The Big Empty

by Loren C. Steffy

In a small West Texas town on the cusp of the new millennium, a lifelong cowboy wonders if a new semiconductor plant will ensure a future for his son or eliminate the only way of life he's ever known.
When Trace Malloy and Blaine Witherspoon collide on a desolate West Texas highway, their fender bender sets the tone for escalating clashes that will determine the future of the town of Conquistador.
Malloy, a ranch manager and lifelong cowboy, knows that his occupation—and his community—are dying. He wants new- millennium opportunities for his son, even though he himself failed to summon the courage to leave familiar touchstones behind.
Witherspoon, an ambitious, Lexus-driving techie, offers a solution. He moves to Conquistador to build and run a state-of-the-art semiconductor plant that will bring prestige and high-paying technology jobs to revive the town—and advance his own career.
What neither man anticipates is the power the "Big Empty" will wield over their plans. The flat, endless expanse of dusty plain is as much a character in the conflict as are the locals struggling to subsist in this timeworn backwater and the high-tech transplants hell-bent on conquering it.
While Malloy grapples with the flaws of his ancestors and his growing ambivalence toward the chip plant, Witherspoon falls prey to construction snafus, corporate backstabbing, and financial fraud. As they each confront personal fears, they find themselves united in the search for their own version of purpose in a uniquely untamable Texas landscape.
The Big Empty, the debut novel from longtime journalist and nonfiction author Loren C. Steffy, combines a sweeping appreciation for history and the struggles of small-town America with an examination of technology and the social and economic changes that come over time.

Genres: Westerns

304 pages, Hardcover

Published May 25, 2021

About the author

Loren Steffy is a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly, an executive producer for Rational Middle Media and a managing director for 30 Point Strategies, where he heads the 30 Point Press publishing imprint. He is the author of five nonfiction books: Deconstructed: An Insider’s View of Illegal Immigration and the Building Trades (with Stan Marek), The Last Trial of T. Boone Pickens (with Chrysta Castañeda), George P. Mitchell: Fracking, Sustainability, and an Unorthodox Quest to Save the Planet, The Man Who Thought Like a Ship, and Drowning in Oil: BP and the Reckless Pursuit of of Profit. His first novel, The Big Empty, was published in May 2021.

Steffy is the former business columnist for the Houston Chronicle and previously was the Dallas (and Houston) bureau chief and a senior writer for Bloomberg News. His award-winning writing has been published in newspapers and other publications worldwide.

He holds a bachelor’s degree in journalism from Texas A&M University and lives in Wimberley, Texas, with his wife, three dogs and an ungrateful cat.

Reviews

[Leslie aka StoreyBook Reviews · Rating 4 out of 5]

Fear, greed, family, and hope play a major role in this new novel set in West Texas.

If you have never experienced the vastness of West Texas, it might be hard to imagine this sleepy little town of Conquistador. But never fear, the author does an amazing job of describing the desolate open plains and hills so that the reader can picture the setting in their mind. There are multiple mentions of the sunsets and I can only imagine the brilliance of color setting over the horizon and putting on a display like never seen before.

Conquistador is a shrinking town and if not careful, could become a ghost town. The town consists of primarily cattle ranches with a few other small businesses tucked into the mix. The largest ranch has quite the history and it is the only life that Trace Malloy has ever known. His loyalty to the ranch is a blessing and a curse to his life. It is consistent, but also, not a steady way to make a living due to the droughts, beef prices, and lack of opportunity in a dying town.

Enter Blaine Witherspoon and AZTech. The opportunities that AZTech can provide might be what saves this town. However, there are many things that the company does not take into consideration and the main one is the available water supply that they will need. West Texas is dry and you don't find lakes or rivers and all water is derived from the water table below the surface. Since the majority of the town are cattle ranches, they rely on the water in cases of drought to keep the livestock alive. There could be a battle for what little water is available especially during a drought.

As I started reading this novel, I couldn't help but not like Blaine Witherspoon. He thought he knew it all and what he didn't understand is how things really work in West Texas compared to where he was from, California. His attitude really grated on my nerves. But as the story continued and certain facts were revealed, Blaine slowly realized that perhaps he was going about this all wrong, and fighting the town for the water and electricity might not be the best for everyone involved. It takes a major event for this to surface, plus some other underlying events at his company, but I grew to appreciate his flexibility and willingness to sacrifice when the situation called for it.

