In the late 1960s, Farmer Bob Scott begins to act strangely, while his son, Gerry, struggles with his parents, his sister, the draft, and the pressures of his generation, in a story told from the perspective of a wise family of cows. A first novel.
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Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
Petersen's bovine characters may be cut from the same fictional cloth as George Orwell's barnyard politicians and the rebellious rodents in William Kotzwinkle's Dr. Rat, but the author's allegorical first novel is an uneven affair, alternating between tongue-in-cheek humor and dark political satire as he examines life on an upstate New York family dairy farm in 1960s and early '70s. Petersen begins his tale with some fine comic chapters in which he introduces the various members of the dairy herd-feisty Smitty, dreamy, otherworldly Aretha and wide-eyed, star-struck Peanut, who meets with tragedy when she tries to run off and join the circus. The human family, however, is a far more contentious group that includes hard-driving Farmer Bob, his stoic wife, Edna, and Gerry and Renee, a pair of rebellious teenagers who can barely disguise their contempt for their parents' way of life. Rather than sustain a single conflict, Petersen bounces back and forth between bovine and human issues, dealing with generational problems, the difficulties caused by modern farm technology and the cows' attempts to steer the humans back toward a naturalistic way of life. The animal humor is first-rate, but Petersen's yarn lacks focus, and the constant shifts in narrative tone are jarring. Moreover, the climax, in which Farmer Bob attempts to come to grips with a family tragedy, is turgid and labored. The first half of the novel is a comic delight, but once the humans take over the story, much of the charm vanishes in a hurry.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Cowabunga, what a first novel! The story unfolds on a dairy farm between 1968 and 1971, with each chapter focusing on a different animal or human character. Bad-tempered farmer Bob, his repressed wife, his rebellious teenage children, and other humans interact with one another and with an equally complex Cowkind. The cows are organized in The Order and have a religion based on the desire to return to a predomesticated existence. This is in marked contrast to a world in which the Vietnam War is dividing families and agribusiness is destroying the family farm. Petersen is a master of difficult tricks: he creates complex characters with few words and minimizes his animal characters' cuteness, instead using them to explore the human psyche. Comparable to Richard Adams's Watership Down (1972) or The Plague Dogs (1977), Cowkind is recommended for all libraries.?Jim Dwyer, California State Univ. Lib., Chico
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1996 Reed Business Information, Inc.
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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
5.0 out of 5 stars
Don't miss this one, it's a real sleeper.,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cowkind: A Novel (Hardcover)
An American farm family endures the miseries of the Viet Nam war era, as observed by their sympathetic cows. Several mysteries elucidated: crop circles, cattle mutilations, God, and what the hell they think about while they're staring at us over the fence. I would really like to see a movie of this one. It's not 'heart-warming' or cute, and there are no children in it. Really a far better book than Watership Down. An original and brilliant performance than deserves far more publicity than it has gotten. Boo on the publishing industry!
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
Twisty and Good,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cowkind: A Novel (Hardcover)
When you first start out you think, "A book where
cows talk? Naaah." By the third page, you believe it. Amazing! And I think the interplay between the humans and the animals really works well - it's not just that the animals are symbolic manifestations of the people, as is the case in many other books.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
THE WISDOM OF TALKING COWS,
By A Customer
This review is from: Cowkind: A Novel (Hardcover)
I just finished this novel and thought it was great!
A comparison to _Animal Farm_ or _Babe_ only goes so far--the book is
beautiful and sad, with an uplifting ending that touches on
the draft, the environment, the perilous state of family farms
in the US, and the relation of the farmer to the land, the animals,
and his family. A book appropriate for adults and students. I've passed
it on to several friends who all loved it.
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