The Last Cowgirl: A Novel

by Jana Richman

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.

Genres: Fiction, Westerns, Book Club, Novels

302 pages, Paperback

First published January 1, 2008

Reviews

[Sandra · Rating 4 out of 5]

I've probably lowered my expectations a bit since embarking on the Reader's Choice book list from the local library. Out of all the books written, these are the 20ish that you find to be the best?

With that being said, I certainly didn't harbor high hopes for this one. It's written by a local author and those tend to mock the culture and dominant religion, and this book certainly did it's share of picking fun on Utah and Utahns. However, what was refreshing was the way it sounded much like an author I first read when I was in my early teens. For the life of me, I can't remember the author or the main character of the story, but I can remember that the stories were about a family of Jack-Mormons and growing up in rural Utah. Both Richman and this unknown author have a great sense of walking the line between funny and downright cruel, bringing out the idiosynchrisies of the Mormon religion without it feeling like they're picking on the tenets below the surface.

Darlene, "Dickie", now a reporter for the church-owned newspaper in Salt Lake, is summoned home to rural Clayton after her brother is killed in a freak accident involving nerve gas at Dugway Proving Grounds. Having ran as fast as possible from her childhood home as soon as she could, she struggles with coming to terms with what she left behind.

The story switches back and forth between present time and reliving her childhood, in funny, no-nonsense stories illuminating her distaste for her dad's ranching hobby and overcoming the challenges of adolescence.

For the most part, the book was clean, though there were some sexual exchanges that are eluded to. After finishing it, I'm not quite sure what they were, but they made the story what it is. No long descriptions of what went on in Hell Hole Springs, so I'll just leave it at that.

What intrigued me the most was that, although all the names are changed except for Dugway Proving Grounds and some of the mountain ranges, the story is written right where I'm living right now. I have an appreciating for the lifestyle led by the characters and can understand that not everything is what it seems to the "big city" folks.

There was a lot of environmental jabs at nuclear storage and nerve gas storage that probably could've been left out, but alas, it wouldn't be Tooele County without it.

Good book that was a light read.

[Terri · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was very pleasantly surprised by this book. The author created compelling characters. I was drawn into the story immediately and could not put it down. Dickie is a woman in her 50s who returns home when her brother dies. Her life has been one long struggle against herself and her denial about who she really is and where she belongs. The author alternates between flashbacks and current times. The book was not what I expected. I didn't expect it to be so deep and so touching. I would rate it five stars and highly recommend it.

[Keasmea · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book caught my attention when I walked past the New Books aisle in the library, probably because I wish I could be re-born into some Texan family where I'd do nothing but stomp around in cowboy boots and ride horses.

It's a quick read. I liked it. The F-bomb is dropped a few times though.

[Carrie · Rating 2 out of 5]

It took me awhile to get into this book, I wasn't sure I was going to finish it until the last 70 pages. I liked the characters but the build up simply was lacking something for me. I wasn't sure if this was supposed to be a thriller, nostalgia or "I was a teenage misfit".

[Leonard · Rating 4 out of 5]

A good story. I enjoyed reading this book. I especially enjoyed the story about Dickie growing up as the youngest in the family and all that means. She being selected as a "natural" when it comes to riding horses. Where they lived was close to the Dugway Proving Grounds and many of the town worked there, including Dickie's mom. The tragedy of 1968, which really happened, was a serious blow to the combined ranchers who lost many head of cattle by the incident. Dickie went on to become a journalist and eventually moved back to her brother's house after his death. Another book I like as it becomes hard to put down or end.

[Valjean · Rating 3 out of 5]

An interesting book about another take on Utah. The character "Dickie" moves to a small town west of Salt Lake City with her family. She learns to ranch and care for animals. The author has taken typical area's of Utah and changed their names in her story. I got the opinion the author is angry with various things, particularly the Church of Jesus Christ of Latter-day Saints. The book is well written.

[Nick · Rating 4 out of 5]

I enjoyed a lot about this book--the characters, dialogue, and perhaps more than other aspect the description of the geography and culture of modern-day (and 1960s) Utah. One quibble: the way the characters talk to each other when they are teenagers is too sophisticated. But other than that, a very good story.

[Margaret Fullarton · Rating 5 out of 5]

I was there! I loved this story and the way it was written - romantic and mysterious but no mush or sex - brilliant really. I loved the way it unfolded and effortlessly moved from past to present. The characters were real and even though the background was alien to me I had no difficulty in understanding and being part of it. Great story!

