Stanley gordon west author biography formation

Editor's note: We're revisiting this story, published September 16, 2012, as part of our Throwback Thursday (#tbt) as we remember author Stanley Gordon West, who died Jan.

He began his writing career in Livingston, having fallen in love with the state on a visit in 1957. He moved to Montana a few years later.

"The town, whose greatest contemporary athletic achievement was fielding five standing, breathing boys, hadn't won a basketball game in over five years, and that ongoing dirge vitally affected the lives of uncounted numbers of those who identified with the community and its team.

"The team's losing had become a blemish the bearer unconsciously disavows, an unsightly birthmark people avoid with their eyes.