First published in 1977, Robert Day's ""The Last Cattle Drive"" - an instant bestseller and Book-of-the-Month Club selection - is now a modern-day Western classic. This anniversary edition features a foreword by acclaimed Western historian Howard R. Lamar, reflecting on the novel's enduring popularity; an afterword by Robert Day recalling the experience of writing the novel; and ""The Last Cattle Drive Stampede,"" Day's hilarious piece about failed attempts to make a movie of the book.
Robert Day is professor of English and creative writing at Washington College in Chestertown Maryland.
Spangler Star Tukle is a Kansas cattleman with 6,000 acres and a low boiling point. (Tukle is so choleric that he empties a shotgun into a power mower that has offended him.) When the rancher decides to drive his 250 head of cattle to the Kansas City stockyards to save shipping costs, you can expect Murphy's Law to become 100 percent operative.... Atmospheric. - New York Times Book Review ""Fetching, with some tall, raunchy saddletalk and a style as clear as sweet buttered corn."" - Kirkus Reviews ""Tightly written... and powerfully evocative. The smells, sights, and sounds of Kansas are described so well at times that one begins to cough as the dust crawls up through the floorboards of the battered pickup."" - Baltimore Sun ""Very real, earthy, and vital.... Exceedingly well told and funny."" - Kansas City Star ""Call it a mid-western. Call it cowboys and urbanites. Call it well-written entertainment."" - Booklist
