SEPTEMBER 13, 2018 // 9
‘Magdalena
Mountain’
A review of
Bob Pyle’s
first novel
By CATE GABLE
FOR COAST WEEKEND
he historical fiction
author Molly Gloss,
of Oregon, says,
“Fans of Robert Michael
Pyle’s nonfiction will not
be surprised to find that his
first novel abounds in details
of the natural world — lov-
ingly described plant and
animal and insect life across
the changing of the seasons
on a remote Colorado moun-
tain.” Yup.
A couple of years ago I
had the great good fortune
of sitting with Bob in an
extended afternoon-evening
sipping wine on his front
porch and solving the worlds
problems — which, in case
you’re wondering, quickly
became unsolved again. I
noted then that in response
to my email about directions
to his house, Bob wrote,
“I’ve no idea about GPS …
does that stand for Great
Plover Society? Turn right at
the giant oak.”
This, in a nutshell, tells
you all you need to know
about our local and national
treasure: He’s a brilliant stu-
dent of nature with a quick
wit and a whimsical sense
of humor — all character-
istics clearly evident in his
first (and we can only hope
not last) novel “Magdalena
Mountain.”
T
“Magdalena
Mountain”
By Robert
Michael Pyle
Counterpoint Press
388 pages
$16.95
A multi-genre author
When I picked up Bob’s
recent book, stashed in a
secret hidey-hole at the Chi-
nook Observer office, I had
some idea of what I might
find between its covers. I’ve
read the marvelous, heart-
breaking and award-winning
“Wintergreen” (Scribner,
1986) describing the dev-
astation of logging to our
damaged land; “Sky Time
in Grays River” (Houghton
Mifflin, 2007) about the
season-by-season unfold-
ing of lives of the creatures
populating, almost literally,
his backyard; and “Mariposa
Road: The First Butter-
fly Big Year” (Houghton
Mifflin, 2010) chronicling
Bob’s travels and misadven-
tures documenting as many
butterflies as possible.
His nonfiction prose is
lush with detail and emotion,
so I expected no less when,
in 2014, Bob published his
first chapbook of poetry,
Continued on Page 22
COURTESY COUNTERPOINT PRESS
The cover of Robert Michael
Pyle’s ‘Magdalena Mountain.’