The Last Cattle Drive: A Novel (Paperback)

~ Robert Day (Author)
Key Phrases: cattle cubes, medicinal sex, fifty steers, Cue Ball, Kansas City, Garden of Eden (more...)

Editorial Reviews

Review

"Atmospheric." -- New York Times Book Review

"Call it a mid-western. Call it cowboys and urbanites. Call it well-written entertainment." -- American Library Association Booklist

"Fetching, with some tall, raunchy saddletalk and a style as clear as sweet buttered corn." -- Kirkus Review

"Hilarious." -- London Daily Telegraph

"Immensely funny." -- Washington Star

"The Kansas world of enormous horizons, pickup trucks, and Coors beer, is well conveyed and . . . highly seductive." -- Times Literary Supplement

"Tightly written . . . and powerfully evocative." -- Baltimore Sun

"Very real, earthy, and vital. . . . Exceedingly well told and funny." -- Kansas City Star --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

Product Description

This hilarious novel, the story of a wild romp across modern-day Kansas, is now available in a trade paperback edition. --This text refers to an out of print or unavailable edition of this title.

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Product Details

• Paperback: 224 pages
• Publisher: University Press of Kansas (September 1987)
• Language: English
• ISBN-10: 0700603441
• ISBN-13: 978-0700603442
• Product Dimensions: 8.6 x 5.6 x 0.5 inches
• Shipping Weight: 9.6 ounces
• Average Customer Review: 4.6 out of 5 stars  See all reviews (12 customer reviews)
• Amazon.com Sales Rank: #561,471 in Books (See Bestsellers in Books)

Customer Reviews

Most Helpful Customer Reviews

9 of 11 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars delightful literature, June 30, 2000

By A Customer

At last, a fiction set in Kansas that gets the state out of the old "Wizard of Oz" trap! I grew up in the Hays area and moved to Lawrence several years ago, so it was sheer delight to see places I've always been familiar with, e.g. Betty's Cafe in Gorham, Dirty Dan's, Brookville Hotel, gain notice in popular fiction. This book captures so well the contrast between eastern and western Kansas -- the snobs versus the hicks, the suburbs of Johnson County against the flat horizon of Gorham, the rushed noise of mechanized diesel, such a part of the industrialized world, against the solitude and stillness of the High Plains. The people around the Hays area whom Day describes are based on real folks, and in some cases ARE real folks, though I think he exaggerates their crudity and profanity excessively. I recall working for ranchers and farmers who remind me a lot of Spangler Tukle. And the main character's clash with a film crew is based on the trouble that the crew of "Paper Moon" had with locals when they shot that movie in northwest Kansas in the early 1970s. As the cattle drive commences and works its way toward Kansas City, the reader is swept along the plains landscape adjoining I-70, beautiful little spots that most tourists miss as they set their cruise controls, race through the state, and see only enough to confirm their prejudice of Kansas as a flat, character-less place. The ending seems to synthesize the two worlds of country and city, with cowboys driving their herd into the KC stockyards over expressways and interchanges, and city people lining the route to welcome them as heroes. To my knowledge, no such cattle drive ever took place, and I suspect the residents of KC, Missouri would react more with horror than with the fanfare presented here to see tons of hoofed beef clopping down their streets. But this book, after all, is fiction. Thanks, Prof. Day, for what hopefully will become an enduring classic on twentieth-century Kansas and Kansas people.

4 of 4 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars A Personal Favorite, January 24, 2001

By A Customer

I originally purchased this book because it was required reading for a college course. Much to my suprise, it became one of my favorite books. The story revolves around a cattle drive taking place during the 1970's. Though exagerated, the characters ring true - particularly if you've ever spent any time in midwestern farm county. I've loaned this book to so many people the cover has fallen off, and I've always received positive feedback from those who have borrowed the book. It's a great read!

2 of 2 people found the following review helpful:

5.0 out of 5 stars Great Characters, July 15, 2003

By	Robert D. Frandsen (Leavenworth, KS USA) - See all my reviews

Anyone who has lived around cattle, horses, and the people who work them knows these characters under a different name. Same is true of the dialog. The author has done a great job bringing these things to life.