The Music Hall's Writers in the Loft Series to Welcome R. Buck, 6/9

The Music Hall's Writers in the Loft series will present the #1 New York Times bestselling author Rinker Buck with his just-out paperback edition of THE OREGON TRAIL: A New American Journey, his award-winning account of traveling the length of the Oregon trail the old-fashioned way - in a covered wagon with a team of mules. Mr. Buck will recount his experience and share remarkable images from the famous trail.

The 7pm event includes an author presentation and moderated Q+A, plus book signing and meet-and-greet. It will be held at the Music Hall Loft at 131 Congress Street, in downtown Portsmouth, New Hampshire.

THE OREGON TRAIL not only covers an audacious journey that hasn't been attempted in a century, but also chronicles the rich history of the trail, the people who made the migration, and its significance to the country. At once a majestic journey across the West, a significant work of history, and a moving cultural and personal saga filled with wonderful towns and characters, THE OREGON TRAIL draws readers into the journey of a lifetime, with a heart as big as the country it crosses.

"I've been fascinated by the Oregon Trail for many years," said Patricia Lynch, The Music Hall's Executive Director and the evening's moderator. "I hear the book has become a cult classic, and I can guess why. I'm looking forward to traveling the trail - the good, the bad, the long distance - with Rinker Buck."

ABOUT THE BOOK

Spanning two thousand miles and traversing six states from Missouri to the Pacific coast, the Oregon Trail is the route that made America. In the fifteen years before the Civil War, when 400,000 pioneers used the trail to emigrate West-scholars still regard this as the largest land migration in history-it united the coasts, doubled the size of the country, and laid the groundwork for the railroads. Today, amazingly, the trail is all but forgotten. In THE OREGON TRAIL, Rinker Buck brings the most important route in American history back to glorious and vibrant life.

Traveling from St. Joseph, Missouri, to Baker City, Oregon, over the course of four months, Buck is accompanied by three cantankerous mules, his boisterous brother, Nick, and an "incurably filthy" Jack Russell terrier named Olive Oyl. Along the way, they dodge thunderstorms in Nebraska, chase runaway mules across the Wyoming plains, scout more than five hundred miles of nearly vanished trail on foot, cross the Rockies, and make desperate fifty-mile forced marches for water. The Buck brothers repair so many broken wheels and axels that they nearly reinvent the art of wagon travel itself. They also must reckon with the ghost of their father, an eccentric yet loveable dreamer whose memory inspired their journey across the plains and whose premature death, many years earlier, has haunted them both ever since.

But THE OREGON TRAIL is much more than an epic adventure. It is also a lively and essential work of history that shatters the comforting myths about the trail years passed down by generations of Americans. Buck introduces readers to the largely forgotten roles played by trailblazing evangelists, friendly Indian tribes, female pioneers, bumbling U.S. Army cavalrymen, and the scam artists who flocked to the frontier to fleece the overland emigrants. Generous portions of the book are devoted to the history of old and appealing things like the mule and the wagon. We also learn how the trail accelerated American economic development. Most arresting, perhaps, are the stories of the pioneers themselves-ordinary families whose extraordinary courage and sacrifice made this country what it became.

ABOUT THE AUTHOR

RINKER BUCK began his career in journalism at the Berkshire Eagle and was a longtime staff writer for the Hartford Courant. He has written for Vanity Fair, New York, Life, and many other publications, and his stories have won the Eugene S. Pulliam National Journalism Writing Award and the Society of Professional Journalists Sigma Delta Chi Award. His books include Flight of Passage, First Job, and Shane Comes Home. He lives in northwest Connecticut.

The ticket package for Writers in the Loft: Rinker Buck on Thursday, June 9 at 7pm is $31. In addition to a reserved seat, the package includes a copy of THE OREGON TRAIL: A New American Journey (paperback, $16.99), a bar beverage, and book signing meet-and-greet. Packages can be purchased through The Music Hall Box Office, located at 28 Chestnut Street, Portsmouth, over the phone at 603.436.2400, or online at www.themusichall.org

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