The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work, Brotherhood, and Transformation in an American Boomtown

by Michael Patrick F. Smith

“A book that should be read . . . Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing physical labor.” — The New York Times Book Review

“Beautiful, funny, and harrowing.” – Sarah Smarsh, The Atlantic

“ Remarkable . . . this is the book that Hillbilly Elegy should have been. ” — Kirkus Reviews

A vivid window into the world of working class men set during the Bakken fracking boom in North Dakota

Like thousands of restless men left unmoored in the wake of the 2008 economic crash, Michael Patrick Smith arrived in the fracking boomtown of Williston, North Dakota five years later homeless, unemployed, and desperate for a job. Renting a mattress on a dirty flophouse floor, he slept boot to beard with migrant men who came from all across America and as far away as Jamaica, Africa and the Philippines. They ate together, drank together, argued like crows and searched for jobs they couldn't get back home. Smith's goal was to find the hardest work he could do--to find out if he could do it. He hired on in the oil patch where he toiled fourteen hour shifts from summer's 100 degree dog days to deep into winter's bracing whiteouts, all the while wrestling with the demons of a turbulent past, his broken relationships with women, and the haunted memories of a family riven by violence.

The Good Hand is a saga of fear, danger, exhaustion, suffering, loneliness, and grit that explores the struggles of America's marginalized boomtown workers—the rough-hewn, castoff, seemingly disposable men who do an indispensable job that few would exalt: oil field hands who, in the age of climate change, put the gas in our tanks and the food in our homes. Smith, who had pursued theater and played guitar in New York, observes this world with a critical eye; yet he comes to love his coworkers, forming close bonds with Huck, a goofy giant of a young man whose lead foot and quick fists get him into trouble with the law, and The Wildebeest, a foul-mouthed, dip-spitting truck driver who torments him but also trains him up, and helps Smith "make a hand."

The Good Hand is ultimately a book about transformation--a classic American story of one man's attempt to burn himself clean through hard work, to reconcile himself to himself, to find community, and to become whole.

Genres: Memoir, Nonfiction, Biography, History, Business, American History, Social Science

464 pages, Hardcover

Published February 16, 2021

Reviews

[DC Allen · Rating 5 out of 5]

The author's experience in the oilfield closely mirrored my own, right down to the other workers asking me if I'd ever been "fucked by a turtle" on my first day. The entire oil/gas industry is overflowing with performative machismo. Everyone wants to show off how hard they can swing the pipe hammer. Asshole rednecks don't properly train you so they have an excuse to yell at you. There's anxiety of being on location and not having a job to do. Or being stuck at the yard, filling a 12-hour work day by washing trucks and sweeping the shop floor. Everyone you meet is consumed with a single-minded obsession with WORK and HOURS. The company men all pay lip service to the god of SAFETY with vague, perfunctory meetings before subjecting you to 100-hour work weeks. Many times I thought, If they care so much about our wellbeing why am I driving a semi truck across three hours of desert with next to no sleep?

Another detail that The Good Hand nails is the humor of all the blue collar dumbassery that occurs in the down time. The oilfield is filled with ex-cons, ex-soldiers and covert meth heads, none of whom have much interest in living forever, so you will see and hear some wild antics.

Michael Patrick F Smith says he grew to love the work, but I never did. I remember sitting in a truck with four other guys watching Fast Five on a smart phone, and one of them turned to me and said with all sincerity, "Can you believe we get paid to do this?" I'm glad there are people who enjoy the work, but a few months in the oilfield took years off my life. You're not just selling your time, you're selling your health.

There were a few differences in my oilfield experience from the book. Everyone the author meets has a nickname (unless he created codenames in order to disguise their identities) whereas I can remember very few guys with nicknames (Puppet, for example. He was a major asshole). Almost everyone in the book is white, but a slight majority of the workers in west Texas were Latino, split between Mexicans and Cubans.

