Читать книгу So Far from Spring - Peggy Simson Curry - Страница 6

NOTE FROM PREVIOUS PUBLISHER

In late May of 1983, my wife and I were returning from California to our home in Boulder, Colorado in our small plane. After we left Grand Junction, the weather worsened and we turned north at Kremmling, hoping to skirt the storm. But as we tried to fly over the Medicine Bow mountains toward Laramie, the clouds thickened and we turned back, landing under darkening skies at Walden in Colorado’s North Park. Although the runway had been cleared, there were many snow drifts around. Fortunately, there were two hospitable Walden school teachers, A.M. Swenson and Mary Rupp, taking a hike on that windswept plateau, and they gave us a ride into town. The next morning we awoke to a steady snowfall, and after breakfast at the Coffee Pot restaurant, we set out to pass some time. We found a haven right next door in the Bifocal bookstore. To my further surprise, I found that the owner, Jane Larson, was an old friend from Boulder. As we talked books, I mentioned that we were republishing Red Fenwick’s West, as I knew Red’s work was popular in ranch country. She countered with the suggestion that we consider Peggy Simson Curry’s novel, So Far From Spring.

Looking out at the May snowstorm, I thought it was certainly an appropriate title for a book set in North Park, and shortly after we returned to Boulder I wrote Mrs. Curry, received a copy of So Far From Spring, and, after a brief consideration, decided that this fine novel of turn-of-the-century ranch life deserved to be revived. Later, at the Leanin’ Tree gallery in Boulder, we found a Ted Blalock painting among their fine collection of Western art, and it, too, seemed appropriate to the title, and the setting, of So Far From Spring. We think it is a book that you will want to read and that you will want to keep.

—Fred Pruett