Trace Malloy is what I would picture a cowboy to look like with a mustache, weathered skin, and a tough mental outlook. He is happy with his life but wants more for his son Colt. However, an accident that broke Colt's legs shatters his dreams to fly a plane in the Air Force. If Colt can't do that, he wants to remain on the ranch doing what he knows best, raising cattle. I think most parents want something better for their children, but sometimes you just can't alter their dreams or desires. 

This story starts off with a bang (literally) from two trucks colliding driven by Blaine and Trace. They could not have had a worse introduction to each other at that moment and because this is a small town, news will travel quickly no matter the subject. Many will get a chuckle out of the incident knowing Trace's personality and how he would have reacted in the situation. Follow-up meetings don't go well either and Trace will admit he is no goodwill ambassador and shouldn't be trying to placate the "homies". Homies is a term they came up with to call those that we're moving into town to run the new chip production facility. They were creating a new subdivision and expected it to be like one you would find in any metropolitan area with a golf course and decorative fountain. They even had gates at the entrance which amused Trace because in a town that small, no one was stealing anything from anyone. Despite the drain on the water supply, this housing development will be a godsend in the end...but for reasons I'm not going to share and you will have to read the book to find out.

There are so many storylines that bring this novel together and create a story that will resonate with many. The first is Trace's dealings with his mother and her dementia. Knowing several people with dementia, I know how hard it is to interact with them especially once they reach the point that they do not remember who you are or even where they are at that time. Blaine has family issues with a wife that would rather be in New Jersey and comes across as very selfish. There is also his son, Brandon, that has issues of his own including drug use. How and where Brandon was raised is very reflective in an incident that culminates in a major turning point for the town and the characters. But perhaps it is also a case of how he was raised by his parents.

But this book is not without some humor thrown into the mix. I think my biggest chuckle was when the Witherspoon family attended a BBQ and brought their own food since they are vegetarians. Trust me when I say that the ranchers weren't sure what to do with the frozen veggie burgers mixed in with their steaks, burgers, and whatever else was on the grill. I did wonder if Brandon, the son, would have preferred a nice juicy burger versus the veggie burger.

Overall, this story is a look at how life really is like for ranchers and the struggles they face, and how dependent they are on nature to help provide some of what they need to survive. We give this book 4 paws up.

[Scott Seaman · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Empty is the latest in a rarely-attempted subgenre of Western fiction which I prefer to others - a book centered around real-world people dealing with the harsh realities of economic struggle and social change. Reminiscent of several of Elmer Kelton's best-known works, it is populated by neither outright heroes or villains but instead presents a cast of characters who really did and still do exist in the world.

Trace Malloy is a sort of standard, government-issue West Texas cattle rancher, struggling to meet the tremendous economies of maintaining a legacy herd on a legacy ranch in Conquistador, Texas while being faced daily with insufficient budget constraints. Ranching has long been a slowly worsening, losing proposition, one which can barely pay its own bills in the best of times, and Trace and other residents of the dwindling ranch town know that unless things change for the better, the town, the ranch and the people will go the way of the buffalo grass that once covered the now barren, rocky ground spreading out endlessly around them. Oddly, even though everyone knows they'd be better off elsewhere, no one really wants to leave. Cocooned in time and space, they lament what has been and await what may come.

When a potential answer to the town's prayers for self-preservation arrives from out of nowhere in the form of California-based AzTech company, a computer chip producer seeking to open an expansion plant there, it seems a godsend but soon opens up a whole new set of stresses and uncertainties the town has never had to deal with before.

Like many backroad West Texas towns, Conquistador has become somewhat lost to the advance of modern society. While not completely a remnant of the near-Old West, it has always existed within a finite mindset. Things are done a certain way or they're not done at all. Traditional values of respect, thankfulness to the Creator and having each other's back in difficult times are of instinctively greater importance than turning a greater profit or leaving the old way of life behind for an easier one. While people like Trace can see the need for change and welcome the presence of AzTech initially, it quickly becomes apparent that their rancher ways of doing business are lost on the corporate drones sent from California, where productivity and efficiency are all that matters. Inevitably, this strong faithfulness for tradition is a mere radar-blip on the corporate brain trust back in Milpitas.