I wrote mostly about my own experiences here, rather than this excellent book, but that is because it brought up many memories and emotions that I had completely buried. The oilfield attracts desperate men. Anyway, this is a very good book and it covers a lot more than just long work days in miserable conditions. The audiobook has a bonus of some pretty cool americana and country music.

[Kathleen Gray · Rating 5 out of 5]

Smith walks a thin line in this memoir. Read it for the informative parts about working in North Dakota and understand that he's not going to take a position on pretty much anything- although a certain aura hangs over some of this. This could have gone sideways easily- it is after all about a Brooklynite in the oil fields - but Smith largely avoids condescending to the people he worked with. He's not shy about what a mess he is (a plus). Thanks to Edelweiss for the ARC. Well written and informative.

[Jason Scarbrough · Rating 4 out of 5]

I think that any memoir requires a measure of narcissism on the author’s part. What makes your ordinary life experience so remarkable that others should read about it? Show some creativity and work that out in a fictional piece.
In any case, this book was a great read. The writing was good and the author deals honestly with his problems. It provides a micro look at oil field work and boomtown dynamics.
In a world where “hero” gets thrown around, Smith shows us people doing their best and, more often than not, failing.

[Tom Mooney · Rating 4 out of 5]

This was a highly enjoyable read, very well written and thought provoking, as well as being pretty wild at times.

[Johnny G. · Rating 4 out of 5]

The oil fields in sparsely populated western North Dakota have piqued my interest for a whole, and this 450-page personal account is loaded with the kind of details I’d expected. It’s also chock-filled with the personal stories about the author’s relationships of all the rough-and-tumble characters (sometimes difficult to keep track of, I thought. I have as entertained, and looked forward to reading it in the evenings over the past week...hence, 4-stars!

[Rita Platt · Rating 5 out of 5]

Easily one of my favorite memoirs of the last decade. By turns funny, sweet, terrifying, and head-scratchingly weird, it is ALWAYS interesting. I listened to this one on Audible and the author (who I am now a little in love with, but just a little) read it himself. He peppers the reading with the sweet sounds of his guitar and even sings the listener a song or two. I think I would have loved it if I had read it too, but hearing him, was a gift. Magic Mike and his band of merry buddies will take you with him on an adventure that you really don't want to miss. Amazing storytelling and some really good food for thought too. I laughed a lot and a cried a little too. Totally great.

[Marika · Rating 5 out of 5]

Author Michael Patrick Smith writes about the fascinating life of working on an oil field in North Dakota. Fascinating in that most of us will never experience the live of working 14 -18 hours a day, living in flop houses, and despite that never getting out of poverty. It's a glimpse of gritty boom town workers and how there is no glamour in this life, despite what social media would want us to believe. Similar to "Heartland: A Memoir of Working Hard and Being Broke in the Richest Country on Earth" by Sarah Smarsh.

*I read an advance copy and was not compensated.

[Greg Flakus · Rating 5 out of 5]

One helluva great book about life in contemporary America. The author is a folksinger who grew up on a farm back east and ended up living in Brooklyn. He was lured west by the oil boom in North Dakota where he thought he might make some good money and challenge himself as a working man. He ended up making good wages, but he left less than a year later with less cash in his pocket than he had when he arrived.

Along the way he went from being a greenhorn to "good hand," a kind of well-rounded, reliable worker who other workers could count on. One of his biggest challenges was finding a decent place to live, which in Williston, ND in those days might mean a space on the floor in some house where people could flop. Apartment rentals were as high there as they were in New York City or San Francisco. In the flop house he meets other adventurers including some guys from Jamaica and a couple with Tourette's syndrome. On the job with an oil company he meets a variety of characters, some of whom are tough and mean and some of whom are helpful. Almost everyone he meets is colorful and most of them come from broken families, poverty, and crime. Quite a few have spent time in jails and prisons. In the oil fields such things don't matter.

