Product Description

Dickie Sinfield was seven years old when her father uprooted the family from their comfortable suburban home and moved them to a small, run-down ranch in Clayton, Utah, where he could chase his dream of  being a cowboy. Dickie always hated the cattle-ranching lifestyle, and as soon as she turned eighteen she fled for the comforts of the city.

Now a grown woman, a respected journalist in Salt Lake City, Dickie is coming home following the tragic, accidental death of her brother. Suddenly back in the farmhouse she was once so desperate to abandon—emotionally exposed by, yet reluctantly drawn to the vast, desolate landscape and the solitude it offers—she must confront her family's past . . . and the horrifying discovery at the pivotal moment of her childhood that ultimately forced her to run from the desert.

Spanning two generations and vast landscapes, a novel that fans of Pam Houston and Barbara Kingsolver will eagerly embrace, Jana Richman's The Last Cowgirl will strike a powerful chord with anyone who has ever searched for solace in the space around them.

Product Details

• Published on: 2007-12-18
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 304 pages

From Publishers Weekly
Richman's first novel offers a curious and satisfying blend of longing, political criticism and a middle-aged woman's sudden realization that she has been pretending all her life. Dickie Sinfield, 52, spent her childhood on a hardscrabble Utah cattle ranch, after her father uprooted her and her siblings from the suburbs and forced her to become a cowgirl at age seven. Fleeing at 18, Dickie never married and has been a Salt Lake City newspaper reporter for 25 years, all the while denying her love for her family and for childhood neighbor boy Stumpy Nelson. When Dickie's brother, Heber, is killed by poison gas in an accident at the U.S. Army's Dugway Proving Grounds, Dickie comes home for the funeral. There, she face her father's anger and bitterness, her mother's infidelity, her best friend's betrayal—and her own life. Amid Dickie's personal angst and gradual self-discovery, Richman unloads heaping criticism on the federal government's handling of chemical weapons and its treatment of civilian accident victims. Author of the memoir Riding in the Shadows of Saints: A Woman's Story of Motorcycling the Mormon Trail, Richman delivers a warm story of good folks who make bad decisions, justify them and then have to live with the consequences. (Jan.)
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Review
“Richman’s mastery of the emotional geography is illuminating and call(s) to mind the work of Pat Conroy.” (Kirkus Reviews )

“ Engrossing. The narrative touches on complexities and contradictions that touch so many lives: steadfast patriotism vs. threatening governmental action; urban Mormonism vs. its earthier rural equivalent; and people vs. a past that can leave them with heavy baggage. With lovely specificity, Richman manages to tell a true Utah story.” (Salt Lake City Weekly, 2008 ARTYS Awards (Winner, Best Fiction Book) )

“Readers will be irrevocably drawn into this top-notch fictional debut from an amazing new talent.” (Booklist )

“Rich characterizations and vivid sense of place. One of the year’s finest works of local fiction.” (Salt Lake City Weekly )

“A warm story of good folks who make bad decisions and then have to live with them.” (Publishers Weekly )

About the Author

Jana Richman lives in Salt Lake City with her husband, Steve Defa. She is the author of the memoir, Riding in the Shadows of Saints: A Woman's Story of Motorcycling the Mormon Trail. She invites readers to e-mail her at lastcowgirl@comcast.net.