The Scent of Distant Family: A Novel
Autor sid siboen Limba Engleză Paperback – sep 2024
Nik’s search for Zolo in the vast and unforgiving landscape introduces her to the eccentric residents of the high sagebrush, including a rancher trying to run an ecolodge in oil country and a displaced herd of wild mustangs led by a mare called Tess. Zolo and Tess learn to rely on each other to thrive, but even with her father’s life at stake, Nik resists relying on the desert’s scattered community.
This story of loyalty and deception in western Wyoming expands our sense of who we choose to consider family.
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Specificații
ISBN-13: 9781496240279
ISBN-10: 1496240278
Pagini: 286
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.37 kg
Editura: BISON BOOKS
Colecția Bison Books
Locul publicării:United States
ISBN-10: 1496240278
Pagini: 286
Dimensiuni: 140 x 216 x 23 mm
Greutate: 0.37 kg
Editura: BISON BOOKS
Colecția Bison Books
Locul publicării:United States
Notă biografică
sid sibo cofounded an animal shelter and lives in western Wyoming with more than thirty rescued companion animals. sibo earned the Neltje Blanchan Memorial Writing Award, and selections of sibo’s work are included in Best Small Fictions 2022, Reader Centered Writing, and Maine Character Energy and have been published in Orca, Cutthroat, Brilliant Flash Fiction, Evocations, and Fourth River.
Extras
Nikki
Nik Delaney checks the phone number again as she steps away
from Charlie’s exam room and back to the clinic’s waiting area. She
used to ignore any numbers not in her contacts list, but now any
call could be the one. She leans against the wall to steady her legs.
The phone is pressed hard against her ear, her free hand over her
other ear trying to mitigate the clinic’s whirring lights and noisy
machines. She didn’t choose to be the family matriarch. Mothers
protect their families, and she is failing. Someone pushing a yellow
mop bucket on wheels just misses her feet, and she closes her eyes.
Mothers keep families together. The recorded phone voice reports
another Zolo sighting. She had assured the nervous shelter dog his
adopter would keep him safe.
She isn’t used to being wrong. But this time, she’d been so wrong.
Hope beats her up, but it keeps her heart beating. Fast.
She leans toward the receptionist, interrupting someone else
trying to check in. “Stacy—I’m sorry. I have to do something, but
I’ll get someone over here to collect Dad. About an hour, right?”
The receptionist has time for half a nod. Nik wheels and gallops
down the hall, her winter boots heavy and awkward, people staring.
As she pushes against the too-slow automatic doors, she remembers—
no car. She and her dad rode the commuter bus up from
Moon Valley. More cussing and more finger tapping on the phone
even as her long legs, in bright patterned leggings, carry her across
the parking lot toward the street. Her nephew, Finn, is home from
college with his girlfriend. They were supposed to get together
after Charlie’s appointment. Staring at the phone doesn’t make a
text appear. They were backcountry skiing so are probably still out
of service.
Exasperated, she calls her brother instead. When Phelan fails to
answer, she doesn’t bother with a message. He’s five blocks away.
She skids across hard ice and mounds of crusty plowed snow, her
breath sharp and frigid in the back of her throat. Half the parked cars
gleam in the diffuse light, and the rest slink against the curb under
frozen dirt coatings. She tries not to touch any, despite the treacherous
footing—a car alarm would send her heart into convulsions.
When she reaches the lot where her brother’s Range Rover reflects a
brilliant silver, like the oh-so- distinguished hair now on his temples,
she pauses, leaning against the fence to civilize her breathing. Her
amped legs, however, do not let her rest.
She pushes through the glass front door, bare hands smudging
the crisp letters of the International Resort Development Corporation,
and in four long strides, she faces his closed inner office. A
raised voice carries through and echoes off the ridges carved into
his door’s redwood landscape. Not his raised voice. So—Phelan
will appreciate the interruption. She’s already leaning on the handle as
she knocks, curt and loud.
“Sorry to barge in.” Nik glances at the person who’s voice she’d
heard, but she sees nothing, her whole attention on the mission. “I
need to borrow your car. And I need you to be at the hospital in a
half-hour to pick Dad up. You can’t be late. You know how he’ll get.”
Phelan’s eyes cut toward his client. Now Nik is conscious that
the raised voice was a woman’s. A large-boned young woman in
heavy canvas coveralls. Unusual. Not someone her brother, in his
mint-green button-down and corduroy casual suit jacket, should
have any trouble handling.
Nik Delaney checks the phone number again as she steps away
from Charlie’s exam room and back to the clinic’s waiting area. She
used to ignore any numbers not in her contacts list, but now any
call could be the one. She leans against the wall to steady her legs.
