The Last Cowboys: A Pioneer Family in the New West
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4.8 • 4 Ratings
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- $19.99
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- $19.99
Publisher Description
"A can't-put-it-down modern Western." —Kirk Siegler, NPR
Longlisted for the PEN/ESPN Award for Literary Sports Writing
The Last Cowboys is Pulitzer Prize-winning reporter John Branch’s epic tale of one American family struggling to hold on to the fading vestiges of the Old West. For generations, the Wrights of southern Utah have raised cattle and world-champion saddle-bronc riders—many call them the most successful rodeo family in history. Now they find themselves fighting to save their land and livelihood as the West is transformed by urbanization, battered by drought, and rearranged by public-land disputes. Could rodeo, of all things, be the answer? Written with great lyricism and filled with vivid scenes of heartache and broken bones, The Last Cowboys is a powerful testament to the grit and integrity that fuel the American Dream.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
Pulitzer Prize winning reporter Branch (Boy on Ice) develops his 2015 New York Times article on a successful rodeo family into a full-blown tale of modern life on the range in southern Utah. The book focuses on the Wrights, a family of cattle ranchers and world champion saddle-bronc riders, as they struggle to hang on to land that's been in their family for more than 150 years. It's also the place where Bill Wrights and his wife, Evelyn, raised their 13 children, including seven sons, all of whom have gone on to become famous rodeo riders. But the older Bill gets, the harder it is for him to look after the land, especially amid numerous conflicts with the Bureau of Land Management and a flurry of buyout offers from commercial developers. Branch writes with immediacy when describing cowboy life, whether branding and castrating cattle (the "dirt-covered testicles... looked like dusty pearl onions") or attempting to last eight seconds on the back of a wild and angry mustang (a fallen rider "crashed clumsily on his left shoulder, and the pain shot through him like electricity"). Branch's fly-on-the-wall reporting and evocative prose renders this a memorable tale of family and the American West in a state of flux.
Customer Reviews
I did not want this book to end!
I bought this as a random cowboy related purchase as I am entangled in the rodeo circuit. I realized part way through that the National Finals Rodeo was mentioned. I realized that this book was REAL. So real that the Wright brothers were still competing and I shortly saw them at the NFR. And the next year. I felt so drawn to them as characters because it was so well written that when I met them at an NFR meet-and-greet I had to tell the boys how I knew them. I cried when I finished the book as I didn’t want to stop following the Wright family through their family, ranching and rodeoing. The details in the culture were so true and I recommend this book to anyone with any interest in rodeo.