How to Cuss in Western: And Other Missives from the High Desert

by Michael P. Branch

Overview

Where nature writing meets humor—a raucous, hilarious look at life in the high desert of Nevada, from the author of Raising Wild and Rants from the Hill.

Edward Abbey encouraged his readers to “be loyal to what you love, be true to the Earth, and fight your enemies with passion and laughter.” Here is Michael Branch’s response. Full of clear-eyed explorations of the natural world, witty cultural observations, and heart-warming family connections, How to Cuss in Western is a cranky and hilarious love letter of sorts to the western Great Basin Desert of Nevada.

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9781611804614
Publisher:	Shambhala
Publication date:	08/28/2018
Pages:	224
Product dimensions:	5.40(w) x 8.30(h) x 0.70(d)

About the Author

MICHAEL P. BRANCH is a professor of literature and environment at the University of Nevada, Reno, where he teaches creative nonfiction, American literature, environmental studies, and film studies. He has published five books and more than two hundred essays, articles, and reviews. Mike lives with his wife, Eryn, and daughters, Hannah Virginia and Caroline Emerson, in a passive solar home of their own design at 6,000 feet in the remote high desert of northwestern Nevada, in the ecotone where the Great Basin Desert and Sierra Nevada Mountains meet. There he writes, plays blues harmonica, drinks sour mash, curses at baseball on the radio, cuts stove wood, and walks at least 1,200 miles each year in the surrounding hills, canyons, ridges, arroyos, and playas.

Table of Contents

Laughing Matters xi

Few and Far Between 1

Walking to California 9

Tired of Chickens 13

The Leprechaun Trap 18

Will the Real Fake John Muir Please Stand Up? 23

Such Sweet Sorrow 31

Them! and Us 39

Scout's Honor 43

Imagining Shark Mountain 50

The Moopets 55

Desert Flood 63

What Would Edward Abbey Do? 70

Lone Tree 75

How to Cuss in Western 80

Desert River Music 87

Shit Happens 95

Sir Rantsalot in the Dead Tree Forest 104

Road Captain 111

My First Rodeo 116

IH8 DMV 127

Don't Fence Me In 135

Cowboys and Aliens 142

Trial by Jury 148

Closing the Mountain 153

Pleistocene Rewilding 160

Uncle Hedgie 166

Upon the Burning of Our House 172

Running into Winter 181

Missives from the Hill 186

Credits 191

Acknowledgments 193

About the Author 197

Editorial Reviews

08/20/2018
This essay collection from Branch (Rants from the Hill) depicts his home, the high desert of Nevada’s Great Basin, as a setting for austere natural beauty as well as a place which lends itself to colorful, eccentric lifestyles. Some of these pieces (most of which were originally published online in High Country News) are broadly humorous, like the title essay on western “cussing,” which carefully parses the distinction between chickenshit and horseshit. Some tell stories about the problems of home ownership in the desert, such as the times he “lost” his septic tank or was unexpectedly appointed “road captain”—the person responsible for maintaining the tiny road connecting his neighborhood to the main road. But Branch is at his best when reflecting on the existence of life in a seemingly barren place. In “Lone Tree,” he writes of the importance of a single juniper tree on his property; in “Shark Mountain,” Branch and his daughter journey to the top of a nearby mountain to leave behind sea shells and shark teeth, in a kind of imaginative reconnection with the desert’s prehistoric past as ocean floor. As it was for Branch’s literary heroes, Henry David Thoreau and Edward Abbey, the wild emerges here as a place of unlimited possibility. By turns hilarious and thought-provoking, Branch’s collection will not disappoint. (Sept.)

Publishers Weekly

It’s not easy to live in the high desert of the American West—it requires an eye for the sparest sort of natural beauty, a robust sense of humor that can help one weather the inevitable indignities and hardships that accompany life in such a landscape, and, yes, even a special class of regionally-inflected swear words. In How to Cuss in Western, Michael P. Branch once again offers his readers a companionable journey into the remote places he loves so we might share in the unique joy and humor he finds there.”—S. M. Hulse, author of Black River 

"Not long ago Mike Branch was a respected academic, one of the founders of ecocriticism, before he shed that old skin and emerged anew as a kind of Thoreau in Groucho glasses. That emergence has been a delight for readers, who find both laughter and wisdom in the words of this western ranter, perched high in his desert home in Nevada, up on Ranting Hill, where he worships a divine troika of family, humor, and place.  In his always-engaging essays, we encounter sage and pronghorns, juniper and sandstone, but also garden gnomes, the art of wheel waving, casual strolls to California, Muppets, and a deep meditation on flatulence.  A book that could proudly sit on any western shelf next to Austin’s or Abbey’s."—David Gessner, author of All the Wild That Remains

"By turns hilarious and thought-provoking, Branch’s collection will not disappoint."—Publishers Weekly

"Branch pours IPA, rye whiskey, and a frequent 'tumbler of sour mash' while breathing satisfaction for the domestic life. His gift for humor arises in well-turned phrases and ironic scenes."—The Spokesman-Review 

"Michael Branch is a master of iconoclastic irony and gifted with a unique and compelling storytelling style that will keep the reader's riveted attention throughout."—Midwest Book Review

From the Publisher