The Western novel and Shakespeare’s Hamlet may seem like polar opposites, but Carrie La Seur skillfully weaves elements of both into her finely crafted second book. The Weight of an Infinite Sky delivers a lyrical, compelling look at a young man struggling with his identity and place within his family following the death of his father.
Anthony Fry returns home to Billings, Montana, to help his mother, Sarah, run the family cattle ranch following the sudden death of his father, Dean. While home, he hopes to also pursue his real passion, running a theater camp. Anthony quickly finds that his help at the ranch isn’t needed as much as he expected, though. His father's brother, Neal, has taken over operations at the ranch. And just three months after Dean’s death, Neal and Sarah marry.
As Hamlet would say, “A little month, or ere those shoes were old with which she followed my poor father's body.”
But an uncle-turned-stepfather isn’t Anthony’s only problem: a mining company is pressuring him to sell the ranch so coal can be strip-mined; his ex-girlfriend, Hilary, has also returned to town; and Anthony’s sleep is disturbed nightly by dreams about his father—oh, and one of his campers claims to have seen his father’s ghost near where he died.
In the hands of a lesser talent, the plot might seem contrived, but La Seur makes the story seem fresh by concentrating on intense character studies. While in Hamlet there is a clear division of good and evil, La Seur knows the value of shades of gray, and gives each character layers. Each is trying to find his or her place in the world as he or she struggles with the past and the future.
These big questions (Should Anthony have come back? What happened to his father? What would it mean to sell off the family’s ranch?) all unfold against Big Sky country’s breathtaking beauty, as well as its harshness. It is an evocative exploration, showing the meaning behind the title The Weight of an Infinite Sky.