sid sibo’s debut novel, The Scent of Distant Family, hooks the reader into the lives of people connected to the big sky country of Wyoming. Like many in this sparsely populated state, the protagonists may scatter to the tumbleweed winds, or they may choose to plant themselves like white-sage, and learn to dig their roots in deep, each in their own new way.

Written in thirteen chapters, each chapter contains sections directed by six protagonists’ points of view.

Nikole (also known as Nik or Nikki) Delaney is a 40-something former research biologist who has returned to her hometown, Dust, Wyoming. Her marriage to Bart is endangered, like the wildlife she once advocated for. Now she spends her hours volunteering for the local animal shelter, but this relationship is fraught as well. Her latest rescue, recently adopted out, is on the run, caught on the “scent of distant family.”

Zolo, the white-and-black spotted Catahoula Hound with blue eyes, yearns for this family. Here the reader wonders if this something that pulls him over 80 miles west is an eager nose that remembers kids, the smell of freedom in motion or the herd of wild Spanish-blood mustangs headed by the mare, Tess.

Finn is a 21-year-old college student who, like his auntie Nik, studies the earth. This time however, his link is not with the land in which he was raised, Wyoming, but the land of his dream origin, Australia, from where his mother Robyn, who died young, hailed. Finn’s predicament is knowing he is the glue that seals his father, Phelan, to Nik and to his grandfather, Charlie. If Finn leaves for an internship in the land down under, he will peel away this familial tie.

Phelan, Finn’s single dad and Nik’s brother, owns International Resort Development Corporation, representing the big money in town that cannibalizes what were once subsistence-level ranches and dirt farms. Phelan tries to assuage his loneliness by buying things, like the latest model Range Rover. But will family ties lure him back to his people and the land he came from? Or will his greed, driven by a lack of intimacy, fracture everything?

Charlie Delaney, elderly father to Nik and Phelan and reluctant grandfather to Finn, wonders about his predicament. Once a dirt-farmer near Yahanna in the Moon Valley, he is now confined like the dogs Nik seeks a home for. Charlie prefers cats, but has an odd kinship with Zolo. Like the dog who can’t be caged, Charlie despises the cage of aging frailty. He’s an old-timer, a man who understands his purpose is connected to the land, from which he has been separated.

Jaye, third-generation owner of Sage Winds Ranch seeks a new, progressive iteration of her family’s land. This takes convincing bankers, and investors like Phelan Delaney, to reconsider her business plan. Rather than dirt-farming like her ancestors which turned the over-grazed land to dust, she has new ideas: an eco-lodge catering to clientele seeking equestrian therapy. On this land she has begun to create her own little paradise, a community she creates which includes her dog, Polenta; her ex-lover, Selina, who lingers; and Russell, the snow-plowing handyman.

The land out Yahanna way, just short of Parodice in the Moon Valley, is what connects them all. What will keep them together? Wishing upon the whole dark skyful of stars? Blood-ties that have gone dry? Money that talks? Or will they all learn to walk a new walk, one on the border between wild, feral and tame?

sid sibo won the Neltje Glanchan Award in 2020 from the Wyoming Arts Council for writing in a way informed by relationship with the natural world. Originally from Maine, they earned an MFA through University of Southern Maine’s Stonecoast Program. sibo gives keen attention to the environs they describe, once having a career in public land management, including in Colorado. They now live on Shoshone (Newe) and Bannock (Pannati) traditional lands in western Wyoming. Author proceeds from sale of the novel will be donated to animal welfare.