The phone is pressed hard against her ear, her free hand over her
other ear trying to mitigate the clinic’s whirring lights and noisy
machines. She didn’t choose to be the family matriarch. Mothers
protect their families, and she is failing. Someone pushing a yellow
mop bucket on wheels just misses her feet, and she closes her eyes.
Mothers keep families together. The recorded phone voice reports
another Zolo sighting. She had assured the nervous shelter dog his
adopter would keep him safe.
She isn’t used to being wrong. But this time, she’d been so wrong.
Hope beats her up, but it keeps her heart beating. Fast.
She leans toward the receptionist, interrupting someone else
trying to check in. “Stacy—I’m sorry. I have to do something, but
I’ll get someone over here to collect Dad. About an hour, right?”
The receptionist has time for half a nod. Nik wheels and gallops
down the hall, her winter boots heavy and awkward, people staring.
As she pushes against the too-slow automatic doors, she remembers—
no car. She and her dad rode the commuter bus up from
Moon Valley. More cussing and more finger tapping on the phone
even as her long legs, in bright patterned leggings, carry her across
the parking lot toward the street. Her nephew, Finn, is home from
college with his girlfriend. They were supposed to get together
after Charlie’s appointment. Staring at the phone doesn’t make a
text appear. They were backcountry skiing so are probably still out
of service.
Exasperated, she calls her brother instead. When Phelan fails to
answer, she doesn’t bother with a message. He’s five blocks away.
She skids across hard ice and mounds of crusty plowed snow, her
breath sharp and frigid in the back of her throat. Half the parked cars
gleam in the diffuse light, and the rest slink against the curb under
frozen dirt coatings. She tries not to touch any, despite the treacherous
footing—a car alarm would send her heart into convulsions.
When she reaches the lot where her brother’s Range Rover reflects a
brilliant silver, like the oh-so- distinguished hair now on his temples,
she pauses, leaning against the fence to civilize her breathing. Her
amped legs, however, do not let her rest.
She pushes through the glass front door, bare hands smudging
the crisp letters of the International Resort Development Corporation,
and in four long strides, she faces his closed inner office. A
raised voice carries through and echoes off the ridges carved into
his door’s redwood landscape. Not his raised voice. So—Phelan
will appreciate the interruption. She’s already leaning on the handle as
she knocks, curt and loud.
“Sorry to barge in.” Nik glances at the person who’s voice she’d
heard, but she sees nothing, her whole attention on the mission. “I
need to borrow your car. And I need you to be at the hospital in a
half-hour to pick Dad up. You can’t be late. You know how he’ll get.”
Phelan’s eyes cut toward his client. Now Nik is conscious that
the raised voice was a woman’s. A large-boned young woman in
heavy canvas coveralls. Unusual. Not someone her brother, in his
mint-green button-down and corduroy casual suit jacket, should
have any trouble handling.
Cuprins
1. Chapter One
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
2. Chapter Two
3. Chapter Three
4. Chapter Four
5. Chapter Five
6. Chapter Six
7. Chapter Seven
8. Chapter Eight
9. Chapter Nine
10. Chapter Ten
11. Chapter Eleven
12. Chapter Twelve
13. Chapter Thirteen
Recenzii
“What begins as a lost-dog story quickly develops into an unfolding tapestry of life. Families and strangers, along with animals, wild and domestic—from a herd of horses to a hibernating boa—are woven into an intricate mosaic of relationships of which, ultimately, you yourself will become a part. Only at the very end, as you close the book, can you step back and savor the whole experience as if from outside of time itself. A masterly achievement that will leave you moved, both emotionally and thoughtfully.”—Michael Mountain, cofounder of the Whale Sanctuary Project and founding editor of Best Friends Magazine
“When I cast my eyes on the first paragraph, I knew that I was in good hands. sid sibo writes taut sentences: clean as sunlight and as bracing as the winds of Wyoming. In The Scent of a Distant Family sibo weaves life stories together with poise. The characters take hold of you—like the sight of a band of mustangs in the sage.”—Chad Hanson, author of In a Land of Awe: Finding Reverence in the Search for Wild Horses
“The Scent of Distant Family is such a rich read for all five senses. I’m left especially in awe of how sid sibo illustrates the lives of dogs, wolves, and horses just as keenly and validly as those of the humans. Anyone who scoffs at anthropomorphizing need only read one of sibo’s sentences to see what we gain when we write non-human beings as more than clichés or part of the scenery. The author takes the age-old lost dog story and delivers it anew. . . . The author’s personal knowledge of the landscape and lifestyles adds so much authenticity and guarantees the reader will be fully transported. I could read an entire series about Nik and the family she’s found in this beautifully written story of searching.”—Suzanne Strempek Shea, author of Make a Wish but Not for Money
Descriere
Set against the backdrop of a remote location in the throes of rapid development, The Scent of Distant Family is a contemporary novel that expands, even across geologic time, our sense of who we choose to consider family.