Jim Marshall

Out West: Author's Manuscript Edition Jim Marshall

A spoiled, troublemaking city kid is ripped from his easy urban life at a college prep boarding school and forced to spend his summer working on a Montana ranch during the turbulent 1960s. He makes mistake after mistake with the valuable equipment, his fellow hired hands, and the stock-keeping Roy teetering on the edge of being fired. First love, Laura, the rancher's daughter, is a 16-year-old's dream come true. Instead of hitchhiking home Roy keeps trying - slowly coming to terms with what he was and what he wants to be. Roy finds acceptance and finally even respect from the rancher, his family, and the other hands. Out West is a coming of age story about how a boy learns to be a man during a self-awakening forced by hard work, responsibility, and the love of a good woman.