Tie-Fast Country [Hardcover]

Robert Flynn (Author)

Editorial Reviews

From Publishers Weekly

Fractured family relationships are as tangled and dangerous as a ball of barbed wire in this folksy western novel by Spur Award- winner Flynn (The Devils Tiger; Wanderer Springs; etc.). This is certainly not a typical western; it reads more like an episode of Dallas, with an injection of verisimilitude. Chance Carter is a Florida TV station manager thoroughly corrupted by shallow entertainment, manipulative news and hatred for his grandmother Clarista, "a woman who killed two men and drove her daughter and grandson from her house." When he gets a call from Texas about the ailing woman, he sees it as an opportunity to put her in a nursing home. However, Clarista is a tough, smart Texas cattle rancher: she is not about to be corralled in a nursing home, and Chance is in for a big surprise when he arrives at the run-down ranch wearing tassle loafers and pleated pants. She puts the city boy to work mending fences, herding cattle, roping and riding. At first he is not happy with how the visit is turning out, but eventually he learns the real reasons his grandmother shot two men, why his own mother left home and why he is such a jerk. He realizes that Clarista is a good ol' gal, and that maybe he was wrong to hate her after all. The narrative alternates between past and present, as Clarista tells of the early days of cattle ranching from 1900 to the 1940s and Chance describes his visit to the ranch. The prose is pedestrian, but this is a funny, comfortable tale with enough barbs and thorns to remind us that life is not at all like television. Southwest author tour.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

About the Author

Robert Flynn, professor emeritus, Trinity University and a native of Chillicothe, Texas, is the author of twelve books. Seven novels: North To Yesterday; In the House of the Lord; The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs of Hope; Wanderer Springs, The Last Klick, The Devil's Tiger, co-authored with the late Dan Klepper, and Tie-Fast Country. His dramatic adaptation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying was the United States entry at the Theater of Nations in Paris in l964 and won a Special Jury Award. He is also the author of a two-part documentary, "A Cowboy Legacy" shown on ABC-TV; a nonfiction narrative, A Personal War in Vietnam, an oral history.

Also, When I Was Just Your Age, two story collections, Seasonal Rain and Living With The Hyenas, and a collection essays, Growing Up a Sullen Baptist. He is co-editor of Paul Baker and the Integration of Abilities.

Flynn also contributes to The Door: "The World's Pretty Much Only Magazine of Religious Satire." North to Yesterday received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. Seasonal Rain, was co-winner of the Texas Literary Festival Award. Wanderer Springs received a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. Living With the Hyenas received a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Flynn's work has been translated into German, Spanish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Malayalam, Arabic, Tamil, Hindi, Kanada, and Vietnamese. Flynn is a member of The Texas Institute of Letters, The Writers Guild of America, Marine Corps Combat Correspondents, and P.E.N. In 1998, he received the "Distinguished Achievement Award" from the Texas Institute of Letters.

Robert Flynn is a native of Chillicothe, Texas, the best known Chillicothe outside of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, despite its size. Chillicothe is so small there's only one Baptist Church. Chillicothe is so small you have to go to Quanah to have a coincidence. Chillicothe is fairly bursting with truth and beauty and at an early age Flynn set out to find it.

His life and work could be described as 'The Search for Morals, Ethics, Religion, or at least a good story in Texas and lesser known parts of the world'.

Product Details

• Hardcover: 354 pages
• Publisher: Texas Christian University Press; 1St Edition edition (August 1, 2001)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0875652441
• ISBN-13: 978-0875652443
• Product Dimensions: 9.3 x 6.4 x 1.2 inches
• Shipping Weight: 1.5 pounds (View shipping rates and policies)
• Average Customer Review: 5.0 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (1 customer review)
• Amazon Best Sellers Rank: #2,821,448 in Books (See Top 100 in Books)

More About the Author

Robert Flynn, professor emeritus, Trinity University and a native of Chillicothe, Texas, is the author of fourteen books. Nine novels: North To Yesterday; In the House of the Lord; The Sounds of Rescue, The Signs of Hope; Wanderer Springs, The Last Klick, The Devils Tiger, co-authored with the late Dan Klepper, Tie-Fast Country, Echos of Glory.and his most recent Jade:Outlaw. His dramatic adaptation of Faulkner's As I Lay Dying was the United States entry at the Theater of Nations in Paris in l964 and won a Special Jury Award. He is also the author of a two-part documentary, "A Cowboy Legacy" shown on ABC-TV; a nonfiction narrative, A Personal War in Vietnam, an oral history, When I was Just Your Age, and a memoir, Burying the Farm.

Also, three story collections, Seasonal Rain, Living With The Hyenas, Slouching Toward Zion, and a collection of essays, Growing Up a Sullen Baptist. He is co-editor of Paul Baker and the Integration of Abilities.

