Chosen Country

January 1, 2018
Journalist Pogue’s uneven first book uses a novellike style to expand on his embedded reporting for the New York Times Magazine on the 2016 armed occupation of an Oregon federal wildlife refuge by rancher Ammon Bundy and his followers. His firsthand access to the antigovernment extremists at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge results in a unique perspective, but Pogue adds in vignettes of memoir that too often feel tangential and mostly focused on creating a hard-living persona (“I remember getting a text from him, lying in bed at the Standard Downtown LA, stoned and drunk with a girl I’d met at the archery range along the Arroyo Seco”). The book doesn’t need it—Pogue has a knack for winning the trust of his subjects and eliciting memorable and sometimes chilling quotations, as when one occupier tells him, “We’re like ISIS or something, but American.” His description of some of the subjects as friends, the lack of any perspective from the federal agents on the other side, and overdramatic assertions such as “evil was being actively loosed on the land” do raise some questions about his impartiality. Pogue manages to shows the humanity of his subjects, but doesn’t quite get to the bottom of the motivations behind their reckless actions.

March 15, 2018
A contributing editor for Vice delivers on-the-scene, first-person accounts of the Western standoffs involving the Bundy family and their followers.Pogue, a freelancer for the New York Times Magazine at the time, takes us with him inside the armed camp of those who were protesting the Bureau of Land Management--and the government in general--during the confrontations with the feds in Oregon early in 2016. He met and interviewed the Bundys, became close with a number of those encamped at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge, and felt his emotions ebb and flow, darken and lighten. A young man from Cincinnati, the author does not ignore his own youthful passions and weaknesses, including accounts of his drinking, drug use, sexual adventures, lassitude, and wanderlust. But he is interested principally in understanding the players in the movement led by the charismatic Ammon Bundy. Some, says Pogue, considered Bundy a prophet (many involved were Mormons), and the author is deeply sympathetic to the notion of increasing public access to public lands. He describes one experience, walking around a New Mexico site, camping, drinking, and firing his gun. (He had bought a big truck and some firearms and confesses a long fondness for both.) Pogue does allow some of his stories to drift past the point of interest, and throughout, he criticizes liberals who, in his view, don't get what's going on in the West but nonetheless, in ignorance, disdain it all. He also blasts--again and again--what he sees as the blindness of many Westerners who do not recognize the white male power that lies quietly behind so many of these issues. If public lands are sold off and used for mining and other endeavors, who will benefit? And who will suffer?Courageous on-site reporting underlies all, outweighing some excess and irrelevance.

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April 15, 2018

Veteran journalist Pogue (The New Yorker, New York Times Magazine, Vice) reaches deep into the psyche of Western America in his first book, an in-depth examination of the rancher rebellion led by the Bundy family in eastern Oregon at the Malheur National Wildlife Refuge in 2016. The death of LaVoy Finicum by Oregon State Police near the end of the two-month-long armed standoff highlighted the frustration of locals who blamed federal land policy for the increasing amount of wildlife refuge while private agricultural acreage was shrinking. Pogue's personal and detailed account from inside the occupation camp describes Ammon Bundy's interpretation of the U.S. Constitutionthat local government rights should outweigh federal government rightsand how Bundy's influence galvanized support among some members of the local population. Pogue makes a convincing case that the public lands issue protested by ranchers and the outside militiamen who joined them plays into the hands of bankers far more interested in fast money than the rights of local landowners or governments. VERDICT Essential reading for insights into modern public lands politics, especially in the American West.Nathan Bender, Albany Cty. P.L., Laramie, WY

Copyright 2018 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

March 15, 2018
Pogue, a journalist and raconteur, provides a firsthand account of the 2016 anti-government standoff at Oregon's Malheur National Wildlife Refuge. To help readers understand the motivations behind the occupation, Pogue relays his encounters with Ammon Bundy, the charismatic rancher-leader of the rebellion, and other followers who believe that government agencies acted unconstitutionally by controlling public lands. A member of a well-known activist family, Bundy, who is very media-savvy, allowed Pogue unfettered access during the occupation. Protesting the treatment of two local ranchers, and under a guise of patriotism coupled with the Mormon belief that the Constitution is divinely inspired, Bundy's supporters took over the refuge. Paranoia about the FBI storming the encampment turned serious as the bureau set up surveillance of the park and nearby town. Pogue's personal anecdotes and brief history of western land-use conflicts add flavor and context to his chronicle of the standoff, which ended with one dead protester and others under arrest. Although he did not agree with their tactics, Pogue was able to portray the central characters with more dimension than found in news accounts.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2018, American Library Association.)