Big Lonely

Publishers Weekly - Publisher's Weekly

Brown ( The Crime of Coy Bell ) once again makes good use of his extensive experience as a working cowboy in this elegiac novel of the late-19th-century American West. Casey Wills, the narrator, and Josh Smith are two hardworking cowboys at the XIT ranch in Texas. Smith, it seems, has spent his youth and his health looking at the south end of northbound dogies, while Casey doesn't know if his parents are alive or dead. The plot revolves around the pair's wranglings with rustlers, but takes second place to Brown's affectionate depiction of a ranch hand's life. Casey and Josh battle the elements, sickness, boredom and, as the title implies, loneliness. For relief, they drink, banter with their buddies and hope for the comforts of some dance-hall girl (Casey, for example, longs to be in the arms of a certain gal in Tascosa, one of Texas's wildest cow towns). Although Casey's voice occasionally rings false, with too modern a sensibility or too much zeal in supplying period information, Brown renders his world with realistic detail and lots of spirit. (Dec.)

Library Journal

This Western by a poet and former cowboy is a real treat for readers who enjoy words and people. The narrator, Casey Wills, a trusted cowpuncher on the huge XIT Ranch, is offered a bribe by Tatum Stagg to turn a blind eye to Stagg's cattle theft. Casey, a man of integrity who does his job come hell or high water, refuses. The resulting hell and high water make up most of the story's action. Of equal interest is the portrayal of a cowboy's life--the drifting from job to job, without roots or security; the hard work; the low pay (lost on one night in town); and, when one is old and stove up, the inevitable ending as a swamper. Yet there is also the freedom, the wide open spaces, the much-loved work with cattle and horses, so that the cowboy--lord of all he surveys, including The Big Lonely--finally lets the chips fall where they may. Very good reading, even re-reading.-- Sister Avila, Acad. of the Holy Angels, Minneapolis

Wes Lukowsky

Casey Wills and Josh Smith were wintering as fence menders along one edge of the huge XIT spread. The XIT is no traditional western ranch; it's part of a corporation, complete with a home office in Chicago. While mailing a letter in a small town near their outrider shed, Casey is approached by a man named Tatum Stagg. "Well," Stagg says, "since you boys aren't really workin' for a person, why not look the other way while a few XIT cattle wander across the fence? The pay is good and besides, who'll know?" Casey and Josh are poor as church mice and face an uncertain future, but they believe right is right, and so they let Mr. Stagg know. But doing the right thing and doing the easy thing aren't always the same thing, as Stagg emphasizes. Author Brown, once a working cowboy, has an ear for bunkhouse dialogue and a theme that dominates each of his novels: the West was not forged by ceaseless gunplay and reckless heroism but by regular folks who worked hard, made hard choices, and accepted affection gratefully, if very rarely. Brown writes of real people who happen to live in the Old West. Like his characters, he does good, honest work, and he deserves a wide general readership.