One of those highly motivated tech-world suits is Blaine Witherspoon, whose job it is to get the new factory built to code and performing on a set capacity schedule and it is Blaine who is expected to win the town's remaining economically weary residents over to the AzTech value system based on the promise of jobs, better infrastructure and a secure, somewhat comfortably sterile, future where presently it seems to have none. Possessing both the built-in sense of greed and ego as well as the fear of failure and personal insecurity that goes with the position, Blaine attempts to assert himself on his company's behalf and expects that he will not only be respected for the opportunity he's granted the town, but given free reign over the use and sometimes the abuse of the arid land's limited resources of water and power.

Steffy is very knowledgeable in his description of the logistics of the tech industry and weaves the growing entity that is AzTech into a third dominant character as the novel progresses. AzTech becomes both a savior and an unknowable force for evil, depending on which side of the barbed wire one stands on. This leads to a regrettable clash between Malloy and Witherspoon early on, as the town debates the less-than-charismatic plant manager over water rights. Minor violence is inflicted upon Witherspoon at the hands, presumably the right one, of Malloy and subsequently much of the fate of the town and its future comes to depend on these two stubborn, mostly closed-minded men to find a way to get along with each other and effect a compromise that works both for the company and for the people who will be forced to coexist with it. At no point does the book coerce the reader to take a side. The views of both men are treated with equal consideration, even though Witherspoon endures the brunt of the physical and psychological gauntlet that is daily life in West Texas.

The Big Empty is essentially the narrative of an oft-repeated clash of ideals - of prideful, small town Texas values (which have seemingly grown irrelevant at the dawn of the new millennium) squaring off against the impersonal, data-driven ideals of modern industry. Beyond that, what makes this novel turn its own pages is the author's hands-on experience with his subject matter. Steffy is able to gently bring his characters and their environment to life in the same way Kelton could. Having some familiarity with the finer details of small, forgotten West Texas towns, I found myself frequently having to remember that I was deep in the heavily forested East Texas Piney Woods while reading his descriptive prose. If you've never spent time in this wide-open, almost featureless region of the state, covered in what is commonly referred to as "desert linoleum", a term used to denote its lack of eye-appeal, Steffy's ability to capture the nuances, human and otherwise, of the region are reason enough for reading.

There are certain moments in novels where the author is able to transport the reader, creating a memory that will last forever. I have never forgotten the night spent on a sandbar in the middle of the Brazos in Grave's Farewell to a River, the moment when Charlie Flagg has a heart attack on the backside of his ranch in The Time It Never Rained or the dreamlike sense of place accompanying Sears' account of napping in his canoe on a lake in Canoeing the Adirondacks with Nessmuk. Within The Big Empty there is an uncomfortably hot afternoon horse ride shared between the two men and a veteran ranch assistant as they seek to "work on things" which takes them to the edge of nowhere and beyond, instilling in both Witherspoon and the reader a sense of feeling completely alone and detached, that is rarely possible anywhere else except for the vast void that is the Big Empty. It is a land that ultimately doesn't care about people, no matter how much they need it to, and one that serves as the compelling backdrop to what is one of the better novels this reader has discovered in a while.

Since this is sold under the Western genre, I should reiterate that it is not a stereotypical Western novel in any way. If you want guns and bad guys, bars and beauties, Wal Mart has that. If you are looking for a better-quality product, The Big Empty is well worth it. It rewards in many ways, those ways being familiar to anyone who is used to reading contemporary accounts of the West that are appropriate to the rural Texas of the past 75 years. More writers should approach this intimidating genre, one where the bar has been set high; it's been awhile since anyone tried. Highly recommended for anyone over 40.

[Lisa · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Empty is a story of a clash of cultures. The present that’s rapidly becoming the past colliding with the seemingly incompatible future.