[Gillian Howcroft · Rating 3 out of 5]

Enjoyable book about Utah ranchers, first love and the impact our parents have on us. The characters pop off the page particularly Bev who always says the right thing!

[Ellen Kremer]

Very enjoyable. Would like a sequel.

[Melissa Hallie · Rating 5 out of 5]

A really heartfelt love letter to the high desert landscape and the beauty and sacrifice of range living. I enjoyed every moment of it.

[Amanda P · Rating 4 out of 5]

They say you can never go home again but Dickie proved that wrong. The Last Cowgirl was a quick read I strategically placed between some longer, more character intense books so I’m not sure if I loved it so much because it gave me a much needed break or because of the actual story. That’s really the only reason why I can’t give it 5 stars.

I felt like it got off to a slow start but by 1/3 of the way through I was hooked. There were realistic, likable characters and I felt like I could relate to the main character in many ways.

Overall I really enjoyed this book and give it a solid 4 stars,

[Erin Moore · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's always amusing to read other reviews, because we all read with such a subjective lens. For me, an East Coaster, I was absolutely fascinated by this glimpse into Mormon culture, and even the idea of Jack Mormons, which I'd never even heard of before. (Guess every religions has its lapsed adherents...)

And while I'm sure (like other reviewers have mentioned) that the author of this book couldn't help but make this an interpretation of her own childhood, it's not a memoir. It's a novel, with beautiful, real dialogue and blunt and quick-paced language that matches the setting and the main character (Dickie's) personality.

Dickie seemed to be surrounded by deep thinkers (Dot, Bev, Michael) who knew exactly who she was and what she needed (and proceeded to tell her that at every opportunity), even though she herself was never entirely sure, which seemed out of place in an otherwise very real book.

But the rest of the book delivers in so many ways. I was entranced by the beauty of Utah that Ms. Richman clearly evokes, but I really loved this book because it was a love story, and I'm just a sucker for a great love story. I think I cried at least three times while reading this, like during this passage:


"When was the first night you spent alone in the cave?" he asks. "It couldn't have been too soon after you moved here. That scared little girl wouldn't have lasted twenty minutes out there alone." He finishes wiping down the counter and joins me at the table. The scared little girl he speaks of bounces around my inside like a tennis ball spiked with tacks.

"God, wasn't that scared little girl tiresome?" I say, more to myself than to Stumpy.

"No, she was hearthbreakingly sweet." He tips my chin up with two fingers so the kitchen light hits my face. "And she's not that far gone."

(Oh, awesomeness!)

[Donna · Rating 4 out of 5]

If I could, I'd give it 4-1/2 stars. The only thing keeping it from 5 for me was the slow start. I almost gave up on it. But I'm really glad I stuck it out. It never does go at a break-neck speed, but I did find it hard to put down once the story got started. The main character, Dickie, comes from a Mormon family living in Utah. Her mother is a devout Mormon, but her father is a "jack Mormon". (You have to read it to find out what that is. I will say this, her father at the beginning made me laugh out loud at times.) Her life is uprooted at a very young age when her father decides to live out his "cowboy dream" and moves the family from the suburban life to a cattle ranch out in the middle of nowhere. Even though this changes her father for the better, as far as his quick temper & general despair, Dickie resents him for the move & can't bring herself to forgive him. Even though it's on this ranch that Dickie finds her place & people who bring out the best in her, she can't let go of her resentment toward her father. So she immerses herself in the city life of Salt Lake. When you add in a horrific tragedy from the past that comes to light, and a family member that suffers a horrible accident in the present, a 50 year-old Dickie must finally decide where her heart lies. This book made me laugh & cry - some of the things that happen to Dickie in her young life are hilarious, and some are things no one should have to experience. Even though I lived on a farm, the chapter on "working the herd" made me grimace & think (too much) about the poor cows & what they are put through. And when the tragedy from the past is described, it left an image in my mind that won't soon be erased... A great book, in my opinion.

[Tara Chevrestt · Rating 4 out of 5]

This novel really does read like a memoir as another person has already stated. It is a memoir of growing up on a ranch in 1960s Utah. Yes, it is a Mormon family or "jack Mormon", however you wish to call it, but the religion plays a very small role in the novel. Bascially, when it comes to Utah, you can't have one without the other. The Mormonism in this novel is very tastefully mentioned here and there and the author never portrays the religion as saintly or without its flaws. I was surprised and very pleased to find that the author never "preaches" and comes across as honest and even sometimes sarcastic regarding religion. Most of the novel is about ranch life and cows and the Army doing illegal testing with nerve gas. The story opens with Dickie dealing with her brother's death and within the course of a month, she loses her boyfriend and her job while readers get an in depth look at her childhood and her life as a cowgirl. There is a moral or two in this story. "Get over it" would be one moral. Dickie realizes at the age of 52 that the grudge and hate she has been carrying around over 40 years of her life has prevented her from truly living it. The second moral: It is never too late to let someone in your heart and maybe fall in love.

