WRITERS & WRITING: Making of a man in North Dakota

The Good Hand 
Michael Patrick F. Smith 
Viking 
ISBN 978-1-9848-8151-9 
$39 
 
The Good Hand, is a memoir of a man’s coming of age in the North Dakota oil patch. One early morning in February 1979, I stood atop a water truck in the oil patch in North Dakota’s Theodore Roosevelt National Park North Unit, servicing a workover rig. Neon-green Northern Lights danced across the horizon. Later that morning, butte tops floated in a mauve morning fog sea. It was so beautiful I forgot it was 40 below. 
 
Read the full review in the Oct. 28 Advance.