Life in the town of Conquistador is really all that Trace Malloy has ever known. He’s a ranch manager and a cowboy, and with the exception of a short stint trying unsuccessfully to break away from his hometown, he’s been in Conquistador all of his life. He realizes that ranching and the cowboy life are likely not viable options for the long term, and he wants to see his son Colt take advantage of other opportunities. Colt, unable to pursue his dream of flying in the Air Force due to the lingering damage from broken legs, stubbornly persists in saying he’s going to follow in his father’s footsteps right there in Conquistador.

But the future is on its way to Conquistador. AZTech, lured by the promise of tax breaks and accommodations, is building a computer chip manufacturing facility in the middle of the wide-open, dusty spaces. Blaine Witherspoon is heading up the project, seeing it as his ticket to bigger and better things in bigger and better places.

Past and present literally collide when Trace’s pickup and Blaine’s moving truck try to occupy the same piece of road at the same time. This doesn’t bode well for their future interactions. Blaine sees Trace as a backwards yokel who needs to join the twenty-first century, and Trace sees Blaine as someone with no frame of reference for his new environment, someone who wants to come in and change things to suit the needs of his new facility without giving any thought to how those changes will impact the people in Conquistador, their livelihoods, their very ability to survive.

Blaine wants to get the factory up and running and meeting production goals on time and under budget. Trace wants to protect the town’s scarce resources and see them managed so that the needs of both town and factory can be met. They both realize that something has to give, and they make grudging efforts to find some common ground. Some of those efforts are comical – Trace inviting Blaine, his high-maintenance wife who’d rather be anywhere but West Texas, and his emo son with a drug habit to a barbecue at the ranch, for instance. The Witherspoons thoughtfully bring their own food to accommodate their vegetarian eating habits, and the Conquistador folks are a bit befuddled as to why anyone would make a burger patty out of vegetables when there are perfectly good burgers made of beef to be had. Some of those efforts hurt – Blaine invites Trace to tour the chip factory, and it becomes a literal pain for Trace as he struggles to navigate the sterile, unfamiliar environment. But they’re trying. Can they find enough common ground for the factory to succeed and bring prosperity to Conquistador?

Blaine and Trace are both well written characters. Blaine was at first a thoroughly unlikable character. He just came in wanting to do things how they were done back in California without thinking that hey, we aren’t in California anymore, maybe we need to rethink this. As the story unfolded, though, I started to feel a little bit sorry for him. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into, and he was so accustomed to doing things a certain way that it was difficult if not impossible for him to shift gears. His efforts to achieve a task that seemed to become more impossible each day were almost uncomfortable to watch. Trace was more likable, but I felt sorry for him, too. He struggled to maintain his way of life, and struggled to teach the newcomer how to adapt to West Texas. He ached for what he saw as his son throwing away a better future than what the cowboy life offered. He wrestled with guilt at not spending enough time with his mother, who was declining due to dementia. Both men have to find ways to adapt to new and different things.
I’ve never been to West Texas, but Steffy’s writing lets me envision the never-ending expanse of flat, dusty land that has its own harsh beauty. The setting here is more than just the physical space that the characters occupy. It takes on a life of its own. The dust isn’t mindful of how clean the chip factory needs to be; it just goes where it goes. When one of the new electrical lines run out to the factory collapses and sparks a wildfire, the fire threatens the town and the new facility alike. The immensity of the Big Empty is harsh to old-timer and newcomer alike, and environmentalism takes on a whole different meaning there.

This didn’t read like a debut novel. It was well written and well worth the time I invested reading it. Five stars, and I hope to read more from Steffy in the future.

[Maryann · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a lover of all things western and rural, a few chapters into The Big Empty, there was a twinge of disappointment. While Malloy is a wonderful example of the men who love the land and the cattle and the horses they ride, there wasn’t enough creaking leather to satisfy this reader.

That said, I was not at all disappointed in the story. In fact, the more I read, the more I came to love the book. I’ve been out to West Texas, and I’ve seen that great expanse of land and sky that goes on for miles and miles with nothing to break the flatness; and I recognized the peacefulness there that appeals to many. So, in reading this book I could understand how this place called to Malloy when he had an opportunity to go off into the world and do something other than punch cows.

And I could see that there was a little bit of me in Malloy, who came across as a person who wished that his land, his way of life, could be frozen in time.