Smith's own life provides an additional narrative as he revisits sorrows from the past, including the death of a beloved sibling, his father's abusive episodes, his own struggle to break out of the grip of family trauma and move on with his life. In the book he also tells some of the story of the region where he works. Lewis and Clark, he tells us, spent more time in North Dakota than they did in other part of the country they passed through on their epic journey. Theodore Roosevelt spent time on a ranch there and toughened up before returning back east to enter politics.

He gets teased by co-workers who find out that he voted for Obama, almost all working men today being Republicans, whether they vote or not. He tries to steer clear of politics and ends up gaining the respect of a lot of the workers, who call him "Magic Mike." He listens to their stories with sympathy and realizes that they represent a collective wound that is spread across the country. The hard jobs they do are getting harder to find and they are not suited for the digital economy. Many of them that went into the military, he notes, left with PTSD. Many of them came from troubled homes and may have had PTSD even before they hit boot camp. These are hard facts that few reporters ever see. The plight of these men helps to explain why so many working class people supported Trump.

One wonderful thing about this book is that he doesn't dwell much on fracking, climate change or the oil companies' political strength. This is not about those issues. You can find plenty on that in other books. The greatness of this book is the close focus on the men and a few women who struggle to get money and find some sense of self worth in one of the most unforgiving areas of the country, supplying the nation with not only oil and gas for fuel and heating, but the chemicals needed for plastics, medicines and fertilizer. As the nation moves away from fossil fuels there will be some losers. Chief among them will be the roughnecks and rowdy, dirt-smeared men who may no longer have a place in the country that has for more than a century relied on them for its prosperity.

[Ben · Rating 3 out of 5]

This memoir didn't match my expectations. I had expected more descriptions of work in the oil fields. There is some, but it is hardly central, perhaps because most of the work was uninteresting (e.g., unloading trucks). Besides this, though, there is not much description of the people or of the area, I guess because Smith was too busy at his job (and, perhaps, drinking) to explore. We do get many conversations with his landlord. Overall, the book is unfocused and padded, though still readable.

> I let my bones sink into my seat. If Porkchop is a killer , I think, what does that make me? A friend of killers? I like Porkchop. I think he’s great. He helps me. I am coming to rely on him. Some guys kill other guys. It isn’t right, but maybe it isn’t my business, either. Is this completely nuts? Should I confront him somehow? … I struggled with this question even as I enjoyed the company of unabashed bigots and learned to compartmentalize their casual, constant, continuing faucet drip of racism. How terrible is that? Does that make me a bad person? I don’t know. How do you love men you disagree with so violently on the ethical and moral questions that you think define you? Later, the questions I pose will kind of invert themselves, as I turn them toward toward the world. Because how do you not allow yourself to love people you disagree with? Wouldn’t that be a sign of real cowardice?

[Melissa · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a muddy, manual labor, remote landscape, foul mouthed memoir that I really liked a lot. Smith brings an alchemic talent to describing the numb fingers, swinging cranes, precarious footing, damp boots, hooks, chains and extreme cold that comes with manual labor. He not only writes work scenes with precision but also treats precision itself with reverence: Understanding and doing the job precisely allowed him to triumph over his own softness, ignorance and fear. A negative-38-degree day was “one of the best days of my life,” he writes, and it also provides the best chapter in the book.



There is a unifying principle in Smith’s depictions: the good hand, from oil-field slang for a worker. “A good hand,” Smith writes, “shows up early. He is present. He listens. A good hand carries the heaviest load every time, takes on the dirtiest, most difficult task and doesn’t complain. A good hand makes the hands around him better.”

“No one is a good hand all the time,” Smith qualifies. And that is the essence of his book. It does not recount catharsis or much transformation. It brings instead perspective, on how people, including Smith, can sometimes rise above their worst selves through unglamorous, demanding, difficult work.

