From Publishers Weekly
The year is 1911, the occasion is the Pendleton, Oregon, Round-Up, and the cast of characters in Kesey's weak new novel (after Sailor Song ) mixes historical and imagined personages in a manner less reminiscent of E. L. Doctorow than of Jack Higgins. In this homage to a vanished genre of pulp fiction, young Tennessean Jonathan E. Lee Spain is on his way to Pendleton with his trusty horse, Stonewall, when he meets Jackson Sundown, a Nez Perce of few words, and George Fletcher, a dapper and wildly talented black cowboy. Sundown and Fletcher are the world's top bronc-riders; falling in with them, Spain is given a view of life on the rodeo circuit as experienced by its most talented but ultimately disenfranchised participants. A heavy-drinking Buffalo Bill Cody and his evil sidekick Frank Gotch, the world-champion wrestler whose body and mind mysteriously ran amok after a trip to Mexico, are the story's chief villains, but con men and cheats are not hard to come by in the high-stakes world of show-biz rodeo. Told via flashback by a much older and wiser Spain, who has since lost a hand in the ring, Kesey's tale portrays rodeo as a show mounted at the cost of both human and animal life. But in the end, his overall comic treatment of this and other tragic themes does not ring true. Despite a wealth of historical information, this latest from the Merry Prankster and his collaborator Babbs ( On the Bus ) is a hodgepodge affair, ill-conceived and poorly crafted. But the 16-page photo insert, featuring the novel's real-life players, might be enough to draw aficionados to the book.
Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
The genesis of Kesey's latest effort lies in a campfire story, told to him by his father, about the 1911 Pendleton (Oregon) Round-up and the crowning of the "first" world champion "broncbuster," Jonathan E. Lee Spain. Whether Spain actually deserved to win was the subject of some controversy. His chief rivals were a Nez Perce Indian and an African American, both of whom gave memorable performances, but who apparently were not, in the minds of some, "suitable" exemplars of the cowboy myth. The fuzziness of the acutal historical record allows Kesey and Babbs "to conjure our three spectral riders out of the old tall tales" and to present the event from the perspective of Spain as he comes head to head with questions of race, power, and values. Their story is full of memorable characters and entertains in a way that should appeal to a much broader audience than most of Kesey's recent work. This vintage Kesey-his best effort since Sometimes a Great Notion (1964)-will likely engender much interest. A worthy addition to any academic, public, or even high school library.
--David W. Henderson, Eckerd Coll. Lib., St. Petersburg, Fla.Copyright 1994 Reed Business Information, Inc.