North to Yesterday received awards from the Texas Institute of Letters and the National Cowboy Hall of Fame, and was named one of the Best Books of the Year by the New York Times. Seasonal Rain, was co-winner of the Texas Literary Festival Award. Wanderer Springs received a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. Living With the Hyenas received a Western Heritage Award from the National Cowboy Hall of Fame. Echoes of Glory received a Spur Award from Western Writers of America. Flynn's work has been translated into German, Spanish, Dutch, Afrikaans, Malayalam, Arabic, Tamil, Hindi, Kanada, and Vietnamese. Flynn is a member of The Texas Institute of Letters, The Writers Guild of America, Marine Corps Combat Correspondents Associate, and P.E.N. In 1998, he received the "Distinguished Achievement Award" from the Texas Institute of Letters. (See Flynn's Blog.)

Robert Flynn is a native of Chillicothe, Texas, the best known Chillicothe outside of Ohio, Missouri and Illinois, despite its size. Chillicothe is so small there's only one Baptist Church. Chillicothe is so small you have to go to Quanah to have a coincidence. Chillicothe is fairly bursting with truth and beauty and at an early age Flynn set out to find it.

His life and work could be described as 'The Search for Morals, Ethics, Religion, or at least a good story in Texas and lesser known parts of the world'.

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

5.0 out of 5 stars if you have to read one novel about grandmother ranchers......, October 14, 2005

By 

Robert Nagle "idiotprogrammer" (Houston, TX United States) - See all my reviews
(REAL NAME)   

Amazon Verified Purchase

This review is from: Tie-Fast Country (Hardcover)

This latest novel by Robert Flynn has a lot of things going for it. It's basically a character-driven novel about a grandmother rancher, and it touches on Western/cowboy themes of his earlier novels. It provides a lot of gritty realism about running a ranch and living in a rural Texan town in the early 20th century. The panoramic aspect to the story reminds me of Wanderer Springs, but I found it darker and somewhat more cynical than his other novels.

The most innovative thing about the book is the story structure, where each chapter alternates between flashbacks of the grandmother's life and the grandson's point of view in present time. Chance Carter, the grandson has to find Rista to settle legal questions about her estate before her death. The first third of the book consists of flashbacks of Rista growing up. It reads really great. We hear about how she fell in love and learned the rancher's trade (despite being a woman) and the life choices she had to make about being a rancher. At the same time, we hear Chance's point of view about contemporary life; he works at a local TV station and is jaded by the commercial aspects of the journalism business. These two people come from totally contrary walks of life, and yet the grandson has to learn about her world in order to appreciate how far she has come.

The first 100 pages is the "most raw" and has lots of things: great incidents from the grandmother's childhood, as well as lots of jabs at contemporary media by the grandson. The second third slows down a bit; the book has Rista narrate stories of her past instead of showing them via flashback. Probably more true to life, but not as dramatically interesting. The last third certainly picks up the action, showing the important men in Rista's life and how she treated them (I'm being vague on purpose here).

The book has lots of light-hearted moments (especially the multiple comparisons between taking care of cattle and taking care of husbands). None of this is laugh-out-loud funny, but certainly worth a few chuckles. The grandson's girlfriend (who doesn't really appear in the novel but keeps in touch via telephone throughout) provides a nice contemporary perspective (She's an unhappy anchorwoman who hates her job). It's nice to see how some of the grandson's ethical difficulties about TV reporting are echoed in the grandmother's own life (albeit in less direct ways).

The book certainly had surprises, although the ending left me unsatisfied. The book had talked about Rista for 300+ pages, and by the end, I don't feel that I had come any closer to knowing the novel's central character. Nor do I have reason to believe the grandson has gained any insight into his own predicament as a result of his dealings with Rista. Part of the problem lies in the backward-looking nature of such a story.

The style is unadorned, sometimes prosaic and occasionally poetic. It is most vivid when describing Rista's early life at the ranch. Contrast that with the last few chapters, which are told with sparse emotion and little embellishment.

SUMMARY: a character-based drama with regional color and hints of darkness. The first 100 pages were terrific; and although the book has a lot of action, the ending didn't seem to resolve the grandson's inner conflicts.

For regular readers of Flynn, I'd compare this to Wanderer Springs, albeit slightly darker (though not as dark as Last Klick). Although Flynn's first novel North to Yesterday is most widely known, this novel actually makes me think of the lesser known "In the House of the Lord" (depicting life of a minister in a small Texas town) much more remarkable because of its simple personal approach. Tie-Fast Country is much more ambitious, but perhaps Flynn's stories work better on a smaller scale (such as "In the House of the Lord" or Flynn's short stories).