It's a book about the author's transformation, less a comment on fracking or politics. And it finds dignity and nuance in type of labor, the type of person that does this type of labor most of us consider an invisible cog in a wheel. Nobody I know considers the hands of a drill rig operator as we are standing an the gas pump. So it's a pretty incredible story that I fear nobody will read.

[John Wagner · Rating 5 out of 5]

Why would a mid thirties Easterner living a semi-successful actor/musician sort of life in NYC pull-up stakes and decide to become an oil field worker in North Dakota? Evidently he needed money and also needed to prove that he had the grit to do something hard and physical.

This book is going to stick with me. Maybe it's because I come from Wyoming (sort of like N Dakota but with mountains) and my family (like author Smith's) was firmly blue-collar. Also like Smith, I ended up going to college and got a job that mostly kept me indoors and out of daily danger. I would have had to have been pretty desperate to voluntarily go into the oil patch.

Parts of this book are raw and coarse and there were times I just wanted to stop reading about the ignorance and cruelty of Smith's co-workers and bosses. To our good fortune Smith sticks it out long enough to become accepted by the oil patch tribe and he's able gain insights that reveal many of the tribe's members to just be flawed humans like us all.

If you are like me, a left leaning firm believer in climate change who is highly skeptical of the fossil fuel industry, I highly recommend this book. It won't change your mind about fossil fuels, but it will provide understanding of people at the bottom of the totem pole who make the industry work. I came away feeling that these relatively high paid workers were being exploited, used-up and spit-out.

[Michael Lipsey · Rating 3 out of 5]

I really wanted to love this book because I enjoy books about how things work, jobs, industries, business & technology. An inside book by a man who worked in the oil patch in N. Dakota seemed like just my cup of tea. As much of the book that is actually about the work around the wells is fascinating, and I couldn't get enough of those chapters. But much of the book is about his miserable childhood, his alcoholism, instability, etc. And his need to prove himself to his rough co-workers, because he came in as a weak, useless, incapable loser. And he does prove himself and make friends, but so what? Having spent my working life in construction, I can only say that war stories told in bars get old fast. There are worlds of people who do hard, difficult and dangerous jobs their entire lives, not just in the oil patch, but in construction, ranching, farming, mining, logging, fishing, factories, railroads, etc. One more book that cried out for an editor. A ruthless editor would have cut all the blather about brotherhood and transformation and given us a fine book about the job of setting up, breaking down, and moving an oil well, and setting it up again in a new location, again and again.

[Kate · Rating 4 out of 5]

Definitely gives you a window into that time and place and does a good job combining with memoir of his life. Don't read if you can't handle swear words.

[Cropredy · Rating 5 out of 5]

So, by definition, since I finished this past my bedtime, it gets 5 stars.

Actually, the book is quite good, outstanding even.

There's a certain similarity in narrative arc to Educated and Hillbilly Elegy: A Memoir of a Family and Culture in Crisis as this is a memoir of someone who tries to find himself (in this case, in the Bakken oil fields in North Dakota) and, as the memoir unfolds, you realize how important his broken childhood led to Smith becoming a swamper in Williston ND.

The story takes place in 2013-14 at the height of the shale oil boom when folks from all over flocked to North Dakota to make their fortune in the relatively high paying jobs in the oil industry. The more skills you had, the more you made. Michael Smith had almost no skills (he was a theatre major) so he started at the bottom loading and unloading heavy pieces of equipment as one rig would be dismantled and moved to another location for re-erection. Others ended up working at Walmart or Hardees - but as Smith was in the oil fields, this memoir is worth reading for its depiction of that scene (from the lowest rung of the job hierarchy).

Let's just say you wouldn't want to be bicycling across North Dakota on the same roads as the truckers used. Why? Because, at least as far as the memoir went, the workers worked long shifts, then got drunk, drove drunk, got into fights, got drunk some more, then got up at 0500h the next day to do it again.

Lodging was in short supply so men lived in flophouses, boarding houses, and other dwellings strewn across mattresses on the floor - that is, if they were lucky - otherwise they slept in their SUVs.

