From Publishers Weekly
Formulaic plotting and cliched characters mar this otherwise often captivating tale of the contemporary West set in the sandhills of Nebraska. Upon the death of Heywood Bennett, patriarch of a wealthy ranching family, his three offspring--each by a different mother--jointly inherit his holdings. The eldest son, Arthur, is embittered by having to share the fortune. Kya, Heywood's reckless, independent daughter by a Lakota woman, wants to be free of family responsibilities. Kept unaware of his father's identity until he was a teenager, Cody is a tough, handsome rancher who wants to make sure his adored half-sister receives her due share of the estate; meanwhile, he falls in love with an older woman, a widow. A complex net of loyalties and rivalries within both family and community ensnares each of these siblings as they grapple with their father's legacy. Agee ( Sweet Eyes ) writes knowingly of ranching life, the Indian nations and the modern realities of reservations, especially the corporate and governmental encroachments on them. Though she brings a heartfelt lyricism to her evocation of the vanishing West, her tale of the Bennett family tends toward the maudlin. The plot takes predictable turns to rather trite resolutions and the characters rarely transcend the familiar western stereotypes.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
From Kirkus Reviews
A big, rowdy--if sometimes padded--western ranch saga about three Nebraskan siblings of mixed ancestry who battle it out with each other when the patriarch dies. The story begins with the death of the father, larger-than- life Heywood Bennett, and with Arthur, who considers himself the legitimate heir, running the spread, while brother Cody Kidwell- -ostensibly the bastard brother--cowboys around the ranch, and sister Kya, part Indian, ``did as she wanted.'' The other main player is Latta Jaboy, the widow on the next-door spread who becomes Arthur's business partner and Cody's lover. The will leaves equal shares to all three siblings, but specifies that the ranch cannot be sold or divided. Agee fills her book with the sights and smells of ranch life and small-town business (Babylon, Nebraska) as she spins out the family drama: Arthur makes deals to diversify and searches for the ``real will''--the one that will leave everything to him; a prize stallion disappears, which leads to all sorts of violence, including Cody getting shot; and Kya, who searches for her Indian heritage and turns against Latta Jaboy (``doing one kind of business with Arthur and another with Cody'') serves as the catalyst whereby the family comes together after near-disaster. Old Joseph, a kind of wisdom figure, points out that ``Revenge doesn't work anymore,'' and, by the end, Latta, pregnant, is nestled into battered Cody's arms while Arthur, older and wiser, has learned that he's the bastard, not Cody. After Jane Smiley's Thousand Acres, yet another western twist on Lear seems ill-advised, but Agee (Sweet Eyes, 1991, etc.) peoples a lived-in landscape with wild, vivid people, resulting in a McMurtry soap opera more than a Smiley allegory. --
Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
--This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.
