The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo - Paperback

by Ian Stansel (Author)

"One of the most compelling novels I've read in a long time." --Eowyn Ivey

One of Amazon's Top 100 Books of the Year
A Library Journal's High-Profile Debut

"Shares the trail with the likes of Edward Abbey, Cormac McCarthy, and Larry McMurtry." --Craig Johnson, best-selling author of the Walt Longmire Mysteries, the basis for the hit showLongmire

When Silas Van Loy flees home on horseback to avoid capture for his brother's murder, he is 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 "fast-paced, moving narrative in which family loyalty is tested, broken, and redeemed in unexpected ways,"* The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo will satisfy fans of Kent Haruf, Charles Portis, Molly Gloss, and Smith Henderson, and establish Stansel as a new voice in this grand tradition.

"To find a story set in the horse world, entwined with horses and horse people, yet without reading like the typical 'horse book'? That's a rare thing indeed. That's exactly the balance that Stansel has struck with care." --HorseNation

*BookPage

Author Biography

IAN STANSEL's collection, Everybody's Irish, was a finalist for the PEN/Bingham Prize for Debut Fiction. He holds an M.F.A. from the Iowa Writers' Workshop and a Ph.D. from the University of Houston, where he was the editor of Gulf Coast. He teaches creative writing at the University of Louisville.