Cursing was endemic. Hazing of newbies (the swampers/worms) was relentless. Oh, and did I say that tempers got short and there would be fighting. Throw in some drug dealing, prostitutes, ex-cons, and basically a lot of men who came from broken homes with chips on their shoulders and it made for quite the scene - at least as Smith observed it.

Despite all that, he made lasting friendships with all sorts.

The story starts with Smith arriving in Williston, hoping to find a job (and hoping to find purpose in his life). You get vivid pictures of the 24 hour grind of ten men and a woman crammed into a townhouse, nearly getting crushed or smashed by loads swinging from flatbed cranes, gruff-bordering-on-sociopathic drivers, and more. A lot of burgers get consumed. A lot more beer and spirits get drunk. Nary a vegetable or fruit is mentioned. Imagine living off of truck stop food that you picked up while pumping gas. I'd be a wreck. So was Smith but he persevered.

As the (short) chapters unfold, you meet whacked-out characters who nevertheless have some redeeming qualities. Every few chapters Smith takes you back to his childhood living in a dysfunctional family marked by tragedy and violence. And then you're back stomping your feet in the cold (or heat) waiting to maneuver some crane load knowing that the driver is screaming at you for being an idiot (and most likely hungover).

Believe it or not, they actually seemed to take safety seriously although, like soldiers in war, the longer you worked, the more likely you'd get smashed up in some way. And, they were more-or-less law-abiding as trouble with the law could cause them to lose their jobs.

The vividness of the work and off-work scenes in Williston as observed and participated in by Smith is what makes this book terrific. He is quite literate while not being a reporter. As you read, you feel as if you are living Smith's experience (and not envying it I would guess).

A good book for coastal elites (like me, I suppose) to read for insight into the lives of literal hard-working class men (and they were almost all men in the memoir).

[Bookworm · Rating 2 out of 5]

I was drawn to this book because I have some familiarity with the Bakken and the oil industry in North Dakota, although not to the degree the author has. I've never been there, do not know anyone from the area personally, etc. but some of my work experiences have given me some exposure through the media and so I was curious to have a firsthand experience of what it was like. The work can be lonely, dangerous, but for a time paid extremely well and caused a boom in terms of population, the economy, etc., so I wanted to know what Smith's experience was.

Told in what is really a series of streaming vignettes rather than a straight narrative, Smith focuses about the life there. It's less about working in the oil fields and the oil industry itself and more about the life outside of it: the people drawn to the work, what Williston, North Dakota is like, what Smith learned and how it was a contrast to other places he lived in, some of the history/social/political aspects of the region, etc.

Overall I found it very dull. A lot of it was not surprising to me in the sense that I somewhat knew why people like Smith decide to work in this industry and why it can be extremely difficult to do. Safety is not exactly a priority, the work can be very isolating, the industry had a significant boom (and as Smith notes, the area is now experiencing a bust). And as this book was published in 2021, this also does not account for more recent work in the Biden Administration to further push renewable energy as an industry, so oil & gas is not exactly on the upswing either.

If anything, I would say this was a book that was really a form of therapy for the author. Which is not to say it does not have its merits (there are sections that are informative, poignant, funny, thoughtful, etc.), but if you are looking for the ins and outs of what it was like to work in the Bakken during this time period, this probably is not quite the book for you.

Be aware that with this type of work there are all sorts of heavy issues, although maybe not as detailed or graphic as it could be. Smith notes the lack of diversity in North Dakota, acknowledges the issues of the oil industry extracting on land that still has Indigenous peoples, the issues of misogyny and attitudes towards women, the use of drugs and alcohol because of the lack of other things to do/a way to self-medicate from the work, etc. It is not avoidable (although not as horrible to read as it certainly could be) as ignoring these issues is pretty much impossible to do if you truly want to have a frank discussion about the oil and gas industry.

