Roughneck

From the New York Times bestselling author and award-winning creator of Essex County, Secret Path, Descender, and The Underwater Welder comes an all-original graphic novel about a brother and sister who must come together after years apart to face the disturbing history that has cursed their family. Derek Ouelette’s glory days are behind him. His hockey career ended a decade earlier in a violent incident on ice, and since then he’s been living off his reputation in the remote northern community where he grew up, drinking too much and fighting anyone who crosses him. But he never counts on his long-lost sister, Beth, showing up one day out of the blue, back in town and on the run from an abusive boyfriend. Looking to hide out for a while, the two siblings hunker down in a secluded hunting camp deep in the local woods. It is there that they attempt to find a way to reconnect with each other and the painful secrets of their past...even as Beth’s ex draws closer, threatening to pull both Derek and Beth back into a world of self-destruction that they are fighting tooth and nail to leave behind. Simultaneously touching and harrowing, Roughneck is a masterwork from New York Times bestselling writer/artist Jeff Lemire—a deeply moving and beautifully illustrated story of family, heritage, and the desire to break the cycle of violence at any cost from one of today’s most acclaimed comic creators.

My daddys daddy is my Big Papa, Leroy Percy Volmar. Thats where this story begins since I never saw the face of my great grandfather, James Joseph Volmar, whos buried somewhere around Etoil, Texas; except for one picture where hes lined up with members of the Masonic Lodge, upright dignified men in aprons, embroidered cowls down to their waists. And thats not a picture to be passed around to average folks or women. I expect that at my great grandfathers wake, a Mason sneaked the picture out from under his coat and gave it to my Big Papa who wears the black ring too. My grandfather had a big bunch of brothers and two sisters. Well, you might as well say one sister. My great-aunt Edna got TB when she was a girl and they sent her to Boonville, Arkansas, to a sanatorium for a twelve-year quarantine. When it was time to get out, shed been there most of her life and decided to stay. Big Papas wild brother Bill got the Volmars from Texas to Louisiana. They had to hotfoot it out after Bill went and killed a man during an argument. Leroy, Eb, and Bill ran to North Louisiana hoping the law would give out before they did. That dead body changed just about everything for the Volmars. Recently at a family reunion my brother and I were talking about our great-uncle Bill. Donna, do you think he was saved? Well, I know he was saved one day from the law when he made it to Louisiana where he married five times, a younger woman each time. Jim, my daddy, was a roughneck and picked up where his wild Uncle Bill left off. From Chapter 9 Blow Out I was up in the derrick and I heard a rumble down in the hole. I dont think the driller realized when he heard the kick what was happening. Before I had time to yell down, there was a flash, and then a blast jarred my feet off my board. The well was gonna go. I reached out to cling onto one of the steel shafts when I was knocked from one side to the other in that derrick. Thank God I didnt have on a damn safety belt up 120 feet high. Sounded like a freight train when we hit that gas. I leaned out and pulled the soft line close. Had to get ready to leap out on the damn thing. I hung out there seemed like forever while that rope swung me back and forth, banged me up against the derrick. I pushed away with one foot until I could get my legs around the rope and slide down. The whole shebang was about to blow. I was flying down that rope by the time my feet touched the ground. Looked up to see the god damn tubing bust clean off. Oil went spewing everywhere, shot way high in the air. It felt like hail until I looked down and saw grease plastered all over me. We fell over each other trying to get away. After we jumped in the car, we looked around at each other, What in the shit just happened? Are you hurt, Daddy? Im okay, but look at my arms, theyre already red and burning. I dont ever want to be caught up in that derrick again when some god damn driller isnt paying attention. Or maybe hed never seen a well come in. I wont ever work for him again. You can get fuckin killed. Honey, Ive got to hurry up and get in the tub. Find my lye soap and Petroleum Jelly. Youre a sight. Have you looked in the mirror? Im scared. Baby. Ill be alright. From Chapter 10 Greyhound to Cincinnati I see the faces of smutty, ragshag men watching me from all the rows clear to the back. Guess they decided they didnt need a shave to ride a Greyhound. Any one of them could be that serial killer on the news. Theres a bad smell in here, too. Granny says bouquet for smell. She says its more ladylike. But I think shed even agree theres no sweet bouquet on this bus. One day, Ill get me a ticket on an airplane. Hey, Bubba, I wonder what Mother will have for us to eat. Probably some of those store-bought cookies she sends for Christmas in the tin, crumbled up by the time they

New York Times bestselling author, humorist, and newspaper columnist Michael Perry returns with a new collection of bite-sized essays from his Sunday Wisconsin State Journal column, “Roughneck Grace.” Perry’s perspectives on everything from cleaning the chicken coop to sharing a New York City elevator with supermodels will have you snorting with laughter on one page, blinking back tears on the next, and--no matter your zip code--nodding in recognition throughout.

When his mom passed, roughneck Travis Cartwright thought he'd lost the only family he and his daughter Charlie had. That is until he discovers an estranged father and siblings living just a few hours away. They might be strangers, but they're blood, and Travis needs to protect Charlie should tragedy strike at his dangerous job. Dominick Cartwright offers his son more than peace of mind. He gives Travis a new job, a place to live and a side project—to convince Dominick's stubborn neighbor, Sara Sanders, to sell her ranch. Travis is confident he can smooth talk the plain-Jane teacher into selling quickly, but there's more to Sara than meets the eye. Soon Travis loses sight of his mission…and his heart. As their relationship grows, they uncover painful family secrets, and Dominick's real motives. Then, the sparks fly!