As the rest of the story unfolded, I was drawn more and more into the lives of these people, especially the two central characters who were at odds with each other; and so different one could have come from a different planet. Ironically, that’s kind of how Malloy sees Witherspoon and his ilk, and I get that. I have little tolerance for people who flaunt their positions, wealth, and power, so I was firmly in Malloy’s camp.

For most of the story I really disliked Witherspoon, but then he would surprise me with something almost nice, and I could forgive him for being a self-absorbed man who wanted nothing more than to make a lot of money so he could live in a big beautiful house and play golf and hobnob with other rich, powerful men. And I had to admire his grit when he first rode out to watch the branding of new calves with Malloy, even though I chuckled at the tennis shoes and bike helmet.

Malloy’s struggle over the future of his son – should he let him follow his desire to work the ranch like his father and grandfather before him, or should he push the boy toward college and a future that didn’t include eating dust every day – was an integral part of the story. A better future for the young people of the dying town of Conquistador is what led to the agreement to build the new high-tech plant. But even though the decision had been made, I could see how Malloy would have his doubts when the importance and legacy of ranching overrode some of his thinking.

The push pull between that old way of life and a different way of life that Witherspoon’s plant offered the community was a driving force for many of the people who’d been with the ranch for so many years. Had they made the right decision or not? It isn’t a question with an easy answer, and the way the story played out was masterfully handled by the author.

It’s hard to say much more without giving away major plot points, but I encourage you to hang on to your Stetson as this story rolls to a dramatic climax. Kudos to the author for a wonderful debut novel.

[Jennie Rosenblum · Rating 4 out of 5]

The start of the book was a crash – literally. Good ole’ guy meets city slicker. One relaxed and dealing, the other slightly freaking and placing blame – I’ll let you figure out which was which. A large chip corporation (no not potato!) has come to the small Texas town of Conquistador, and even though it was welcomed, even invited by the residents, life is changing. Technolgy vs. ranching - can they co-exist?

As the story develops, the reader gets a great insight into both sides of the plot because there really are sides that are running parallel. However at times, with just a tiny bit of effort, you can see an overlap. The theme of trying to make things better for ourselves and the next generation is carried throughout. Also, a strong theme of what being an environmentalist means to a variety of people and lifestyles is presented with a great deal of showing the reader all sides of the issue. Not to be forgotten, tucked into various scenes is a bit of humor, just enough to start a smile or a small chuckle and really lends itself to the realism of the characters.

There are tiny and bigger twists occurring that I enjoyed. They were realistic, reasonable and feasible but at the same time unexpected. I enjoyed following a new path in the storyline to see where it was going.

As this author’s first novel, he presents an engaging and page turning, professional product.

[Michel Sabbagh · Rating 4 out of 5]

My review for the book can be read on The Southern Review of Books's website:

https://southernreviewofbooks.com/202...

In a nutshell: Like the titular land itself, Steffy’s novel is uncompromising in spotlighting the strains that the drive toward material achievement puts on the individual in the face of nature’s whims.

[Ruth · Rating 4 out of 5]

Wow, the book wound up being nothing like I'd anticipated, especially the last few chapters! Steffy deftly managed to highlight the cultural differences between the big city Californians and rural Texans while keeping the story on point. The whole thing was very believable.

One of my favorite parts was the nose busting jab, a very understandable reaction to the out of place insult hurled by a conceited, holier than thou jerk! Served him right 😉.

[Ruthie Jones · Rating 5 out of 5]

"You can't live out here and not believe in a higher power. It's by the Lord's grace you survive, and by His will you don't."

The Big Empty by Loren C. Steffy is a literary mash up of the old and the new; the past and the present, all with a glimpse into the murky future of the small North Texas town called Conquistador and the main cattle ranch struggling to keep the entire area populated and profitable.

In 1999 and at the tipping point of expected change, Blaine Witherspoon, who is newly arrived from Silicon Valley to set up an electronic chip plant near Conquistador, and Trace Malloy, who is the manager at the local ranch and living out his generational cowboy legacy on his own dwindling spread, will either attract or repulse, depending on your views. These two meet in chapter one under less than ideal circumstances, setting a combative tone going forward. Their points of view are both presented, and presumptions, both accurate and misplaced, about each other and those on either side are tossed down in defiance. High tech versus old school battle it out for the precarious foothold in the scraggy Texas landscape, both intent on scratching out some level of progression and success and both shifting their focus to the disadvantages rather than the benefits of the opposite side.