[melydia · Rating 4 out of 5]

Dickie Sinfield grew up an unwilling ranch hand when her father suddenly sold their suburban home and purchased a piece of land out in the wilds of Utah. Though her sister doesn’t take to the life and her brother seems born to it, Dickie is an unhappy in between, pleased with the work and the land but having convinced herself from an early age that she hates it. This sort of cognitive dissonance is a theme throughout the novel, from Dickie’s cowgirl roots to Utahns’ attitude toward the testing and disposal of deadly chemical weapons in their backyards. When Dickie’s brother dies suddenly, she is forced to face the past she has been avoiding for thirty years. This is not the sort of book I normally would pick up - I don’t really have much interest in westerns, or coming-of-age stories, or tales of redemption. (Or Mormonism, though that was more backdrop than main theme.) I only read this one because I found it by chance while traveling (thank you, BookCrossing!), and you know what? I enjoyed it. I loved the scenery and the quiet intensity of the characters, especially Merv, though Bev was definitely my favorite. A nice change of pace for me.

[Sm · Rating 4 out of 5]

A nice love story for desert ranching in Utah. The book is well plotted but the characters are not quite complete. Each one is playing a role designed for them but somehow there is a lack of tension in their personal interactions. For example, when Dickie discovers her mom's affair with Captain Fulmer, there is never any confrontation or resolution of that event. The emotional content of Dickie v Holy relationship is not at all developed. Part of the story's point maybe that Dickie's life is built on avoiding hot emotional entanglements, but even if that is the case - the book would haver been better if the reader was more exposed to some of her painful turmoil.

An alternative story might have had Dickie, not re-affirming her love for the desert, but overcoming it. In this version she and Michael would grow their relationship while the romantic life of desert ranching would fade into history. Not a necessarily a better story, but a different one, that is fun for me to speculate about.

[Julie · Rating 4 out of 5]

I thought this was an intriguing look at a woman who has to confront the life she tried to run away from for so long. She had a painful childhood which extended into not wanting close relationships as an adult as a way to insure that she wouldn't be hurt again. My feelings toward the main character, Dickie, were mixed. In the flashback chapters, I loved how her life as an awkward teen was written. It reminded me of how hard it can be at times to grow up. But as an adult I wanted to slap her silly a few times. She was rude, disengaged and downright mean with those people who loved her in spite of herself. Overall, it was an interesting journey of growing up in Utah's west desert.

I would recommend this as long as the reader is warned that swearing is pretty thick, with the F-word being used many times.

[Michele Casper · Rating 1 out of 5]

I don't even know why I kept reading this book. Sometimes I just have this compulsion to finish a book once I've started it. This book takes place in the Utah desert. The main character, Dickie, is unhappy from the time she is a little girl, especially when her father takes up ranching. It seems that most everybody in this story is unhappy. There is a negative slant to everything in this tale. There are references to Mormon culture which are not complimentary, nor do they show any kind of understanding of the religion. (I'm assuming the author is Mormon.) About halfway through the book she starts throwing in some extremely foul language (for effect, I guess). The worst thing is, I dropped the dumb book in the bathtub and ended up having to pay $25 for it (it was a library book)!

[Barbara Richardson · Rating 3 out of 5]

A sad and realistic portrayal of life in a rural Utah valley. Dickie Sinfield is almost as stubborn as her dad. He moves his family onto a ranch west of Salt Lake City, hoping to turn them into cowboys. It's a hard life and he is the only enthusiast. Though Dickie has a knack for riding and the range, she leaves town right after high school to make her own life as a journalist. She rejects her past rather than dealing with it, and it waits so patiently for her return.

At the start of the novel, Dickie's brother dies in a nerve gas explosion at Dugway Proving Grounds, and thus Dickie has to return home. Richman knows the terrain and writes with authority. She clearly loves the Onaqui Mountains.

