In his first, clean stab at nonfiction, novelist Lesley (Winterkill, The Sky Fisherman) comes to terms with his larger-than-life, largely absent father-and how that troubled bloodline influenced his own difficult journey as a dad. In a novelistic narrative, Lesley limns a 1950s eastern Oregon boyhood that was occasionally idyllic but mostly chaotic. His father, Rudell, abandoned the family after returning from World War II, leaving ostensibly to pick up a flashlight left at a relative's house. It's like something out of a Springsteen song, but when Lesley confronts his father about it years later, he can't or won't remember. While Lesley endures adolescence with a menacing stepfather, Rudell lives the pioneer life with a child bride. A crack shot who guides rich hunters to elk in the fall, he also builds incredibly durable fences for ranchers. Haunted by his abandonment, the adult Lesley strains two marriages as he attempts to prove himself better than his old man by taking in an emotionally disturbed Native American boy who suffers from fetal alcohol syndrome. When Lesley brings the boy to visit Rudell in hopes his father might provide desperately needed guidance and help, the results are heartbreaking. But Lesley never succumbs to the temptation of creating pure heroes or villains. These people are as raw and real as a rare elk heart bleeding on the plate.