On April 6th, 2003, twenty-six Green Berets, including those of Sergeant 1st Class Frank Antenori's Special Forces A-team (call sign Roughneck Nine-One), confronted a vastly superior force—one that included battle tanks and more than 150 well-trained, well-equipped, and well-commanded soldiers—at a remote crossroads near the small village of Debecka, Iraq. The rest is history... Along the way, they endured a U.S .Navy F-14 dropping a 500-pound bomb on supporting Kurdish Peshmerga fighters, the ever-present threat of WMDs, and countless other deadly obstacles. This is the never-before-told, unsanitized story of how one Special Forces A-team recruited and organized, trained and eventually fought—and won—a legendary conflict that will influence American military doctrine for years to come.

This book is a comprehensive study of the evolution of the component aspects of drilling technology in Alberta, from the evolution of power sources and drill bit designs to the composition of drilling muds and the use of fishing tools. Included are explanations of the costs and risks of oil well drilling and of the larger issue of industrial technology -- how it evolves and under what conditions. The author draws extensively from original source material such as interviews, photographs, and appendices from both the Glenbow Archives and the Devon-Leduc Petroleum Hall of Fame and Interpretive Centre.

To his fellow crewmembers on rig number 34 of the Bomac Drilling Company, 27-year-old newcomer Zachary Harper is a mystery. To Marty, the derrick hand, he's a welcome working body. To Freddy, the chainhand, he's just another newcomer like himself trying to break out in the oil patch. To Jesse Lancaster, the driller, he's a "worm"—a risk, taken out of necessity, who just might make it as a roughneck. We join Zachary Harper the day after he has left the East Coast, for reasons yet unknown, and the day before he discovers the stark reality that a clean slate is just that—a cold, empty space where the self struggles with the soul. A tale of trial, risk, sacrifice, and self-discovery, Roughnecks takes its place in the tradition of American literary quest fiction. Is Zachary Harper an Ishmael or a Sal Paradise? A Jay Gatsby or a Huck Finn? Whoever he might be, he seeks self-knowledge, awareness, and authenticity.

By the time Jim Thompson was sixteen years old, he had been a newspaper boy, a burlesque show hawker, a plumber's helper, a comedian in two-reel pictures, a night bellboy in a luxury hotel and over a dozen other occupations. By the time he was eighteen, he was driving across America in a broken-down Ford without a penny to his name and his mother and his kid sister Freddie in tow, looking for just one more paycheck to keep them all alive. A bittersweet comedy of a hard-won American life, ROUGHNECK chronicles the many jobs, near-criminal escapades, and downright unlawful grifts of the man who would become one of crime fiction's most enduring writers, in a larger-than-life literary memoir--or wildly entertaining tall tale--as only Thompson could tell it. Hard times have never sounded so good.

Travis Cody prepares for the final game of his high school football career, a rematch with his school's chief rival.

In a sizzling novel from the New York Times bestselling author of Dirty Money, there’s rich, and then there’s filthy rich when an oil tycoon takes being a roughneck billionaire to a new level. Clay Price has everything he’s ever wanted, except the one thing money can’t buy—Natalie Weston. Years ago, Clay and Natalie were in love…until she turned down his marriage proposal. Now Clay and his brothers are oil-rich billionaires, and they can have whatever they want. And what Clay wants is Natalie in his bed, no matter what it takes. If it means being ruthless, he’ll do it. Natalie gave up on true love years ago when the realities of the world destroyed her fairy-tale hopes. Giving up Clay is her biggest regret in life, and she’s excited to see him return…until she finds out why. Clay’s got one hell of a proposal for her: he’ll save her father’s business and bail Natalie out of debt if she’ll agree to become his very personal assistant. It’s clear that he wants more from her than just typing. It’s also clear that Natalie has no choice. This scoundrel’s bet could destroy any hope they had of reconciliation—or it could bring them together once and for all… Praise for Jessica Clare “Great storytelling…delightful reading…It’s fun and oh-so-hot.”—Kirkus Reviews “[Clare is] a romance writing prodigy.”—Heroes and Heartbreakers “Blazing hot.”—USA Today

A polemic by the country music superstar combines personal reminiscences with reflections on the issues dividing modern American society, using an episode during which his wife shot him to illuminate the importance of accepting personal responsibility and forgiving others and his experiences growing up poor in Louisiana to condemn unions. Reprint.

A working-class history of the Texas oil fields, as told by one of its workers. Oil, the black gold of Texas, has given rise to many a myth. Oil could turn a man overnight into a millionaire—and did—for some. But these myths have obscured what life was really like in the oil patch, a place that was neither the El Dorado of legend nor quite the unredeemed den of sin and iniquity that some feared. In Roughnecks, Drillers, and Tool Pushers, Gerald Lynch provides a much-needed insider’s view of the oil industry, describing life in various oil fields in and around Texas. He also chronicles changes in drilling methods and oil-field technology and how these changes affected him and his fellow oil-field workers. No one else has written a working-class history of the oil fields as colorful and articulate as this one.

Strange things have been happening at Windy Rafters resort. Mellie Stevens is indignant that the shadow of blame falls repeatedly on herself, her sister, and their younger cousins. To clear their names, the six cousins organize themselves as the Windy Rafters Roughnecks. Working out of the old treehouse in the farmyard, the Ferris cousins investigate suspects and, in the process, make some unlikely friends, and discover some great neighbours. Just when they think they have the mystery solved, the younger kids are transported back in time to the days before their family owned the Windy Rafters land. Both the Blackfoot people the younger cousins meet and their experiences in the past will prove invaluable when a big Californian company offers to buy out the resort and solve the family’s money problems for good.