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Show TheSalt Lake Tribune BOOKS Sunday, December26, 1999 BEST SELLERS Here are the week's best sellers, reprinted from Publishers Weekly. Wish Comes True for Young Author Thanks to foundation, Brandt Yardley can tell hisinspiring story BY JOAN O'BRIEN -year- And then a sequel, in a couple wishes are granted in a fardley ee on question in his book PrtSometimtes it stinks and , shaped brain tumor thatthey later diagnosed as “oligodendrog- glioma astrocytoma. it was when he had thefirst of three surgeries, Since then he has undergone radiation treatment and chemo- therapy in addition to the surger- ies to treat his recurrent tumor. Each treatmenttakes its toll, says Cedar City author Lorraine Thompson, who wrote the 225-page book with Brandt’s help. The treatments needed to prolong Brandit’s life have left him struggiing with reading and writing. Scott ‘Turow. 37 13. Blue at the Mizzen. Norton, $24 “Hereally has a wish to ro 14. The Looking Glass. RichLc ‘Schuster, $1 Is, TaraRoad. Meeve Binchy. Delacorte,$24.95 Brandt is among more than 50,000 children whose wishes are granted by the Make-a-Wish Foundation. His wish to write a book is one ofthe more unusual. and write at a higher level, each time he has had eas it has had an effect on his learning would learn all I can in a She says, “Thatis one ofthe is- sues behind why he chose this wish.” matter of weeks. The book, dedi. cated to all children with brain tumors, was two years in the Thompson volunteered her time, as did ee Sandra Lord of Logan, the employees at Alexander’s Digital others. Friends and family members were on hand Monday as Brandt “pushed all the buttons for the first copy,” says Clark Caras, Al- exander’s director of public relaier ‘The glue binding was warm was excited to hold his Late literally hotoff the press. Brandtsays he hopes the book helps people. “I first started out writing little poems and stuff, and thenI got the idea I wanted to write a book. I wantto see it help a lot of people who are going throt the same thing as me.” Thompson says she hopes readers will see that “Brandt'slife is more than a tumor.I hope that adults and children read it and they will learn from Brandt to make the best of what they’re Brandt Yardiey, center, swan of hand dt Nexandore Dighal Pridngin Orem as first books rolled off the press. given.” Brandt's cancer is now in re- mission, and doctors say that could last for another five to 10 years. But Brandt knows that he will always have to deal with the cancer that he already beat back four times. “I want to be older than 19 or 23,” he says. “I want to get through college and earn a little money, so I can buy my dad’s Arco station. Or, I might want to join the Air Force and be a helicopter pilot.” The only problem with the Air Force is that he couldn’t live in Beaver. “That's where I've lived my whole life andit’s my home.” Requests for the book ‘have come not only from Beaver, bit also from Coloradc, Arizona,California and Utali, Caras says. People who live in Beaver or who are passing through have been stopping attk e Yardley’s Arco station to buy tke book. But there is an easier wa/. Brandt's Wish can be ordered ft r www.Inetmktg.net/wish,.+ an d an e-mail address, brandtswish@netutah..com, Fiction Dominates Best Books of 1999iin Utah, Other Mountain States »BY MARTIN NAPARSTECK SPECIAL TO THE TRIBUNE pore aes novel, dominated Gran3iterayse hlin the past calendar year, while two excellent ae"short stories outof Wyoming were the premier achievements writers in sura states. Altogether, a reservation in New Mexico during eo Great Depression, is a kindfictional tribute to the mrs parents. It offers not so eee and apprecia- ion Ths welder like the author, accepts the reality that the father is afraid to confront a bully who beats the young Navajo woman who lives with him. Reservations is a novella and several short stories that are less about victory over hard times than about using she writes, “A murderer she The stories in Night Swimming by Pete Fromm (Picador USA) are house wasn’t clean.” A mother less ambitious than those ofeither Proulx or Biliman, buttheir focus on the dissatisfactions of their “He didn’t look both ways.” A Proulx is no less memora- writes like Faulkner, Fromm mightbe, but no one could say her ble. In one story a cowboystarts to skina steer he has killed, leaves to do something else, and comes writes like Raymond Carver. Manyof these stories are set near before this book was his marraij e to Terry Tempest Williams, one of Utah’s finest writers. As the: e memoirs tell us, he spent mest his adult life running the fami plumbing-supply business. B: Halflives introduces readers to of y it a writer willing of conflicts that make stori s compelling. Once a devout Mc r- GreatFalls, Mont., where Fromm mon and a successful busines 3man, Williams found life ungati s- the mother is about to run away ment. Halflives is a spiritual jou rney away from church and corp + back to find the steer gone, but fying, largely because neither ro ¢ supported his love of the enviro 1- soon learns the steer is neither like William Faulkner, writes with a man she hardly knows:“I ration, and into a satisfying wilderness. Poor Jon Billman. He must feel “You already have a life, Mom. We do,” the daughter replies, and Mom says, “Waiting’s not life.” The Last Cheater’s Waltz \y Ellen Meloy (Henry Holt ard is a passionate confi :t profoundly disturbing prose. like Duke Snider. in the 1950s, knowledgeable bageball fans areinaeDe the: got a life to find,” the mother says; author's love of tl e but they almost ail them understanding their own failings. In nonfiction, three works by Utah writers offer useful insights by who teaches at Southern Utah University in Cedar City,is richly detailed in its landscape, characterizations and cultural back- intoSeeteks the uae A Biogra- phosrad by eeeatt‘G. Bringhurst (University of Oklahoma Press) ee ree psychoanalysis she applied ©3 Jo- seph Smith, ThomasJefferson. Richard Nixon. Bringhurst rei ines Brodie’s sexual life ead couldn't enjoy sex until two de- cades into her marriage) and fantasies (she may have dreamed of having sex with Jefferson) with , David Lee might|e entitled to feel like Gerth Broo’ is at the Grammy Awards. Lee, Utah’s year’s Twei poet wrote te Te {Gry Gun Salute Spider Press), best standari- k, News From thoroughness and OTPeIS, candor. Martin Naparsteck reviei ss booksfrom and about the West} w The Tribune. 1999 + 2000 T Vara Lplestd Asist Yamaguctl ceaMe Scott Sanita affordable tia Bastin Mart Brownbeg, Exatarina Gortoora Eleas Bochke & Beets Petrov La Cen | Joasi Mone & Todd Send | Reese Reca & Gorsta Ser StoveaCossias rected bPrefecedby Sendra Barts NY Tuesday, January 18 ° 7:30 pu Tickets: $56", $49 & $33 at the “E” Center bent office & Sanith's Tix* locations. Phone Charge: 061/487-TUX and onsen ean Group intormetion (20 or more): 081/268-7825 mh et pandooa Rs ne 6fameomagtronbeane eeepaneseanaen ant Aaeeesh Curia! aadderect woe valence j { a |
