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Sweet Promised Land
In Sweet Promised Land, Laxalt paints an affectionate portrait of his father and, simultaneously, tells the story that connects immigrant families everywhere in the United States. Dominique Laxalt, a Basque-American sheepherder, is persuaded by his family to return home for a long-planned visit after living nearly half a century on the ranges of the American West. Accompanied by his son Robert, Dominique travels to his native Basque Country in the French Pyrenees. His return to the village and mountain trails of his youth evokes ambiguous feelings as he describes to his relatives the life of hardship he has endured in the United States. The nostalgic trip to his native land ends poignantly as the elder Laxalt realizes that America has become his true home. Told with compelling sensitivity, this story portrays a family whose members share a strength of character drawn from their peasant ancestors and yet remain separated by diverse cultures on different continents.
207 pages, Hardcover
First published January 28, 1957
20 people are currently reading
344 people want to read
About the author
Robert Laxalt
45 books9 followersLaxalt was a Basque-American writer whose work was especially well received in the ranching areas of Nevada and adjacent states, and led to creation of several "Basque Festivals" in those areas. Laxalt also served as a consultant to the Library of Congress on Basque culture, and helped start the Basque Studies program at the University of Nevada.
Laxalt founded the University of Nevada Press, which published almost all of his books written after 1964. Laxalt was chosen along with Walter Van Tilburg Clark to be the first writer inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
Laxalt founded the University of Nevada Press, which published almost all of his books written after 1964. Laxalt was chosen along with Walter Van Tilburg Clark to be the first writer inducted into the Nevada Writers Hall of Fame.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 59 reviews
September 11, 2019
Pioneer books are one of my favorite genres, and I've read a lot that I've considered to be excellent. Something speaks to my soul when I read about the hardships endured, the hard work and sacrifice that go into leaving one's home and venturing into a new world and language and culture, and making a new life for you and your family. That's what Dominique Laxalt did when he came to Nevada from the Basque region of the Pyrenees Mountains in the early years of the 1900's. He became a sheepherder because that's what he had done in his own country. Because he was smart and hard-working he bought his own herd, enlarged it, built a ranch, got married, and dealt with the loss of his ranch before starting over. He and his wife had six children, one who eventually became the Governor of Nevada, and one who became an author. All of his children were highly educated and successful, largely because his wife (also a Basque) insisted on it.
But this pioneer tale came with a twist, because, encouraged by his family, he went back for a visit to the old country, accompanied by his son, the author of this book. His four older sisters were still alive, though one was very sick. He had been away for 47 years.
Imagine going back to a place you hadn't seen in 47 years and finding that very little had changed. Imagine taking your first plane trip, eating at a fancy restaurant in NY for the first time, still wearing the wedding suit that was more than 30 years old because "it still had a lot of life left in it". Imagine going home after all those years and then realizing that home was America, no matter how sweet the memories and the relatives you had left behind as a youth.
You don't actually have to imagine all those things because his son Robert paints the most wonderful and charming portrait of his father, and his own realization of what his father had endured, as he listened to him tell his old sisters tales from the past. I especially liked how Robert did not leave his mother out of his father's story, as her hard work and sacrifices were just as important as Dominiques, especially since she raised six children and ran a boarding house/hotel with a husband who was away with his sheep more than he was home.
So, a pioneer story in reverse which was every bit as good as any of the others, and a new Western author to add to my growing list.
Once again, thank you, Howard.
But this pioneer tale came with a twist, because, encouraged by his family, he went back for a visit to the old country, accompanied by his son, the author of this book. His four older sisters were still alive, though one was very sick. He had been away for 47 years.
Imagine going back to a place you hadn't seen in 47 years and finding that very little had changed. Imagine taking your first plane trip, eating at a fancy restaurant in NY for the first time, still wearing the wedding suit that was more than 30 years old because "it still had a lot of life left in it". Imagine going home after all those years and then realizing that home was America, no matter how sweet the memories and the relatives you had left behind as a youth.