I was also particularly skeeved out by the end. Smith eventually engages in seeking out help and therapy, and he admits that he was aware his father molested his sister and feels guilt for not helping (to be clear, both siblings are children when this happens). Smith still thanks his father in the acknowledgements and also thanks his siblings and mom for being given the space to write about them for his book. All the same, while it is doubtful he could have done anything (and it perhaps hints his father was inappropriate with him as well, although it could be read more towards physical abuse [?]) it was still uncomfortable to read so closely together.

It is a book that has its merits and would likely be a good resource for people who want to know why some would be drawn to such dangerous work in an industry that had its day (and is contributing to climate change). For a layperson who has a passing interest, this is probably not a book for you, unless you know someone who worked in this industry, are familiar with the specific region, you work on environmental issues, etc. Otherwise it's fairly skippable or at least definitely worth the wait as a library borrow or as a bargain buy. I got this as the latter and that was right for me.

[Brenden Gallagher · Rating 4 out of 5]

Memoir has become something of a dirty word for me in recent years with the excess of Brooklynite "people dating in their 20s" books churned out by social media personalities and the glut of Hillbilly Elegy style efforts meant as a soft launch for political or business careers. But, "The Good Hand: A Memoir of Work Brotherhood, and Transformation in An American Boomtown" by Michael Patrick F. Smith reminded me just how powerful memoir can be.

These days, books that dig into particular regional subcultures in America tend to be written by journalists or academics. Two excellent recent examples, "Nomadland" and "Evicted," come to mind, but there are many others. While there is nothing wrong with these books, memoir often results in a more bone-deep and ultimately more truthful look at events. And Smith's writing here demonstrates why some subjects are simply better understood through a first-hand account.

Though he is a playwright and musician, Smith actually moved to a North Dakota oil town to make money working the oil fields. Though he chronicled his time there, the book-length reflection on his experiences only came together sometime after. As such, he has a compelling first-person narrative account of moving To Williston, getting a place to stay, getting a job, getting drunk to deal with the stress of the job, and trying to keep that job. Because he actually worked the oil fields, the typical distance between the author and their subject isn't evident here. "The Good Hand" feels like something that would have been written in the last century when it was more common for a writer to just go and do a thing instead of simply write about it.

I have personally always been curious about the oil boomtowns that have cropped up in recent years, and if you have any interest in them yourself, I have to recommend "The Good Hand." Smith's knack for character description and ear for memorable dialogue make you feel like you are sitting on a barstool or in a truck next to his friends and co-workers. Each field hand he worked with is fully rendered with stories both lovely and tragic in the casual style of a barroom bullshitting session. Smith's artistic yet down-to-Earth point of view results in an authorial voice you'll enjoy spending time with. And, as a bonus, since he is a musician, the author punctuates compelling chapters with samples of his original folk-country music which makes for a unique listening experience if you prefer audiobooks.

Now, I may be a little biased because Smith grew up only about an hour from where I did --he in Western Maryland and I in Southern Pennsylvania-- in the same redneck exurban agrarian orbit of Baltimore, but I think you'll get something out of this book no matter where you're from. These oil towns bring people together from all over America, and in rendering this world, Smith gets at the heart of American life, or at least one particular slice of it. "The Good Hand" is a good hang.

[Rachel Kleppen · Rating 4 out of 5]

A friend recommended "A Good Hand" to me because we both, like Michael Smith, chased riches in the Bakken ourselves. I moved to Williston, North Dakota about a year before Smith did but under much different circumstances - and profited from a different strata of the oilfield.

I had a place to live (my lifelong Williston-resident cousin's basement apartment) and found work waiting tables in the nicest restaurant in town - serving the higher-ups of the companies profiting from the back-breaking labor of others. Which is why I found Michael's story so compelling - it was a vivid telling of how so many people that came to Williston for financial redemption left with ruin.

