Opportunity, Montana

Mr. Tyer has written a lovely book, searing in its anger, about a beautiful but much abused place. -- Larry McMurtry This previously neglected subject provides a great way to talk about the crazy doubleness of Montana, a state we've idealized and plundered for two hundred years. Opportunity's story lines stretch not only across the state but around the country and the world, and Brad Tyer is just the person to follow them. His writing is straightforward, heartfelt, and elegant. --Ian Frazier, author of Travels in Siberia and Great Plains Tyer's evocative prose of quiet melancholy and gentle humor. -- Kirkus Reviews That the most scapegoated place in Montana is called 'Opportunity' is an irony so rich that a skilled blacksmith could forge it into swords, or plowshares, as the spirit moved. Brad Tyer is that blacksmith. Deploying a unique blend of journalistic acumen, lyric scholarship, and canoemanship, Tyer has fashioned an emblematic history, biopsy, and eulogy not just of a river and town, but of the thankfully dying extraction juggernauts of the post-industrial West. --David James Duncan, author of The River Why and The Brothers K Memoir, history, and the unequal application of economic justice come together in Tyer's deeply felt and sharply penned nonfiction debut. -- Publisher's Weekly Brad Tyer, in this excellently reported book, asks a fundamental question: is it fair that Missoula, a thriving little city, gets its poisons cleaned up at the expense of Opportunity? Citizens in Opportunity don't think so. As the globe industrializes, even more toxic waste is being created, and while we can move it around, we can't make it go away. Pretty soon we'll be eager to mend our ways. But how? We should all be reading Opportunity, Montana. --William Kittredge, author of Hole in the Sky and The Nature of Generosity An intelligent, insightful, and finely crafted book that channels outrage into clear thinki