The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia - Softcover

Reding, Nick

3.75

92 ratings by Goodreads

9780609810040: The Last Cowboys at the End of the World: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0609810049 ISBN 13: 9780609810040

Publisher: Three Rivers Press, 2002

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“You will never go there, probably, but after reading this intelligent, tough account, you will have been. Reding writes brilliantly.” —James Salter

“Reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy . . . a fastidiously humanist angle, in which the interloping narrator never forgets humility or sensitivity.” —Publishers Weekly (starred review)

“The Last Cowboys marks the debut of a strong new voice.” —Outside

“The lives of these real cowboys riding the last free range are both fascinating and frightening. This is compulsive reading by a gifted storyteller.” —Tim Cahill

The Last Cowboys at the End of the World is the remarkable account of Nick Reding’s ten- month journey throughout Middle Cisnes, Patagonia, and his witnessing of what happens when time catches up to a people whom history has forgotten.

In 1995 Reding traveled a still-unfinished road in Chilean Patagonia into an unmapped river valley, and it was there he found himself in a closed chapter of history: a last undetected and unexplored outpost of gauchos. He later returned in 1998 to live among this supposedly vanished culture.

The end result is an honest, unwavering telling of an unforgettable cast of semi-nomadic characters. From Duck, the alcoholic with whom Reding lives and takes long cattle drives, to Edith, Duck’s wife, who is convinced she is reliving the life of her estranged mother, who was, according to legend, wed to the Devil, Reding details an ever-changing world conspiring against them. Ultimately, Reding has captured a moment in time that we have never before seen and will never see again.

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Review:

Some people will go to the ends of the earth for a good story; Nick Reding went to the end of the road, which turned out to be one and the same. When the Pan American Highway was extended into Chilean Patagonia, it exposed a people long believed to be extinct--the gauchos. While the gauchos had struggled for centuries with the hantavirus, extreme isolation, and visits by the devil, what the road brought was truly overwhelming. Reding befriends the likes of Duck, an alcoholic slowly breaking from the pressure of the outside; John of the Cows, a cattle thief on the lam; and Don Luis, an aging gaucho with terrific stories to tell. From its dramatic opening to its turbulent end, this elegant, brutal, and funny dispatch from one of the world's most forlorn places attempts to answer the inconceivable: What happens when you suddenly find yourself two centuries in the future? --Lesley Reed

From the Back Cover:

“What a terrific book! The Last Cowboys at the End of the World read like a dream, gave me enormous pleasure, and broke my heart.”
—William Kittredge, author of The Nature of Generosity and The Last Best Place
From the Hardcover edition.

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