Ranch Stories from Jackass Road: A Coming-of-Age Story

Drop an awkward, city-fat, twelve-year-old into the middle of the craggy, desert wilderness (accompanied by rattlesnakes in the bathtub, a few death-defying mishaps, militant mice armies for bedfellows, and hippie cousins who commune in the barn), and you have a memoir called Ranch Stories from Jackass Road.It is a coming-of-age story that revolves around the pains of growing up, and a girl who tries to define herself while surviving in the raucous desert where “Divorce Dad” decides to drop off the radar for a while—Thoreau style. It isn’t until decades later, when she spreads his ashes there, that she realizes her definition is linked not only to the hallowed, wild sagebrush of that stark landscape but also to the man that brought her there to define himself.Ranch Stories from Jackass Road will entertain you. It will make you laugh. It will make you cry. It is a book you will thoroughly enjoy reading because it sheds light on some of the certainties of life—and death.