The good hand : a memoir of work, brotherhood and transformation in an American boomtown
Smith, Michael Patrick F.2021
Books, Manuscripts
Find it!
Like thousands of restless men left unmoored by the crashing economy, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do - to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled 14 hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence.
Main title:
The good hand : a memoir of work, brotherhood and transformation in an American boomtown / Michael Patrick Smith.
Author:
Imprint:
London : William Collins, 2021.London : William Collins, 2021.
Collation:
448 pages ; 24 cm
ISBN:
9780008399436 (hbk)
Dewey class:
331.76223382
Language:
English
Subject:
BRN:
2437794