Explores the conflict between a struggling rancher and wealthy neighbors over a wind farm in Big Timber, Montana, examining themes of land rights, environmental challenges, and American values, while introducing a diverse cast of characters amid an epic showdown that reflects broader societal issues in a changing landscape.
"This is a story about a fight between neighbors when the folks next-door are on the Forbes 400 list and you're the guy fixing an irrigation ditch in a vest mended with duct-tape. Big Timber, Montana is one of the windiest towns in one of the windiest states in the country. Mountain gap winds howl down from the Crazies like a coyote, rattling windows in their frames and nudging semi-trucks sideways on Interstate 90. Most locals learn to live with the wind. Rick Jarrett sought his fortune in it. A fifth-generation rancher deep in debt, he didn't much believe in climate change. But like the prospectors who rushed to the Treasure State to mine copper and gold, he believed in his right to make a living off his goddamn land. His decision to erect Crazy Mountain Wind would spark fifteen years of legal tussles, pitting him against a Texas oil magnate, a flashy Vegas criminal defense attorney, the heir to the largest privately held company in America, and a former cop committed to conserving and preserving this last best place on earth. As the years dragged on, the battle over Crazy Mountain Wind would devolve into a fight over the values that define us as Americans, pulling in an ever wider cast of characters, including a San Francisco private equity firm, strict constructionist Public Service Commissioners, and a Crow activist determined to regain his tribe's right to climb the mountains they hold sacred. A riotous patchwork portrait of a community of cowboys and billionaires and billionaire cowboys, The Crazies is a heartbreaking story about what it means to be a good neighbor and how to care for a place you love"--
A dazzling piece of narrative nonfiction about land lust and the American West, The Crazies tells the story of a wind farm that triggers a 21st century range war between a struggling fifth-generation rancher and the billionaires next door.
Most locals in Big Timber, Montana learn to live with the wind. Rick Jarrett sought his fortune in it. Like his pioneer ancestors who staked their claims in the Treasure State, he believed in his right to make a living off the land—and its newest precious resource, million-dollar wind.
Trouble was, Jarrett’s neighbors were some of the wealthiest and most influential men in America, trophy ranchers who’d come West to enjoy magnificent mountain views, not stare at 500-foot wind turbines.
And so began an epic showdown that would pull in an ever-widening cast of larger-than-life characters, including a Texas oil and gas tycoon, a roguish wind prospector, a Crow activist fighting for his tribe’s rights to the mountains they hold sacred, and an Olympic athlete-turned-attorney whose path to redemption would lead to Jarrett’s wind farm. A wildly entertaining yarn, the brawl over Crazy Mountain Wind would become a fight over the values that define us as Americans—and a window into how this country actually works. All the while, the most coveted rangeland in the West was being threatened by forces more powerful than anything one man could muster: dwindling snowpack, record drought, raging wildfires.
The Crazies is a Western for a warming planet, full of cowboys and billionaires and billionaire cowboys. But it’s also so much more. It’s an exquisitely reported, ruggedly beautiful elegy for a vanishing way of life and a bighearted inquiry into how you can love a place so much you risk destroying it.
Lisainfo e-raamatute kohta