Gold and Grass: The Black Hills Story

By Paul Friggens

Book Overview

This well-loved book has minimal wear around the edges. There is also quite a bit of wear on the dust jacket. This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0871086484
• ISBN13: 9780871086488
• Release Date: May 1983
• Publisher: Westwinds Press
• Length: 179 Pages
• Weight: 2.00 lbs.

Customer Reviews

If my grandparents had written a book...

The author, Paul Friggens, wrote a part historical, part autobiographical book about the early "Americanization" of what we now call South Dakota. The historical section has heavy doses of what passes for 1980's politically correct writing. He is a very sympathetic author, when writing about the conquest of the native tribes. OK stuff. Given Friggen's writing credentials as a frequent contributor to "Reader's Digest" I would have expected stronger writing. No matter, the book really takes off when he gets to writing the autobiographical stuff, about half way through. How many of us wished we had written down all those stories our parents and grandparents told about homesteading somewhere in the Midwest. Friggens' book fills that void. He was born in 1909 on the windswept plains of South Dakota to homesteading parents. His stories about the changes in technology(like making the change from oxen to tractors), politics, weather(dust storms, snow storms, locust, you name it) and society are valuable first person testimonies to the struggles and joys of a homesteader's life. If your dad called the department store, "Uncle Monkey's" and he called his undergarments a "union suit," you will hear his voice in Friggins' writing. The biographical section is followed by a collection of short essays on colorful figures from a bygone era.