Product Description

Gaucho conjures up an image as iconic as the word cowboy. But according to historians and anthropologists, their semi-nomadic culture disappeared at the end of the nineteenth century, and no one has seen the gauchos since. Until now.

Twenty-five years ago, the government of Chile began building a road into Chilean Patagonia, one of the least-populated regions in the world. In 1995, when Nick Reding traveled down that still-unfinished road into an unmapped river valley, he found himself in a closed chapter of history: a last, undetected, and unexplored outpost of gauchos so isolated that many of them, some of whom are boys as young as thirteen, still live completely alone with their herds, hours on horseback from the nearest neighbors. In 1998, Nick returned to the valley to witness what happens when time catches up to a people whom history has forgotten.

Reding’s account of the ten months he spent in Middle Cisnes, Patagonia, is a riveting, novelistic exploration of the longing for change by a people and a culture that, according to history books and the Chilean government, do not even exist. There’s Duck, the alcoholic with whom Reding lives and who takes Reding on long cattle drives, teaching him to ride and work as gauchos have for centuries; Duck’s wife, Edith, who is convinced she is reliving the life of her estranged mother, who was, according to legend, wed to the Devil; John of the Cows, a famed cattle thief wanted for murder who takes Reding to the secret place in the mountains where he hides his stolen stock; and Don Tito and Alfredo, two brothers who are unsure of their age and communicate with each other through smoke signals.

In Middle Cisnes, Reding watches a singular—and ultimately murderous—conflict take hold between those who want to trade life in the nineteenth century for life in the twenty-first and those who want to keep living as gauchos have for hundreds of years. What all of them understand is the near impossibility of a journey through a world where everything from the fierce landscape to a ravaging disease conspires against them, a journey whose terminus—the Outside, the only town in central Patagonia’s 42,000 square miles—is a place where the gauchos are not only ill-equipped to live, but clearly unwelcome.

The Last Cowboys at the End of the World is a story of regeneration through violence and tragedy. When the people of Middle Cisnes finally try to take their place in the modern world, the results are as horrifying and surprising as they are heroic. In the collision of the gaucho past, our present, and an unknown future, Nick Reding captures a moment in time that we have never before seen and will never see again.

Product Details

• Amazon Sales Rank: #1004862 in Books
• Published on: 2001-12-11
• Released on: 2001-12-11
• Original language: English
• Binding: Hardcover
• 293 pages

From Amazon.com
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 Publishers Weekly
Reding's first book is a fascinating tale of cattle herders (gauchos) living in the desolate reaches of Chilean Patagonia. A successful mix of journalistic reportage and cultural study, it uses the complex linguistic fabric of the gaucho to weave a dynamic story that reads more like fiction than pop-anthropological research. For the better part of a year, Reding lived on land owned by a hardworking, harder-luck couple, Duck and Edith; much of the account focuses on their lives and those of their few neighbors. As a child under Pinochet's regime, Duck saw many people "disappeared" from his semiurban slum, a hotbed of Perin-inspired socialism. Meanwhile, Reding himself embarks on engaging cattle drives, has close brushes with devils real and imaginary, and lives and breathes the stunning isolation and loneliness of life on the high plains of the middle Cisnes River. Despite his fairly intimate relationships with his generous, likable but deeply troubled hosts Duck is a violent alcoholic; Edith is terrified, angry and convinced her husband is possessed by the devil Reding also delves deep into the inevitable cultural, social and economic divide between them. The gorgeous landscapes, the threatening scenes of drunkenness and folly, the prosaic workdays and the cowboy particulars are surely reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, but present here is a fastidiously humanist angle, in which the interloping narrator never forgets humility or sensitivity. An exciting third act plays out all the promise and horror when Duck, Edith and their children leave the mountainside and move to the slums of Coyhaique, a fated move for the story's protagonists as they undergo the trials of drink, exorcism and urban decay.

Copyright 2001 Cahners Business Information, Inc.

From Library Journal
Although Reding utilizes a rather dramatic title, his first book is a delightful if troubling account of the gauchos of Chilean Patagonia. To tell the story, he introduces a handful of colorful characters whose lives center on Cisnes, a sector of Chile bordering Argentina, and the small town of Coyaique, where most of the 38,000 live in poverty. Reding writes broadly of life among the aging gauchos, yet the star of the book is Duck, who is a survivor among people living in what Reding terms an "awesome cage." Reding lived and worked with Duck, a 5'9"/250-pound gaucho, and Edith, his commonlaw-wife and mother of their three children, during parts of 1998 and 2001, and tells their story. In their isolated lives they balance near poverty, excessive alcohol use, and evangelical religion, yet when they leave the frontier for the city, the problems in their lives are only compounded. Recommended for academic libraries and public libraries with collections in sociology and Latin American studies. Boyd Childress, Auburn Univ. Lib., AL
Copyright 2001 Reed Business Information, Inc.

Customer Reviews

A Fascinating Person and a Fascinating Story
I had the pleasure of meeting Nick Reding earlier this year, and as I chatted with him over some drinks, I was really struck by the thought, "This guy has led a really amazing life!" As a result, I went out and grabbed this book and as I read it, I became even more amazed.

Nick tells the story of his experiences in the Chilean Patagonia in a way that draw you in to every moment. The vividness of his writing and the beauty of some of his comparisons made this quite an enjoyable read. His attention to detail leaves the reader with a feeling that they are right there staring over Nick's shoulder as he goes about life in a very different part of the world.

Nick has that knack that some of the best writers have of being able to see the common thread that exists between very different experiences and places. This book is also extremely well researched with a lot of attention to historical detail, but this detail is not integrated in a dry textbook like manner. Instead when Nick feels it is neccessary to illuminate the reader about a particular piece of history to provide context for an event, he explains that history without distracting from the main storyline.

Overall, this is an excellent piece of writing and I look forward to future books by Nick (he assures me at least one more is on the way).

Gauchos are not chilean
This is just to correct a gross mistake from one of the other reviewers. Gauchos are the archetypical argentine country men, not chilean. and Patagonia is argentinean in more than 90% of its extension.
Gaucho literature is almost exclusively argentinian. An obligatory introduction to the world of gauchos is José Hernández' Martin Fierro. See this book first to get a glance at the gaucho's rough life before embarking in a second-hand misleading historiography.

A Great Read!!!
If you have been to Cisnes,Patagonia (or want to go there) this is a must book to read. I spent 10 days in this area in February, 2002 and saw some of the people that Nick writes about. In reading the book Nick made me feel that I was back there as I could visualize where the events were taking place. The changes to Coyhaique have continued since 1999 as I found it to be a very modern town. After reading this book I would like to make a return trip.