Reviewed By Ryan Hummel
Step into the messy world of Shelly (Sheldon) Cooper, a man surrounded by little opportunity and harsh realities of not so ideal family relationships. Although the story has very little to do with the state of Wyoming, Shelly is tasked to drive a large quantity of his brother’s weed from Colorado down to Houston, Texas. After previously being let go from his job, Shelly accepts his brother’s offer, despite his rocky relationship with his brother (whom Shelly also holds accountable for his beloved mothers death) who is fresh out of prison after doing a five year stint for being caught in Texas and hit with intent to distribute charges. In true Shelly fashion and mishaps on the way back Shelly is forced to make some hard decisions involving violence, morality, and down right thievery.
The setting is 1988 but the book flashes in time to get a full understanding of the misdeeds of Shelly Cooper. Shelly was working on a house framing crew, as his chosen trade, when a wildfire engulfed the mountain near the worksite and the crew was forced to evacuate themselves and all of the equipment. Coming from this Shelly “somehow” finds himself at a pawn shop with an air compressor five hundred miles away in Arkansas. Following his departure from the company and in need of money, Shelly had no choice but to take his brother’s offer to mule drugs across state lines. During his journey down and back from Texas, Shelly meets several characters that challenge his morality and self indulgence. Specifically when he meets the smug self righteous Carter Landreau and lets in “The devil” to his motel room to “just have one drink.” Once the deal with Shelly and the devil had been made. The devil was asking for payment, the moral clarity set into Shelly and he shouted “just who the hell are you?” To find out exactly what type of deal Shelly made you will have to get to chapter four of Wyoming. Or did Shelly make that deal a long time ago and now has to pay the piper?
This novel is told from the mind of Shelly (Sheldon) Cooper where he jumps around from past, present, and future events all in an attempt to justify the actions made by him and other characters. The writing is in a first person narration as if Shelly were talking directly to you warts and all. The use of profanity, rural sayings, and dialect makes the writing feel authentic to the main protagonist. The reader somewhat gets a sense of what is going through the main character’s head and exactly what he thinks about other people. Also, if you’re accustomed to the word “sit” you should familiarize yourself with the term “set.” This book shows the hardships of places in rural America which are not often written about. Gritton writes about the blue collar families of rural America who only have one income to take care of a family of five. If you like to learn about how different families handle the stress and brotherly bickering this book may be for you.
Unsurprisingly, Wyoming by JP Gritton is a book that makes you challenge your own thought process in morality. Gritton takes the reader through the actions of a not so moral man with a lot of disdain for the way the world works. You watch as Shelly makes bad decision after bad decision and not take the responsibility of said actions, and how that tolls on his attitude and overall outlook on life. From Shelly’s perspective everyone else is the problem and he can do no wrong, he has just been caught in a storm of bad luck and tense family relations. And he may be right, given that his wife and child left him for the next door neighbor, his brother just got out of jail, and his best friend has a very sick child, who also happens to be his niece. This is a story about a man that is down on his luck and progressively makes it worse for himself over and over again. If that interests you, then I’d say give Wyoming a read.