As the characters interact, reluctant acceptance and maybe even admiration emerge. Maybe. Change often destroys before it builds up, and every person in Conquistador is all too aware of what’s at stake when that change barrels in from Silicon Valley, both the good and the bad.

In his debut novel, The Big Empty, Loren C. Steffy paints North Texas and the people with accomplished prose that will seep into your thoughts and bloom spectacularly across your imagination. The land is harsh, and the inhabitants across the generations have had to adapt to survive, but survival is more than amassing food, water, and shelter. Community, family, and honest work fill people with purpose, and The Big Empty shows that folks, even with all their diversity, opinions, and backgrounds, are more alike than they want to first believe.

The pacing of The Big Empty is as rambling and interesting as a horseback ride across Texas, with plenty of drama, flared tempers, stubborn attitudes, reluctant acceptance, and relentless Texas heat to keep the story compelling. The antagonist in this story ranges from the severe landscape and weather to the abundant judgments and assumptions. The people in Conquistador and the newcomers setting up the new high-tech plant clash and merge simultaneously, and the author portrays this amalgamation with literary panache.

The Big Empty is more than cowboys and ranch life across the vast North Texas landscape and more than big tech moving in and disrupting everything in its path. The Big Empty represents what so many fear and want at the same time: change. Change is inevitable, but this story shows that people can mingle ideas, behaviors, and ways to form a concerted front. Or not. Sometimes the land refuses to budge or maybe eases up just enough to keep people trying and hoping. Sometimes betrayal sneaks in and upsets everything. Sometimes disaster has the final say. Then again, sometimes change is simply about finding new ways to do old things or using old ways to do new things. One thing is for certain. You can’t confront change by punching it in the nose, no matter how insulting it is, and you can’t uproot the old ways completely by remaining prejudiced and ignorant. Just ask Malloy and Witherspoon.

"The past, though, has a way of pulling you back, even when you're determined to fight against it."

I received a free copy of this book from Lone Star Book Blog Tours in exchange for my honest review.

[A.Borroel · Rating 5 out of 5]

To kick-off this review, I want to talk about the topic. The whole big corporate tech company coming to small-town Texas is very relevant right now. There are numerous tech companies moving their headquarters to Texas, mainly Austin, but I'm sure there are others putting stakes into smaller rural towns. I think the author does a great job of portraying how everyone feels about the big company, AzTech, going into the small town. He gets in the perspective of the townspeople, who have a both yes and no approach to AzTech. On one hand, their small town gets a chance to survive and bring business for them and their children. On the other hand, they lose a part of what makes their way of living unique and they lose their values in some form. We see the toggle between the two through our characters and their opinions. We also are invited to see inside the how the people of the companies feel about moving to a rural town and their apprehensions and hopes about it all.

This segways into our two main characters, Blaine Witherspoon and Trace Malloy. They are two sides of the same coin. They're both passionate about what they do, but they're two opposite personalities. Blaine is a vegan environmentalist from California, while Malloy is a meat-eater rancher from small-town Texas. Our author does a great job colliding the two and seeing the different points of view from our two main characters. I am from the city through and true, and there were some instances where I felt like I would react how Blaine would react to certain situations in the book, such as wearing a helmet when horseback riding. I enjoyed seeing not only these two personalities interact but also the townspeople and how they interact and talk about the "homies" (city people).
 
I also enjoyed the setting of the whole book. If you're not from a small town, we get a glimpse into small-town life and how everyone interacts with each other. Again, not from a small town, so I found the setting to be especially intriguing. I'm curious to see if the small town that our author pictures for us is in fact how it is, with a hospital being in the next town over and whatnot. Our author is pretty well-versed, so I'm sure it's as accurate as he could get it to be.

Overall, I found myself immersed in the story and enjoyed reading the life and times of the small town of Conquistador and its change. It was an enjoyable read with equally diverse characters whose interactions you'll enjoy.

