The Rounders

by Max Evans

Dusty Jones and Wrangler, two cowboys, are conned by their sly employer into spending the winter at an isolated ranch gathering in stragglers

Genres: Humor, Westerns

153 pages, Paperback

First published October 1, 1983

Reviews

[🐴 🍖]

yeah this whips. comical story of 2 latter-day cowboys squaring off w/ the diabolical horse "old fooler" that also has a sly point to make re the difficulty a worker has getting ahead vs those who own the means of production. the anti-bootstraps slapstick western you didn't know you needed

[Jason Edwards · Rating 4 out of 5]

I took it into my mind to read a Western, so that’s what I did. I’ve read a few before, but I don’t know if I’ve ever read what you’d call a pure Western. I’ve read Robert Coover’s Ghost Town, and Trevanian’s Incident at Twenty-Mile, and, of course, Jim Thompson’s Pop. 1280. But are those pure Westerns, written by men who stick just to the genre? I’m not here to quarrel over semantics. I just wanted to read a book written by someone who didn’t know no better. Wait, I mean, didn’t know no different. I ain’t out to insult nobody.

The Rounders was a damn fine choice, ends up, if I do say so myself. Cowboys, herding cattle, bustin’ horses, getting’ beat up out in the scrub and drinkin whiskey as fast as they can get their hands on it. Dusty Jones is a fine narrator, and his love/hate relationship with Old Fooler is hilarious at every step.

I know genre fiction, especially from way back, can fall to formula, but there wasn’t much to fall to, here. No hero’s journey, no moral to discover, no big bad guy to defeat. Just a horse breaker and the horse that breaks him. Simple, really.

Maybe there’s some metaphor in there, if you look hard enough. But it’s really just a book you read and laugh out loud at and shake your head and get on with things. Especially if you’re like me, and never read yourself a pure Western before. Hope I’m not spoiled for ‘em now, as this was a good one.

[Ricky Orr · Rating 4 out of 5]

This is a short, humerous, and very entertaining read about a two cowboys who spend a winter rounding up stray cattle. The story is set in New Mexico, around 1960 or so.

[OrdinaryPete · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was short, entertaining and had many LOL moments. For example, when Dusty is ticked off to all hell at the roan horse, Old Fooler, for bucking him off and forcing him to walk over three miles back to the home pasture. Dusty says, “Then he disappeared over a rise and there wasn't a thing to keep me company but one little white cloud about a thousand miles off over the northern mountains. I saw that cloud when I looked up at the sky and asked the Lord to please not let me kill myself and to give me the wings of an angel so I could fly after that horse and break his goddam neck” (23). That part had me rolling.

This book was a fun, page-turning western-western. It was packed with funny cowboy vernacular and I’d recommend it to anyone who would like to scream at their boss for being taken advantage of.

[Linda Henderson · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fun to read and lots of laughs. Ol Fooler is quite a horse!

[Annette · Rating 4 out of 5]

Humorous most of the time but they sure were hard on the horses.

[Aditya Mallya · Rating 3 out of 5]

If you're looking for a lighthearted novel to visit you between heavier reading, you could do much worse than this breezy tale of two cowboys and a horse they just can't tame. Its folksy language, charm and humour make for a refreshing and carefree read.

[Cheryll Mckinnon · Rating 5 out of 5]

It's as if everyone I grew up with had read this book. The language and mannerisms brought me back home.