[Kristen · Rating 3 out of 5]

Yesterday I finished a good story called the Last Cowgirl. This is mainly literary fiction with a hint of historical fiction, due to flashbacks. Darlene Ruth "Dickie" Sinfield returns back to Clayton, Utah, when her brother is killed and goes to his funeral. This middle-aged city girl revisits the town she hated with flashbacks to the 1960s and 1970s, to the new town she once hated, from suburban life to ranch life with her family, her best friend Holly, her first love Herbert "Stumpy" Nelson, and her calling as a cowgirl on a ranch. She deals with mixed emotions, since she has a significant other and the job she loves. In the end, she learns that home is where the heart is.

[Jennifer · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a story of a young 7 yr old girl who was suddenly taken out of a suburban life and thrown into a remote ranch life following the wiles of her father. The family tries to make the best of it, but this new life ends up making them a dysfunctional family. Her older sister Annie absolutely refuses to accept this new life. However, her older brother Heber buys into it lock, stock and barrel. Dickie is somewhere in the middle and thinks she wants off the ranch as quick as she can, yet something in her draws her back. The family never regains its unity.
A good book that got better as I progressed. I liked the interaction of the characters.

[David Pace]

Jana is a gifted writer. I just finished her novel "The Last Cowgirl" and will never see Rush Valley and Tooele County, Utah quite the same way again. And the true account in the book of the nerve gas poisoining of livestock by the Army in Skull Valley will chill you to the bone. In the end of this satisfying book, family and land prevail, but there is much heartache that nevertheless will strike you as real. This is also what I would consider a good example of Mormon cross-over literature. She has a steady hand in parsing through the culture and finding its complexities and nuance in this rural area of Utah.

[Mindy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Ganoa? The Beehive Banner? You mean Tooele? The Deseret News? As a native Utard, I had a hard time getting into these fictionalized names in an otherwise straightforward story about life in the West Desert. And I only chose this book based on its Utah setting. And while I was occasionally pulled into the story, it was largely unsatisfying. The anti-federal government tirade was not well integrated into the cowboy coming-of-age/ always been in love with the boy next door story. The characters never felt real, and in turn I didn't care about any of them. And really, Ganoa?

[Marilyn Pettigrove · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'd have to give this a 4+ rating. The story takes place in Utah where Mormanism is the norm. However these characters aren't religious. It is based around the death of Heber Sinfield whose sister Dickie (Darlene) narrates the book. Heber has passed after exposure to a nerve gas in tests the government has made. When the family gathers, Dickie has a chance to look back over 30+ years at the people and the place she tried so hard to get away from and finds her carefully laid out existence is lacking. It was a good read.

[Meghan · Rating 1 out of 5]

I finally had to put this down. I only got half way through and decided to give in and not read anymore. The writing was good, nothing against the author. I had a bad taste in my mouth about Dickie so maybe that is why I could not get drawn in. I kept trying and trying thinking she will turn around and I'll enjoy the story more but couldn't. I have books to get off my shelf and this one is a block in my path. I hope I didnt miss out on something meaningful or life learning by putting this down before the end.

[Polly · Rating 4 out of 5]

Story of Dickie, a talented, ambivalent, anxious and often unhappy newspaper reporter from Salt Lake City who faces her past, her complicated family relationships, her love/hate relationship with the arid cattle land where her family relocated when she was in elementary school. Good characters, good sense of place, interesting observations about Mormons, plot twist involving secret government testing for biological warfare. I enjoyed it.

[Mitzi · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really enjoyed this book. It is very true to reality in the small towns in Utah that I have "lived" in. The way the Mormon's are shown is pretty funny, and accurate for some, in some small towns. It was an easy read, and had lots of good points about life lessons. There is a bit of Mormon bashing, and some swearing, but it's all done, in my opinion, in good taste. I would recommend reading this book to learn about life in rural Utah, as well as live a cowboy fantasy of your own.

[Elise · Rating 1 out of 5]

Simply horrible. Made me question my tendencies toward chick lit. Just everything awful about chick lit crammed into one book--terrible, unbelievable dialogue, impossibly built-up family situations, unearned resolutions, irritating and unnecessary repetition of irrelevant physical details. Honestly, how many times do we have to read that Stumpy's hair was thick and red?? And really, think twice about naming the romantic lead "Stumpy."

Yech.

[Joyce Allen · Rating 4 out of 5]

I really liked this book. Very interseting characters, an unusual setting and an intriging plot. As with many books, this is a journey to finding oneself. The main character,Lexie, has always struggled with her hatred for the mountais,near her home of Salt Lake City.It is not until the death of her brother, that she comes face to face with the reality of her hatred.This book is set in Modern day Utah. It does however, flashback to the main character's childhood.