Fictional oil truth

摘要

If oil and gas workers don't read fiction, a reason might be the dearth of fiction grounded in basic knowledge about, let alone respect for, their business. Yet a novelist who makes this regrettable observation about oil-country reading habits has done her part to eliminate the excuse. "No oil man I spoke to in the course of my research reads fiction," lamented Helen Knode in a letter to Oil & Gas Journal that accompanied a copy of her second book, Wildcat Play. Still, she wrote, "Someone you know might like to read a righteous mystery set on a drilling rig in California that is also a fond tribute to grassroots American oil."