You don't actually have to imagine all those things because his son Robert paints the most wonderful and charming portrait of his father, and his own realization of what his father had endured, as he listened to him tell his old sisters tales from the past. I especially liked how Robert did not leave his mother out of his father's story, as her hard work and sacrifices were just as important as Dominiques, especially since she raised six children and ran a boarding house/hotel with a husband who was away with his sheep more than he was home.
So, a pioneer story in reverse which was every bit as good as any of the others, and a new Western author to add to my growing list.
Once again, thank you, Howard.
June 7, 2019
Basque
1. a member of a people of unknown origin living in the western Pyrenees, in northwestern Spain and southwestern France
2. the language spoken by the Basque, having no known relationship with another language -- Encarta Dictionary
===============================================
“My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills. So it began when he was a boy in the misted Pyrenees of France, and so it was to be for the most of his lifetime in the lonely Sierra of Nevada. And seeing him in a moment’s pause on some high ridge, with the wind tearing at his wild thickness of iron-gray hair and flattening his clothes to his lean frame, you could understand why this was what he was meant to be….
“In him, such opposites as gentleness and violence in the same nature wore like a glove. It was exactly what you would expect of a man like that.”
One of six children, Robert Laxalt (1923-2001) was born in Alturas, California, but grew up in Carson City, Nevada. His parents were Basque immigrants who had left their homeland in the Pyrenees and had settled in the western United States during the first decade of the 20th century. His mother, Terese, managed a boarding house while his father, Dominique, spent most of his working days as a sheepherder.
Robert became a newspaper journalist whose syndicated column, Tales the Old Timers Tell, was carried by three Nevada newspapers. His first published book was The Violent Land: Tales the Old Timers Tell (1950), which was a compilation of his columns.
His second book, Sweet Promised Land (1957), was his best known. It is a heartwarming account of his father’s life as a shepherd and his return visit to his homeland after a forty-seven years absence, and because Robert accompanied him on the trip, it is also a personal memoir.
The descriptions of the Basque people in Nevada and in the French Pyrenees are colorful and enlightening. And so is the beautiful evocation of the contrasting climates and landscapes of the two regions.
It is a book about Basques and Basque immigrants, but in many ways it is more than that, for it could be read as a universal story about the trials, tribulations, and rewards of the immigrant experience in the United States.
Laxalt eventually wrote fifteen other books – both fiction and nonfiction. He acquired a national and international reputation, especially as an interpreter of the Basque experience in the United States. Two of his later novels were nominated for Pulitzer Prizes – but I had never heard of him.
Ironically, I was familiar with the Laxalt name, but it was his older brother, Paul, and not Robert that I remembered. Paul chose law as his profession and soon entered the world of politics. He was elected to the following offices in Nevada: prosecuting attorney, lt. governor, governor, U.S. Senate.
A Conservative Republican, he served two terms in the Senate, becoming a close ally of President Ronald Reagan. But Robert? He was never on my radar screen.
Despite the reputation that he had acquired during his lifetime, he had become almost totally forgotten (outside of Nevada, anyway) at the time of his death in 2001 and his passing received barely a mention in the major newspapers.
He is another of those forgotten writers who deserve to be read and remembered.
1. a member of a people of unknown origin living in the western Pyrenees, in northwestern Spain and southwestern France
2. the language spoken by the Basque, having no known relationship with another language -- Encarta Dictionary
===============================================
“My father was a sheepherder, and his home was the hills. So it began when he was a boy in the misted Pyrenees of France, and so it was to be for the most of his lifetime in the lonely Sierra of Nevada. And seeing him in a moment’s pause on some high ridge, with the wind tearing at his wild thickness of iron-gray hair and flattening his clothes to his lean frame, you could understand why this was what he was meant to be….
“In him, such opposites as gentleness and violence in the same nature wore like a glove. It was exactly what you would expect of a man like that.”
