The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo - Hardcover

Stansel, Ian

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0544963393 ISBN 13: 9780544963399

Publisher: Mariner Books, 2017

Synopsis

"One of the most compelling novels I've read in a long time." —Eowyn Ivey, author of the To the Bright Edge of the World and the Pulitzer finalist The Snow Child

A contemporary Western debut about two brothers locked in a deadly feud, a woman on horseback trailing her husband’s killer, and the inescapable ties of home and family

When Silas Van Loy flees home on horseback to avoid capture for his brother’s murder, he is soon followed by both the police and his brother’s wife, Lena, who is intent on exacting revenge. She reluctantly lets her trusted stable assistant join her in a journey across the wilds of Northern California in the hopes of catching Silas for one final showdown. Stansel follows the chase and shares the story of the brothers’ rise from hardscrabble childhood to their reign as the region’s preeminent horse trainers, tracking the tense sibling rivalry that ultimately leads to the elder’s death. 
A fully realized tale that challenges notions of the modern West, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo will satisfy fans of Kent Haruf, Larry McMurtry, Molly Gloss, and Smith Henderson, and establish Stansel as a new voice in this grand tradition.

About this title

Review

An Amazon Best Book of July 2017: Where does the Western go from here? Larry McMurtry might have perfected the genre in its classic form with Lonesome Dove, while Cormac McCarthy scraped away it romantic veer in favor of a hyper violent, often depraved, interpretation of America’s westward colonization. More recently, Patrick deWitt’s picked up on the Deadwood vibe with The Sisters Brothers, a darkly funny tale of psychotic brothers on a peripatetic, murderous rampage, while Philipp Meyer brilliantly bridged the gap between the old and new Wests with his Texas family saga, The Son. (I just realized I’ve read a few more Westerns than I knew.)

So what’s left to do? Ian Stansel found an angle with The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo. The novel opens with the killing of Frank Van Loy by his younger brother, Silas, the culmination of a lifelong Cain and Abel relationship between the principals of a successful horse training outfit. Silas lights out for the hills, with Frank’s widow, Lena, it hot pursuit, and their alternating points of view provide the framework of the story. Lost Cowboys is described as a “contemporary Western,” which is apt, but incomplete. Its setting is Northern California in the age of iPhones, and as the title indicates, a sense of a lost (or at least dying) way of life pervades the book. But the chase, for the most part, finds a wilder, anachronistic path through the exurbs of modern Marin County. The occasional intersections with the modern world are jarring for the way they amplify the dissonance, especially in the thoughts and actions of the characters, making an interesting, effective experiment, while a sub-200 page count keeps the action moving (another genre deviation which would have Zane Gray nodding in approval). The Last Cowboys of San Geronimoproves there’s life in this old horse, after all. --Jon Foro, The Amazon Book Review

About the Author

IAN STANSEL is the author of the collection of stories Everybody’s Irish, a finalist for the PEN/Bingham prize for debut fiction. His fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Ploughshares, Joyland, Ecotone, and Cincinnati Review. His nonfiction has appeared in Salon,CutBank, and The Good Men Project. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, where he was the editor of Gulf Coast.He currently serves as assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Louisville.
 

About this edition

• Publisher: Mariner Books
• Publication date: 2017
• ISBN 10: 0544963393
• ISBN 13: 9780544963399
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 192