Description

The setting is Great Falls, Montana, where the Rockies end and where, in 1960, the promise of good times seems as limitless as the sweep of the prairies beyond. This is where the Brinson family hopes to find a better life. Instead, sixteen-year-old Joe Brinson watches his parents discover the limits of their marriage and, at the same time, the unexpected depths of dignity and courage that remain even when love dies.

Publisher Review

'Among the very best American fiction is that of Richard Ford, who with only three novels and a volume of short stories, has established himself as a writer whose voice illuminates the lives of people who live at the very edge of society ... A special delight in all Ford's writing is the muscular poetry of his prose' Independent 'Hemingway updated and outwritten by a bleak but kindly master of simple words that speak volumes' Mail on Sunday 'Wildlife is a fine novel by a fine writer. At times it brought to mind David Byrne's movie about another American Nowheresville, True Stories, a movie which, like Ford's book, observes the human animal with friendship, understanding and an almost clinical detachment' Independent on Sunday 'Every sentence Ford writes, illuminates. He makes you understand what life is like for people whose daily expectation is that their smallest hopes will be snatched away from them. His prose is strong, clear and satisfying' Sunday Times