One of six children, Robert Laxalt (1923-2001) was born in Alturas, California, but grew up in Carson City, Nevada. His parents were Basque immigrants who had left their homeland in the Pyrenees and had settled in the western United States during the first decade of the 20th century. His mother, Terese, managed a boarding house while his father, Dominique, spent most of his working days as a sheepherder.
Robert became a newspaper journalist whose syndicated column, Tales the Old Timers Tell, was carried by three Nevada newspapers. His first published book was The Violent Land: Tales the Old Timers Tell (1950), which was a compilation of his columns.
His second book, Sweet Promised Land (1957), was his best known. It is a heartwarming account of his father’s life as a shepherd and his return visit to his homeland after a forty-seven years absence, and because Robert accompanied him on the trip, it is also a personal memoir.
The descriptions of the Basque people in Nevada and in the French Pyrenees are colorful and enlightening. And so is the beautiful evocation of the contrasting climates and landscapes of the two regions.
It is a book about Basques and Basque immigrants, but in many ways it is more than that, for it could be read as a universal story about the trials, tribulations, and rewards of the immigrant experience in the United States.
Laxalt eventually wrote fifteen other books – both fiction and nonfiction. He acquired a national and international reputation, especially as an interpreter of the Basque experience in the United States. Two of his later novels were nominated for Pulitzer Prizes – but I had never heard of him.
Ironically, I was familiar with the Laxalt name, but it was his older brother, Paul, and not Robert that I remembered. Paul chose law as his profession and soon entered the world of politics. He was elected to the following offices in Nevada: prosecuting attorney, lt. governor, governor, U.S. Senate.
A Conservative Republican, he served two terms in the Senate, becoming a close ally of President Ronald Reagan. But Robert? He was never on my radar screen.
Despite the reputation that he had acquired during his lifetime, he had become almost totally forgotten (outside of Nevada, anyway) at the time of his death in 2001 and his passing received barely a mention in the major newspapers.
He is another of those forgotten writers who deserve to be read and remembered.
November 19, 2025
negarrez en el alavabus mila esker robert
June 4, 2018
I don't normally get excited about memoirs, and I wasn't excited about starting this one, but two chapters in I knew it was going to be good. Framed as a son's perspective of convincing his father to visit his home in the old country - and then accompanying his father on that trip - it uses stories and memories to give background while making you feel like you've met and talked to and made friends with an old Basque man. Along the way it gives you the flavor of Old Reno and Old Nevada and the Old West, stirs pride for America and sadness for the many broken sheepherders who never made it back home, and makes you feel like you understand the Basque a little because you understand Laxalt's crusty, willful, headstrong and wise father.
And the writing is beautiful.
Favorite quotes:
And the writing is beautiful.
Favorite quotes:
He was the youth who had gone out into the world in beggar's garb and come back in shining armor. This was the moment of fulfillment. This was the moment of reward he could never have known in America. These were the people who had seen him only when he had set out on his quest, whose vision had not been dulled by nearness through the long trial, and who now saw only the shining armor.
"If there was an incident, Uncle, I do not want you to tell me who was involved since we may know their people," he asked. "But simply answer me this. Did the badman go back to Montana?" My father stirred uncomfortably, and then finally, he sighed and said, "No, he only made it to the last street light in town."
He was right about that. It took courage all right for a woman to live in the sheep camps. And it took courage not to keep on living that way, to make her own opportunity and come to Carson City as she did, out of an old brown-board cabin in the desert, with four children and a hundred dollars, to start another life in the little hotel, doing all the cooking and serving for the workingmen boarders, and taking care of their rooms, on her feet from four o-clock in the morning until midnight, and with only half enough sleep at night. And it took courage for a pretty woman to watch slender legs become a mass of purple veins forever from standing on her feet until the last day of the ninth month, and then deliver her child and go back to work.
