SEELEY LAKE - Pete Fromm makes another appearance at Alpine Artisan’s Open Book Club Saturday, Nov. 12, at 7 p.m. at the Grizzly Claw Trading Company. He will be presenting his new book, “The Names of the Stars: A Life in the Wilds.” This is a memoir and exploration of the seemingly small decisions that shaped his life and his love for adventure in the wilderness. This event is open to the public at no charge and all are welcome.
When Fromm was 20 years old, he took a job babysitting salmon eggs, spending seven months living in a tent in the Selway Bitterroot Wilderness. Twenty-five years later, at the age of 45, he was asked to return to the wilderness to babysit more fish eggs in the heart of the Bob Marshall Wilderness.
In recounting his month in the Bob Marshall, Fromm goes back and forth in time recalling his past experiences as a lifeguard on Lake Mead and a river ranger in Grand Teton Park as well as incidents from his childhood and having his own children.
His writing captures big and little details allowing the reader to experience the moments with him. Anyone who has spent time in the wilderness on horseback or on foot will revisit their own experiences as Fromm describes his long horseback ride into the Gates Park area along the North Fork of the Sun River (in the rain); the ten mile daily hike through grizzly country to check on the fish eggs (in the rain); and his sense of isolation alone in the wilderness.
He is a self-deprecating storyteller with a humorous bent. Going along on his ten-mile circuit to count fish eggs, “I pull out a carrot… I swallow wrong and suddenly I’m staggering along, gasping and sputtering, wondering how in the world I’ll Heimlich myself out here in the middle of all this grass – run back to the burn? Throw myself over a stump? I’ll never make it. But I manage to swallow again, stand whooping in breaths, eyes watering with tears and laughter. Surrounded by bears and wolves, I’ll meet my end by the deadly carrot.”
“The Names of the Stars” is an inspiring book brimming with wilderness adventures and executed with a pleasing mix of action, observation and rumination. In Fromm’s hands, a violent rainstorm reads like a transcendent gift and a face-to-face bear encounter like a comedy.
Fromm was born in Wisconsin and holds a BS degree from the University of Montana where he graduated with honors. He is a record setting five-time winner of the Pacific Northwest Booksellers Award and is currently on the faculty of Pacific University low residency Masters of Fine Arts writing program. He lives in Missoula with his wife and two sons.
We are privileged to have Fromm again appear at Open Book Club and encourage readers to take advantage of the opportunity to listen to and interact with this wonderful storyteller and observer of his environment as he discusses “The Names of the Stars.”
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