[Melissa · Rating 5 out of 5]

Loren C. Steffy's debut novel is the perfect blend of his journalistic experience and a flair for good storytelling.
Set in the West Texas of the recent past, The Big Empty is a contemporary western, pitting modern cowboys against big technology, with a two-prong through line that addresses water access and the inevitability of modern development.
It's a story Steffy tells well. The main characters literally crash into each other in the preface, and it's obvious that these two men, cowboy Trace Malloy and techie Blaine Witherspoon will be confronting each other throughout the book.
What I found compelling about this story was that each man wants a better future for his family – Witherspoon wants to be settled in once place for a while, something he promised his wife – with a stable life for his family. Malloy wants a future for his son that isn't tied to ranching, and includes college.
Each of these men also has different beliefs in how these things should be achieved, however. Malloy loves his West Texas home – the titular Big Empty – a flat stretch of land that's home to cows, of course, but also to host of resident wildlife, including rattlesnakes and scorpions. Witherspoon, on the other hand, thinks technological progress is automatically good and right. In a way, he believes he's bringing economic water to this proverbial desert.
Steffy has a good ear for dialogue, and that really helped to define the setting, as well as illustrating who was a native Texan and who was newcomer – a 'homie' in Malloy's vernacular. He's also presented, through this novel, an issue that is still very present in today's world where we have corporations buying up small towns' water supplies, and climate change has storms and droughts both increasing in strength and extremity.
It's this combination of fiction and reality, as well as the conflict that comes between the characters, and how that conflict changes when they must unite – to a point – to fight a common enemy in the final third of the novel – that makes The Big Empty both full of literary craft, and as satisfying as a West Texas sunset.
Goes well with: Chicken fried steak, home fries, and a cold beer.

[Jean Roberts · Rating 5 out of 5]

The Big Empty; what a great title. I was excited to read this first work of fiction by Texas writer Loren Steffy and I was not disappointed. I will admit it took me a few chapters to really get into the story, but once I did, I was hooked.
This is the story of two men, Trace Malloy and Blaine Witherspoon who are on a collision course that will leave both damaged. The town of Conquistador in West Texas, sprang up around a once massive ranch. The town is shrinking as the ranch struggles to survive. Trace is the ranch manager. Riding to the rescue is newcomer Blaine Witherspoon and his spanking new high-tech company. Once up and running it promises to bring economic prosperity and jobs back to Conquistador.
Trace has never known anything but the cowboy life, a life handed down from father to son for generations. But he has hopes for his own son, something better than wrangling cows. He can’t see a future for his boy. Blaine is blinded by arrogance and his narrow view of the world to the beauty of the land and life in rural America. He is also blinded to the problems of his own son.
The Big Empty is more than a story about two men. It’s the tragic clash of cultures. The old ways fighting to stay alive against the onslaught of technology and progress. The book’s mournful tone grieves the passing of a way of life.
The book is well written with a steady pace that gradually reveals the stories behind the story. The characters are believable, neither Trace or Blaine are drawn in black or white, each man is nuanced and well-drawn. I was captivated by the vivid descriptions of the land and the ranching community. Although set in modern time, it has a feel of historical fiction as you know you are reading about a way of life that is firmly anchored in the past. The ending was satisfying in a tragic but realistic way. I would highly recommend this book to readers with an interest in Texas, the old West and those who can appreciate a well written tale.
I give this book 5 Stars.

[Cynthia Leal Massey · Rating 5 out of 5]

As a Texan and former elected official and former member of an economic development corporation of a small town, I could really relate to this book. How do you entice business to your community without destroying its “small town feel”? My town is in central Texas adjacent to a big city and the businesses that gravitate here are gas stations and fast-food chicken franchises, which residents are not enamored with, and which don’t bring in exceptional sales tax revenue or big employment opportunities. But residents don’t want big box businesses here, either. A long-running quandary.

The fictional Conquistador in this novel is in West Texas in the middle of nowhere. I have been to the flat earth area depicted in this book. Loren Steffy is spot-on in his descriptions, not only of the emptiness of the landscape, but of the hardscrabble, rugged people who inhabit it. Only a group from California, with more money than sense, would attempt to bring a semiconductor plant that requires a “dust-free” environment to West Texas.

