Brief Review on Mountain Man

There are a few chapters in this book that I would give five stars to, but as a whole it felt rather slow. Expectations may have hindered my ability to love the novel. I expected a fast paced story and a lot of action because it was a western, but something else entirely was delivered. It felt less like a story and more like a character study. As a character study it felt like it could have been 200 pages shorter. I received a great many lessons on the way you could cook elk roast and berries, many of them seemingly the same receipts. I was briefly introduced to enough mountain men that it was near impossible to keep any of them straight in my head, other than Sam Minard himself. Point being, instead of a story I read a lot about a man sitting around preparing food and thinking about classical music.

On the positive side Fisher sketches some really great scenes where animals are the main actors. The battle between the badger and grizzly that introduces the book sucked me in enough to buy the thing while standing in the Portland airport. Later a similar fight between a small pack of wolves and a grizzly was good enough that I had to stop and re-read it out loud to Robyn.

Beyond these glimpses into the minds of animals, the third chapter, where Sam silently builds a cabin for Kathy, was one of the most unexpectedly human things I've had the privilege to read. It was so good that the remaining 200+ pages were nearly redundant in their efforts.

I bought the book partially as a challenge to myself to read something different. I'm glad I read it.