Peter Heller is nothing if not consistent. In interviews going back more than a decade to the publication of his first best-selling novel, The Dog Stars, the Denver-based author has described his writing process the same way. He says he starts with a line that captures his attention, then “lets it rip.”
For his latest novel The Last Ranger, published July 25 via Knopf, Heller begins with this sentence: “The night of the buffalo it rained.” And it rips from there.
“As I wrote, it became apparent that I was in Yellowstone, in the Lamar Valley,” says Heller, who got his start as an adventure journalist with outlets like National Geographic, Men’s Journal and Outside. He went on to discover that his protagonist was an enforcement ranger in the park who was dealing with an accident. This method of writing his way into a story, rather than plotting it out beforehand, allows Heller to “bump into” what’s in his heart — and what’s concerning him at the moment.
What was concerning the novelist as he wrote The Last Ranger was the “American Serengeti” of the Lamar Valley, the wolves in Yellowstone, and what they represent to the characters of the novel. He also explores what the wolves mean to the broader ecosystem of the American West and the conflicts they symbolize.
Heller developed his passion for the region while on assignment with Condé Nast Traveler a few years ago to report on the Yellowstone wolves. He went out in late September, which he calls “a heartbreakingly beautiful time of year to be there.”
He recalls seeing the Lamar Valley’s river and meadows, its trees and rimrock, its elk and deer, its foxes and bison. “Then we got to where we could set up spotting scopes, and I saw wolves at the edge of the trees, watching the herds,” Heller says. “It just did something to me. I felt that wildness along my skin. It was really a visceral feeling.”
‘Campfire storyteller’
For the next five days, he went back to watch the wolves in their rendezvous spot, where the pups play, and where the pack returns with food in the morning after a night of hunting. “I was completely smitten,” Heller says. He’s gone back in the fall several more times, where he hikes and fishes for cutthroat trout in those creeks, sometimes downstream from a grizzly bear. It’s a nice way to do research, and those details are richly layered into The Last Ranger.
As for plot, the book is mainly about ranger Ren Hopper trying to figure out who’s trying to kill his friend, a wolf researcher. (He has an idea, but let’s not spoil the fun here.) It’s also about Hopper breaking up fights at campsites, stopping moron tourists from getting trampled to death by moose, and the other usual duties of someone working in the heart of one of America’s most controversially managed national parks.
But the novel is a lot more than a thriller, and Heller rightly chafes at the characterization, because he’s not writing genre fiction.
“I’m an old campfire storyteller,” he says. “I’m really more interested in the music of the language than anything else. Yet as a campfire storyteller, you want people on the edge of their seats. It’s fun. Stuff is bound to happen. My education as a storyteller demands that things will happen, and they always do.”
When it comes to the characters populating his beautifully written works, Heller says he is fascinated by people who achieve a flow state by attaining mastery of their craft — whether it’s a painter or a fisherman or a ranger.
“The activity carries them, and they’re performing at the highest level in a relaxed way, which I think is always stunning,” he says. “So I guess it’s no coincidence that I write about people who are very passionate about whatever their job is.”
That brings us back to Heller’s own process, which shares similarities with many of his characters.
“Everything I pursue is about finding flow,” he says. “Getting into flow on a regular basis is how we attain mastery. I find that when I get up early and work and write, that ends up being the best part of my day, because that’s the place where I’m guaranteed to disappear. I forget my name. I forget that I’m a human being. I forget everything. I’m transported.”
ON THE PAGE: The Last Ranger reading and signing with Peter Heller. 6:30 p.m. Thursday, Aug. 17, Boulder Book Store, 1107 Pearl St., Boulder. $5
