I've had THE LAST COWGIRL ON MY shelf for five years now, and have begun reading it on three separate occasions. This time I made it over a hundred pages in, trying my best to get interested in the story of a rather fragmented family uprooted from a humdrum small town life when the father gets tired of teaching and chases his dream of being a cowboy, buying a rundown ranch in the Utah foothills. The family is "sort of Mormon." The story is narrated by Dickie, the youngest child, who hates leaving her comfortable life in town, and resists the ranch life, but turns out to be pretty good on a horse. The story jumps back and forth in time, from her childhood to her single, adult life as a newspaper reporter in Salt Lake City forty-odd years later. I could give more details, but don't want to spoil the story for someone who might actually want to finish it. But I don't. Want to finish it. Because I just couldn't make myself care about this family, and the plot was so slow-moving as to literally put me to sleep. Enough said. I'm sure some readers will like this book, but not me. Not recommended.

- Tim Bazzett, author of the memoir, BOOKLOVER ( )

interesting family drama: Now fifty-two years old and never married Dickie Sinfield looks back on her childhood when her father moved the family from the burbs to a Utah cattle ranch; at seven she went from suburban princess to mucking cowgirl. Over a decade after the transformation, eighteen year old Dickie had enough with the rough lifestyle and fled the ranch for Salt Lake City where she became a reporter.

Over the decades Dickie wants nothing much to do with her family and denies her feelings for her childhood friend Stumpy Nelson. However, her mortality comes home to roost forcing her to reexamine her feelings when her brother, Hebert dies in a poison gas accident at Dugway Proving Grounds. She returns to the ranch for his funeral and to face her family, her friends, and mostly herself.

This is an interesting family drama that looks deep at the impact emotionally on decisions in which people have reasonable choices to make; of fascination is how easily humans rationalize the selection vs. the rejections. In an aside subplot related to Herbert's death, the Feds are nuked by Jana Richman for their disregard of safety when it comes to handling of chemical and biological weapons, but the prime plot is people justifying poor choices.

Harriet Klausner

Dickie Sinfield grew up an unwilling ranch hand when her father suddenly sold their suburban home and purchased a piece of land out in the wilds of Utah. Though her sister doesn’t take to the life and her brother seems born to it, Dickie is an unhappy in between, pleased with the work and the land but having convinced herself from an early age that she hates it. This sort of cognitive dissonance is a theme throughout the novel, from Dickie’s cowgirl roots to Utahns’ attitude toward the testing and disposal of deadly chemical weapons in their backyards. When Dickie’s brother dies suddenly, she is forced to face the past she has been avoiding for thirty years. This is not the sort of book I normally would pick up - I don’t really have much interest in westerns, or coming-of-age stories, or tales of redemption. (Or Mormonism, though that was more backdrop than main theme.) I only read this one because I found it by chance while traveling (thank you, BookCrossing!), and you know what? I enjoyed it. I loved the scenery and the quiet intensity of the characters, especially Merv, though Bev was definitely my favorite. A nice change of pace for me. ( )

http://advanced-reader.blogspot.com/2007/12/yeehaw.html ( )