Hey, Cowgirl, Need a Ride?

Having known a number of real or part-time cowboys from the Southwest US, this book is a very funny and realistic depiction of lifestyles and attitudes I've seen. Even though the plot is simple and far-fetched, it moves to unlikely places that keep one entertained. Black's use of clever clever language (often disguised as ill-educated cowboy pretentiousness and mixed metaphors) makes many paragraphs a pleasure to read several times. One might even write down some particularly outlandish metaphors to reuse. If you've never heard Baxter Black on NPR radio, you lose a lot of the clever smirk behind his writing. If you do read the book, do go to www.npr.org to hear Mr. Black's audio voice; it makes the voice you hear when reading even better.

It seemed to take me a while to get into this book. The characters seemed hard to get to know. As I continued however I realized that I got to know these caracters slow an easy just like anyone else I meet. Their secrets just sort of peeled off in layers instead of blasting you with everything about them all at once. They were great fun and made me laugh out loud often. This was just a plain good old cowboy story with all of its twists and turns and tall tales. By the end I felt a sense of pride in the way the caracters had developed themselves as people and was happy to see what they had to overcome.