num_pages: 105
description: A ROLLICKING STORY ABOUT LIFE ALONG THE CONTROVERSIAL KEYSTONE XL PIPELINE BY THE PULITZER PRIZEWINNING AUTHOR OF CONFEDERATES IN THE ATTIC In this lively story evocative of bestselling road-trip classics such as William Least Heat Moons Blue Highways and Bill Brysons The Lost Continent Pulitzer Prizewinning author Tony Horwitz takes an epic journey along one of the most hotly debated stretches of land in North America: the route of the proposed Keystone XL Pipeline. Armed with maps and cheerful curiosity he travels from the oil-drunk boomtown of Fort McMurray Alberta (a.k.a. Fort McMoney) down to the empty North Dakota plains where mountains of pipe lie in wait for the torrent of crude that could soon start to flow if as expected the White House approves the controversial plan to turn on the spigots that will deliver oil from Canada directly to the Gulf of Mexico. Along the way Horwitz meets a cavalcade of characters including ranchers who either love or loathe the idea of oil flowing beneath their land rig pigs and cement heads who are eager to make a buck in the tar fields and strippers and other local entrepreneurs who are ready to help them spend it. He drives miles of lonesome road in his quest to understand what this pipeline means to everyone involvedfrom Native Americans to environmentalists to industry bureaucrats. He sees firsthand not only how an oil spill can devastate acres of rich farmland but how a town can be saved by an influx of new jobs. Over homemade farm dinners and countless tavern beers Horwitz realizes that there are no easy answers no right or wrong no heroes or villains. The questions surrounding Americas energy future go beyond pat declarations about independence from foreign oil or destruction of Mother Earth. They go some believe to the very meaning of freedom. ABOUT THE AUTHOR Tony Horwitz is a Pulitzer Prizewinning journalist who spent a decade as a foreign correspondent mainly covering wars and conflicts in the Middle East Africa and Europe for the Wall Street Journal. His books include the bestsellers Confederates in the Attic Blue Latitudes Baghdad Without a Map and A Voyage Long and Strange. His most recent Midnight Rising was named a New York Times Notable Book of 2011 and one of the years ten best books by Library Journal and won the 2012 William Henry Seward Award for excellence in Civil War biography. Horwitz has also written for The New Yorker and Smithsonian and has been a fellow at Harvards Radcliffe Institute. He lives with his wife Geraldine Brooks and their sons Nathaniel and Bizu on Marthas Vineyard. PRAISE FOR TONY HORWITZ Horwitz wears himself lightly and is extraordinarily good at drawing out strangers. Cheerfully energetic he goes where a less intrepid reporter would not. Roy Blount Jr. The New York Times Like travel writer Bill Bryson Horwitz has a penchant for meeting colorful characters and getting himself into bizarre situations. The Christian Science Monitor Horwitz has an ear for a good yarn and an instinct for the trail leading to an entertaining anecdote. The Washington Post A trip with Horwitz is as good as it gets. The Charlotte Observer
language: English
title: BOOM: Oil, Money, Cowboys, Strippers, and the Energy Rush That Could Change America Forever. A Long, Strange Journey Along the Keystone XL Pipeline
publisher: Byliner Inc.