He points out early on in the book that most of the men he meets all share something in common: a father wound. There is a reason beyond just "riches" that guys are out here trying to prove themselves. And according to his telling the things that make these guys "manly" can often be superficial and temporal - drinking excessively, picking up hookers, doing dangerous (read: foolish) things.

Another factor in a tail-between-the-legs exit was also just a tremendous amount of instability. It's easy to think that all of the hours and wages they were pulling in would pile up in their bank accounts, but so much of it went to housing and food, traveling back and forth from home and trying to fill up the lonely and empty experience with the town's expensive entertainment options.

I really appreciated the poignant scene near the end of the book where Michael finally addresses some of his own inner demons - what he might have been trying to redeem in the oil field actually began to heal in the chair of a therapist's office. True masculinity begins when a man can face the demons head on, name them and try to move forward and build something better because of their life experience, not in spite of it.

Well written, and well worth the 450 pages.

[Kes · Rating 4 out of 5]

The author tells his story about working in North Dakota.

One of the things he does a good job at contrasting is the life he left behind in New York and the life in North Dakota. He feels close to the earth there: part of extracting the oil that the rest of the world relies on. There are pages about it - his history on a farm, his family history in the military, his inability to join them. There's reflection on what he calls the "father wound" - the absent fathers. There's also observations on society: he wonders how the male behaviour he sees demonstrated in turn affects female behaviour.

It's a thoughtful book - I enjoyed the friendships that Mike forms. Those friendships do appear rougher than I would expect, and more cussing is involved. But they are genuine.

The effect on poverty is also touched upon. There's some mentions of politics - the others are republicans, but Mike doesn't really dwell on the misinformation that they say, just quotes it. There's also one chapter on racism that strikes me: Mike views a room and told that there are two rooms empty. Mike takes one, and as he signs the lease, another couple comes in to view the room. They're black. Without blinking, the landlord lies that the room has just been taken by Mike (despite the second room being available). Mike doesn't say anything - and then reflects that this shows that he's been complicit.

It's thought-provoking in its own way: Mike doesn't set out to change the world, just observe it.

One odd thing is that some of the cuss words are written out as "fecal matter" but Mike has no qualms saying "shit" partway through the book. I'm not sure if Mike is quoting "fecal matter" verbatim?

[Nate Hendrix · Rating 4 out of 5]

I heard the author in the radio and thought his story was interesting and that is how his book got on my reading list. Michael moves to North Dakota to get an oil job as a kind of therapy as a result of having an abusive father and fucked up childhood. This is not me guessing, he makes this clear. His experience working on the oil fields reminded me of my time working as part of a 911 system. New people are not always treated with kindness and patience. There is a fair amount of, I don't want to be dramatic and say abuse, but for lack of a better word, abuse. Exclusively verbal. Both jobs can be dangerous and have the potential to get really fucked up very quickly. If you are new, you are going to catch some shit until you figure out the job. When things are going wrong I don't have the time to gently explain exactly what I need done and how to do it. Afterwards I may not be in the right frame of mind to educate you in a way so that you don't feel stupid. That verbal abuse turns into the kind of verbal jousting that builds a comradery that is not found in many lines of work. The other similarity I found is how much you miss the work and forget how really miserable it could make you at the time.
This was a great book I heartily recommend it.

[Sarah · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed this book so much, mostly because it felt like getting to know someone well: Michael Patrick F Smith. He's the star of his memoir, not because he makes himself the star, but because he's so honest, so human. We see the oilfields through his eyes, we live the experience with him, we feel his empathy for the people he introduces us to. It's real, this is a real book, written by a real person, not overly polished, almost like reading someone's journal, or having a conversation. The writing isn't fancy, it's like a home cooked meal, straight-forward and nourishing. I'm still recovering from that North Dakota winter I lived though!

