The Hi Lo Country

by Max Evans

Two cowboy friends, Pete and Big Boy, fall in love with the same beautiful, but dangerous, married woman

Genres: Westerns

180 pages, Mass Market Paperback

First published June 1, 1983

Reviews

[Louis · Rating 4 out of 5]

This classic western is one that I've wanted to read for a while. The tale of a pair of cowboy pals in post-World War II New Mexico, this book compares favorably with Larry McMurtry's better novels. Although this is a novella, not an epic-length novel, we quickly get to know and care about Pete and Big Boy as their way of life disappears. A fast read and a satisfying one.

[Michael · Rating 4 out of 5]

A cracking read rooted in the dry harsh landscape of New Mexico. Which tells of man's struggle to wrest a living from an unforgiving land. Man and beast. Locked in uneven struggle. Of hard living, hard play, and the devil take the hindmost. Of beautiful women. Love misplaced, and love lost. One can almost feel the cruel wind blowing up a storm. Or sense the presence of Big Boy whooping as he chases down a coyote, or quietens a feisty bronco.

[Ron · Rating 5 out of 5]

Max Evans says in the introduction to the 1995 edition of this novella that he set out to capture the “Old West” of the 1940s-50s, before it became mythologized like all the earlier ones. His central character, Big Boy Matson, is a larger-than-life cowboy full of the give-em-hell spirit of the generation before him. He scorns the modernizing of cattle ranching and would sooner ride a horse than drive a pickup to do his job. . .

Read my review at my blog.

[Olivia · Rating 4 out of 5]

4 stars

Well. I had wanted to read The Hi Lo Country for so long, I suppose some measure of disappointment was only inevitable. While it is beautifully told, the story itself is incredibly sad. Not only because of the love triangle - the three characters involved are, in many ways, completely toxic for each other - or the constant threat of death and ruin looming in the background, but because of the utter despair felt and projected by nearly all the characters.

Worthwhile, but not the western masterpiece I was hoping for.

[Joe Stack · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is finely written novella that takes the reader into the ranching country of New Mexico in the post WWII period. While a love triangle creates a conflict for the narrator, the story is more about the friendship between the narrator and his friend, Big Boy Matson. It's also about the struggle of the ranchers to survive the market competition amongst themselves and against the weather and terrain. It's also about individuals who are living in the wrong time, horses for instance being replaced by autos, and their grappling to adapt.

The author succeeds at putting the reader in the time period and the environment. This is most evident when the author writes of the rodeo towards the end of the story. You can feel the bumps and bruises of the rodeo's participants.

This reader enjoyed how the narrator moves the story along with the vignettes about characters and places that take you away from the plot and then back.

And, when the narrator comments how "The vast empty land around the cabin emphasized the fragility of man-made things," he could have been describing the relationships between characters.

[Glenn Banks · Rating 4 out of 5]

interesting book, recently moved to NM and the author passed so I learned about him and decided to read. was trying to figure out the location of this story, thinking that maybe there is actually a town/s this story took place in. fictional location. for being a post WWII western I enjoyed the story, first of that year range.

[Audrey B · Rating 3 out of 5]

thank god Josepha didn’t end up with Pete, what a horrible, unbearable character…
This book gets points for the beauty of its writing. It really does immerse you in the scenery with some wonderfully descriptive and poetic imagery. The plot however… I don’t know

[Sarah Alawami · Rating 4 out of 5]

I'm actually not pleased about the ending, but the read was good and I felt like I was there in the western town. I wonder if such a place, or a place like it existed then.

[Ernest Hogan · Rating 5 out of 5]

A damn good novel about cowboys and New Mexico by a writer who knows.

[John Bullard · Rating 3 out of 5]

Good Read. Ride one horse and dance with one woman.

[TheButterWench · Rating 4 out of 5]

A short book with a love triangle, rodeos, a bit of violence and the occasional odd character. Was a good read but no happy ending.

[Alan Hardy · Rating 5 out of 5]

This classic (and filmed) book chronicles, on one level, a story of male friendship and rivalry over a beautiful woman, and, on another level, set in Hi Lo, New Mexico, with its vast cattle ranches, and derelict town with two saloons, the ways of the cowboy in the mid-twentieth century. Pete tells the story of the life and death of his friend, Big Boy Matson, with the traditional, rousing ingredients of rodeos, fist-fights, games of poker, the stubborn bonds of friendship between men, the powerful emotions and passions between men and women, the integral inter-dependence of horse and man, and the terrain and its cowboys, all told in a restrained, yet authentic voice, as quiet and firm as the features of the haunting landscape. This graphically-written novel reads like an elegiac farewell to a cherished way of life, with its loyalties, loves, excitements and diversions, etched in such clearly-defined lines that its filmic possibilities--dark figures drawn across a haunting landscape--stand out a mile. Superb.

[LS · Rating 1 out of 5]

Well everything seemed promising in the beginning. The quirky anecdotes lead me to believe that the text was going somewhere. But then someone was raped, and the rapist's only reaction was indignation that she was a lousy lay (and he felt guilty for betraying the woman's boyfriend) then there were a few more anecdotes and the author realized he was running low on paper so the book ended. Just like that. Maybe I have high expectations after reading so many great works recently, but this one definitely made me feel like I had eaten an unsatisfactory meal: something was missing and I was still hungry. Fluffy.