The Big Sky

• •A.B. Guthrie was born as Alfred Bertram: born Jan. 13, 1901, Bedford, Ind.,
• U.S.—died April 26, 1991, Choteau, Mont.

• •The author called himself "Bud" because he felt that Alfred Bertram was
• "a sissy name.”

• •Guthrie lived in Montana but traveled to California and New York for an number of jobs, he worked
• for 20 years for the Lexington Leader newspaper in Kentucky

• •He was an award winning writer who wrote about the wild west, his book “The Way
• West” (1949) won a Pulitzer Prize

• •Guthrie also worked in the film business where he was a screen writer for the movie
• Shane (1953) which is a classic western film

• 1.Boone Caudill is the main character that lives in Kentucky with his family.  He has an
• abusive father and one night fights back. 
• This leads him to running away and setting out like his Uncle who was a
• Mountain man that he idolized.

2.Boone meets up with a the traveler, Jim Deakins, that decides he also wants something more from life and joins him.

• 3.The boys sign up on The Mandan, which is
• a French keelboat that is headed up the Missouri River to trade.

• 4.Their role model is Dick Summers who is
• the boat’s hunter and guide.

• 5.On the boat is an Indian Princess called
• Teal Eye.  The captain of the boat hopes
• to return the princess to the Blackfoot Indian tribe in hopes of bettering
• relationships and increasing trade.

• 6.Ultimately, the three men are the only
• survivors of the boat and Teal Eye disappears. 
• The book details the hardships of a life as a trapper.  Dick Summers tires of this lifestyle and goes
• back home.

• 7.Boone is able to find Teal Eye and marry
• her.  She eventually bears him a child,
• but the boy is blind.  Ironically, the
• child also has red hair like his best friend Jim.

• 8.Boone suspects Teal Eye and Jim of adultery and kills his best friend.  He is so
• distraught that he heads home back East.

• 9.Once home Boone learns that many of his
• extended family have red hair.  This
• realization and the reality of be confined back home lead him to run away
• again.

• 10.Boone flees to his friend Dick Summers,
• where he confesses the murder of his friend and laments the loss of the true
• West. 

• 11.This book ends with Boone Caudill leaving
• Summers house.

• 1.Guthrie grew up on the eastern front of
• the Rocky Mountains in the small town of Choteau, Mont., at a time when the
• ways of the Old West were changing to a modern way of life. Choteau is
• undeniably a pattern for communities that appear throughout Guthrie's books.
• For this very reason, Guthrie was not always popular in his hometown.

• 2. Guthrie’s depicted the lives of
• Americans settling the Far West along the upper Missouri and Columbia rivers.
• He treated his subject not in the manner of heroic myth but rather with respect
• for the real human, familial, and political trials of people trying to colonize
• the Western mountains and valleys.