This novel is an excellent portrayal of both sides of the equation—Californian Blaine Witherspoon, sent to establish the plant and who is a vegetarian. His observations and comments at a huge barbeque event in his honor are laugh out loud funny. Trace Malloy, the no-nonsense, hardworking cowboy, sent to establish relations with Witherspoon—let’s just say oil and water gel better than these two men.

“The Big Empty” is a fine first novel and a real Texas tome by a first-rate author who knows a lot about Texas, having worked as a writer-at-large for Texas Monthly and published several books of nonfiction. I highly recommend this engaging and thought-provoking work of fiction based on real world experience, and a finalist for the Benjamin Franklin Award given by the Independent Book Publishers Association.

[Phil Oakley · Rating 5 out of 5]

Steffy Picks up McMurtry’s Torch
“The Big Empty” is a brilliant update to Larry McMurtry’s Texas classic “The Last Picture Show.” Don’t worry for a second. Texas writer Loren Steffy is up to the challenge. He’s that good and so is his first novel, “The Big Empty.” All the elements come together to form a line of succession in the tradition: Edna Ferber’s “Giant,” McMurtry’s “The Last Picture Show” … and now Steffy’s “The Big Empty.”
Conquistador is a dying West Texas town that has been struggling to survive since its founding more than a hundred years ago. The founders bet “the ranch” on the improbability that the lush, but fragile buffalo grass was inexhaustible. Their grandchildren kept waiting for the big oil boom that would bring salvation to sustain their way of life. And one last gasp came with the dawning of the new millennium. The great grandchildren mortgaged their grandchildren’s future, writing a blank check paid to the order of some fast talking tech entrepreneurs from Silicon Valley who promised to rain wealth onto the worn out, parched West Texas prairie with wafers of silicon chips that they promised would turn tumbleweeds into gold.
Think you can second guess how all this will twist and turn its way to a riveting conclusion? You can try. Actually, you should. I read it in two sittings. That’s how good “The Big Empty” is.

[Denice Langley · Rating 5 out of 5]

To watch the small town you grew up in slowly die, one piece at a time, is a pain that hits your heart as well as your pocketbook. To raise a family in this town, knowing there are no jobs so no future for your children, is a worry too parents have to face. To see vast acres of dry land and know the sunset maybe beautiful but it also signals the death of live as you knew it. Conquistador, Texas, is such a town. It sets the perfect background for THE BIG EMPTY.

Trace Malloy and Blaine Witherspoon are two men who have lived very different lives and have very different expectations for the future. Trace is a rancher, it's all he's ever done but he knows the way of life he knows does not have a rosy future. Blaine runs AZTech, a high tech company that produces semi-conductors. He is used to living and doing business in California. When he proposes to build a new plant near Conquistador, it could be the answer to everyone's worries. But this California business man runs into several walls when he starts doing business in Texas.

The story line easily held my interest and had several entertaining moments when Cali met Texas. The efforts of both parties will have to support each other or Conquistador will fail. This book is an excellent look at how different each region is, but how they can learn to set those differences aside for the greater good.

[Scott Osborn · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was an amazing story of technology, the rural west and an unlikely partnership. It is the modernization of old western tales brought together with the struggles of today. Author Loren Steffy is an amazing non fiction writer but his debut novel is an even more impressive feat.

[Lone Star Literary Life · Rating 5 out of 5]

Featured on Lone Star Book Blog Tours. Lone Star Blogger Team average rating: 4.75.

[Arthur Garson · Rating 5 out of 5]

One of the quiet great books!

Whoever you are, read this. The writing is magic. The story doesn't give itself away and the messages are deep. I'm looking for the next Steffe book.

[Max Knight · Rating 4 out of 5]

A vanishing way of life. A small town in West Texas hopes that by accepting the construction of a high tech factory and an adjoining community, it can hold onto tradition and bring in new economic opportunities for the future. Will it succeed? The demand for water and its limited supply could decide the fate of the ranching business that has existed for centuries and the viability of this new industry in a land ill-suited to accommodate both. On the one hand The Big Empty is a timely discussion of environmental issues and limited resources. On the other, it is a revealing look into how different people are that live in rural America from those who come from urban areas.