There were so many ways to get into trouble.
Will Merritt, then about 15 years old, narrates in a way that you will forever remember. You may have read some good books, but not one by an author that really knows how to write and so deftly turn a phrase. When I compare notes with fellow readers I can barely hold back when describing the vivid scenes and downright enjoyment and surprise I had when I "lived" in the Wide Open world just outside Abilene.
In my mind's eye the characters were alive, and I eavesdropped on their conversations. This book was a visual experience similar to watching a fascinating subtitled movie, and days later forgotten I had read what the characters where saying. The scenes in town were filled with gunshots, the din of cowboys raising hell and the smell of whiskey and horses. I was parched by the hot prairie winds. I was there.
The well-tuned dialog is up there with my favorite authors, but this is a warning. Wide Open will spoil you. The book you read after this one, regardless of who wrote it, will seem like it was penned by a high school student. This is literary historical fiction at its finest. It's one of the best, most engrossing books I've ever experienced. I didn't want it to end.
3 of 3 people found the following review helpful.
Remarkable writing; deeply moving story
By Disorderly Words
In 1871, Abilene, Kansas, is a raucous cow town on the cusp of a historic shift that will define the future of an entire region. Residents are well aware that without the massive cattle drives from Texas, Abilene wouldn't exist, yet they grow increasingly alarmed by the violence and sin thousands of wild Texas cowboys bring with them. Some Abilene citizens are convinced the farmers flooding in to homestead free federal land represent the town's salvation, if the dirt-poor sodbusters can overcome Kansas' relentless summer heat and drought.
Young Will Merritt firmly supports the pro-cowboy faction, publicly shaming the stubble-jumpers at every opportunity. Abilene is the first real home fifteen-year-old Will and his family have known after following his vagabond father's reckless dreams. Gregarious J.T. Merritt finally has found success as a land speculator. He's an important man in town ... until he gambles on a solution that will save the farmers and point Abilene in a new, more respectable, direction. Overnight, Will's life -- and his perspective -- undergo a monumental change. Growing up can be bittersweet.
Winner of multiple awards, Larry Bjornson's WIDE OPEN engrosses from the very first page. The nearly flawless writing is breathtaking, presenting cinematic panoramas, riveting action, and heartfelt emotion without ever compromising the first-person point of view, slowing the pace, or dipping into maudlin.
Bjornson's voice is fresh and evocative; his effortless prose breathes astounding beauty, chuckle-worthy cleverness, and heart-rending pathos in equal measure. This is literature in the Steinbeck tradition.
Although "wild and woolly" certainly describes Bjornson's Abilene and the surrounding Kansas prairie, WIDE OPEN runs far deeper than a young man's adventure. Will's journey is universal and profoundly moving. Regardless readers' personal histories, they'll recognize themselves in Will.
I cannot recommend WIDE OPEN highly enough, as both an excellent story for readers of all ages and an education in elevating fiction, regardless of genre, to art.
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