[Rick · Rating 3 out of 5]

Michael Patrick F. Smith wrote the type of book `that is almost good. It has strengths in that it lives up to its title in a near literal sense. It does tell the story of the recent oil boom in North Dakota through the prism of several people who he got to know while working in the field. Where the book comes up short is in putting some context behind Smith and his reasons for going to the fields in the first place. We hear his background story but he does a poor job connecting the dots and putting us into the his mind.

Not bad, It does offer some insights but more context would have been better.

[Sherri · Rating 3 out of 5]

I tried, I put it aside and came back but eventually gave up. To be blunt, I lost interest after the first few chapters.

The details of oilfield work, the equipment and dangerous and drudgery of the work was interesting. The short bios and descriptions of the other characters was good. But the stories and events began to repeat and the reader could anticipate what happened next. Having seen similar situations here made it predictable and I stopped reading.

I did think about Jack London, how this was a landscape and place he would have felt at home.

[John · Rating 5 out of 5]

On a recent visit to a ND, it was a hard to not to notice the derricks scattered throughout the landscape. I knew of the oil boom but wanted to learn about what a typical day in the life of an oil worker was like. The Good Hand provided so much more than that and Michael wrote an excellent reflection of his relationships, hardships, and triumphs during his nine months there. This book will connect with anyone who took a step into the unknown and wound up with a life altering outcome, for better or for worse.

[Margaret Swartz · Rating 5 out of 5]

Some good money, lots of pain. Book tells it all.

I’m from North Dakota and familiar with the area. My mother in law had a home in Dickinson that had Six bedrooms, three in the basement. She sold it for a excellent price because the person who purchased it wanted to take advantage of all those bedrooms.
The book does a good job of informing the reader what life was like for the men and families that came to this area for work .

[Mike · Rating 5 out of 5]

This was much more enjoyable than I would have expected! It's the maddening sorrows and heartbreak of 'Hillbilly Elegy' with the f bombs and hijinks of 'Fear and Loathing' in the Bakken, during the North Dakota oilfield boom years. The author struck a nice middle ground chord on the needs of oil and the needs of the planet, and speaking of chords, if you listen to the audiobook you'll even be treated to some of the author's music.

[Sanjiv · Rating 4 out of 5]

Good Memoir set on a Great Landscape

The book was well researched and well written. At times it feels like a forced backdrop for his rough childhood. At other times it feels like a series of crazy stories that aptly convey the characters you meet in the oilfield. Finally it is an homage to the never quit attitude of the dwindling number of hardworking men and women who built America.

[Nancy J. Lach · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thoroughly enjoyed reading and learning from this book! I lived in ND during the boom, but in a city 227 miles away. ND was so short on housing that people actually made the commute from here! This is a well written book, but not for the faint of heart due to language and situations. I found it realistic though and not offensive. I wish it included a few basic diagrams so I could understand the vehicles he described better. A good read! I’d give it 4.5 stars if I could!

[Robert Lee · Rating 5 out of 5]

A good read, but a bit deep.

As a former oil field hand, I enjoyed this book. I worked in the patch for about 20 years, starting as a roustabout,and finishing as a drilling and production foreman. I worked through the boom and bust in Oklahoma in the 80's, and there are a lot of similarities to this book. I enjoyed the book, and the stories, but it was a bit deep for me. However, it is well written and a good read.

[Laura · Rating 5 out of 5]

Vidid and fasciniating autoethnography of a young man's growth from childhood to man, working in the oil fields of ND. Mr. Smith's descriptions take you right to the place where the story is being told. Recommended this book to a friend who read it in two sittings and could not put down. Highly recommend as an autobiography of true grit and determination in a part of a blue collar world few experience.

[Kevin Carew · Rating 5 out of 5]

Living in a very densely populated north eastern state very rarely do you hear about the hardships and hard work of men working in the oil fields in the vast mid western or northern states of our country. Michael Smith has put into words how hard those jobs are. To the point where I have even more respect for those people who have to endure so much for a job so they can pay their bills and take care of their families. Well done Mr. Smith