About the Book
For twenty years Dan O’Brien struggled to make ends meet on his cattle ranch in South Dakota. But when a neighbor invited him to lend a hand at the annual buffalo roundup, O’Brien was inspired to convert his own ranch, the Broken Heart, to buffalo. Starting with thirteen calves, “short-necked, golden balls of wool,” O’Brien embarked on a journey that returned buffalo to his land for the first time in more than a century and a half.
Buffalo for the Broken Heart is at once a tender account of the buffaloes’ first seasons on the ranch and an engaging lesson in wildlife ecology. Whether he’s describing the grazing pattern of the buffalo, the thrill of watching a falcon home in on its prey, or the comical spectacle of a buffalo bull wallowing in the mud, O’Brien combines a novelist’s eye for detail with a naturalist’s understanding to create an enriching, entertaining narrative. (Information from South Dakota Humanities Council)
Meet the Author
Dan O’Brien, a writer and buffalo rancher, is the author of numerous books of fiction and nonfiction about the West. He has worked as an endangered-species biologist and an English teacher. He lives near Hermosa, South Dakota. (Information from South Dakota Humanities Council)
Articles and Reviews
All articles cited are available in full-text magazines at www.siouxlandlib.org. Select the Catalog tab at the top of the screen, click the Databases tab, type in your barcode and pin number and click login. Chose ProQuest, InfoTrac Professional Collection, EBSCO MegaFile, or Biography Resource Center.
• Taylor, Gilbert. “Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.” The Booklist. Aug 2001. Vol. 97, Iss. 22; p. 2070.
• Wiese, William H. “Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.” Library Journal. Jul 2001. Vol. 126, Iss. 12; p. 113.
• Rotella, Mark, Charlotte Abbott, and Sarah F Gold. “Buffalo for the Broken Heart: Restoring Life to a Black Hills Ranch.” Publishers Weekly. Jul 23, 2001. Vol. 248, Iss. 30; p. 62.
• O’Brien, Dan. Contemporary Authors Online. Thomson Gale. 2005.
Discussion Questions
The reading group guide is available at the Ronning Branch desk to review or copy.
Some things to think about for discussion:
1. What does O’Brien say about homesteading?
2. O’Brien educates us about the buffalo. What are the differences between cattle and buffalo?
3. Discuss the significance of his “characters”: Erney, Curly Bill, Duane Lammers, Dick Saterlee, Stan Holsclaw, Jill and Jilian, Sam Hurst, Digger Dave, Mimi Hillenbrand, Rhino, Gashouse Gang. Others?
4. In Chapter 7 how does O’Brien connect two Harvey Dunn paintings to his points about the land and the buffalo?
5. O’Brien chronicles previous families who owned the Broken Heart Ranch. What “story lines” do the Courtneys and Freeman Smalley bring to the book?
6. What do you make of O’Brien’s being “cursed to love” South Dakota? His brother calling it a “wasteland”?
7. What do you make of the Buffalo Blues that O’Brien describes?
8. Could you relate to his experiences with the teenage boys hired to build his fence? Did you see that coming?
9. O’Brien details images of everything from falcons to fences, from hoof action to sweet grass, from barbed wire to buffalo wallow. What are your favorite images? Why?
10. One reviewer states, “One prime virtue of Buffalo for the Broken Heart is its lean prose.” O’Brien uses a fine efficiency and some crystal clear phrasing to convey his thoughts. What are your favorite passages? Why?
11. He brings the Wild West to the story of the Whitewood bar scene. How does he tie in the “potential for things to explode in your arms” as he closes Chapter 11?
12. It’s a perfect title. How does the title lend itself to the themes of restoration, nature conservancy and the human condition that weave throughout the book?
13. O’Brien begins his novel in the Center of the Nation with this description of the grasslands: “Coming from either direction the land changes before you have chance to get ready for it. Traveling eastward, you see the grasslands for the first time from several thousand feet up in the Rocky Mountains. You come around a turn, intent on ruggedness of the mountains and suddenly the pine trees, rocks, and fast-running water are gone. Below you, though still fifty miles off, the flattest, smoothest, most treeless stretch of land imaginable. And if you’re traveling west you’ve just gotten used to the fertile, black soils of Indiana, Illinois, and Iowa, just come to expect the neatly painted, prosperous farm buildings surrounded by cultivated groves of trees, when you come to the Missouri River, and it all goes to hell, Suddenly the order is gone, the prosperity scattered. When you get to the feeling that the whole world can see you but not one is watching, you have come to the grasslands of North America.” He continues, noting that the grasslands “roll up out of the Missouri River breaks and flatten, with few deviations, for six hundred miles…and ocean of grass A simple question: What do these grasslands mean to O’Brien and his buffalo with their “dignified wildness?”
14. O’Brien shares a bit of his philosophy about the ups and downs of life. How does he tie in the lessons of the changing seasons on the Northern Plains, his ponderings on the role of the buffalo and the Plains Indian belief that “buffalo offer themselves up to hunters whose hearts are “pure”?
15. In Chapter 6 he recounts the slaughter and the rescue of the buffalo on the Great Plains. How does he come full circle by tracking the linage of the first 13 orphan calves that he bought in 1998?
16. What do you make of O’Brien’s statement at the end of Chapter 12 – “to bring the buffalo back to the northern plains involved killing the myths of the sacred cow and the yeoman farmer and that would be as unpopular as killing “owls”?
(Questions from South Dakota Humanities Council)