Even after we had left the hotel and my father had gone back to the hills with his sheep, it took courage to face a life with six children who could have gone one way or another, and do it with an iron rule, without fear ever once showing, and with a love that was there in little things like a touch of the hand or an unguarded glance, because if she had ever shown fear or weakness or too much love, she would have been lost.
It took courage all right, but it took something else too. It had to do with forty mornings of Lent, up when the sky was still dark and the snow was piled high on the ground, trudging a narrow path tot he church, with her brood strung out behind her, little dark patches moving slowly through the white snow, huddled deep in their coats, shivering, and with eyes still stuck with sleep.
It had to do with winter nights when the big trees outside the house moaned fearfully with blizzards, and long after the children had gone to bed a single candle burned in the living room, and a wife prayed for her husband in the hills.
June 4, 2018
Robert Laxalt’s biography of his father’s journey from the Basque Country to America, and back again 47 years later to visit his remaining sisters in the French Pyrenees, seems utterly timeless. Dominique Laxalt never meant to stay away for so long; it is a story often found among Basque Americans. It is a cultural story of striving to succeed, to fit in, and to overcome all obstacles, until at some point in life, the thread that tethered a soul to the old country—to home—has frayed to a filament. There is always another mountain to climb, another obstacle to overcome, another payment, another child, another job that ties the immigrant to the new country more firmly than the timeless memories of what and who was left behind.
Accompanying his father on this journey, the author observes the changes, the fleeting moods and delicate twitchings of a father who was away more than he was home during Robert’s childhood. The slow creep of ageing and alienation sets off roller-coaster emotions that must be tamped down to preserve a man’s dignity and sense of decorum. And as his father is pumped for stories from America, the son learns much that he never knew about the stature, resilience, determination, and wisdom of his father. When tempted to intervene to protect his father from undue stress, Dominique’s brother-in-law restrains Robert, “This is his moment to keep him for all the years of his life. It has nothing to do with you.” And so, the son recedes to the background, watching, listening, and learning.
Having lived the American Dream for so long, much is expected of Dominique. Can he fulfill all the expectations of family and friends left behind in the Sweet Promised Land? Or wait, where is that Sweet Promised Land? Is it the comfortable old home he left at 17, or is it the Brave New World in which he has spent half a century, working 18-20-hour days, enduring setbacks and heartaches, raising a family? What happens when we return to our roots? What changes and what endures speaks volumes about the one who leaves.
This is a sublimely enjoyable book, as timely in 2018 as it was in 1957.
Accompanying his father on this journey, the author observes the changes, the fleeting moods and delicate twitchings of a father who was away more than he was home during Robert’s childhood. The slow creep of ageing and alienation sets off roller-coaster emotions that must be tamped down to preserve a man’s dignity and sense of decorum. And as his father is pumped for stories from America, the son learns much that he never knew about the stature, resilience, determination, and wisdom of his father. When tempted to intervene to protect his father from undue stress, Dominique’s brother-in-law restrains Robert, “This is his moment to keep him for all the years of his life. It has nothing to do with you.” And so, the son recedes to the background, watching, listening, and learning.
Having lived the American Dream for so long, much is expected of Dominique. Can he fulfill all the expectations of family and friends left behind in the Sweet Promised Land? Or wait, where is that Sweet Promised Land? Is it the comfortable old home he left at 17, or is it the Brave New World in which he has spent half a century, working 18-20-hour days, enduring setbacks and heartaches, raising a family? What happens when we return to our roots? What changes and what endures speaks volumes about the one who leaves.
This is a sublimely enjoyable book, as timely in 2018 as it was in 1957.
August 3, 2009
This is a beautiful story of father and son, and going home again. There is so much dignity and devotion in this book. Lots to ponder. It is a little about Basque sheep herders and a little about growing up. It is more about the dignity of human beings and a son's growing respect and admiration for his father's simple life and sacrifices for his family. Laxalt's writing always reminds me of Hemingway. I always love anything written by a local author and set in our geographic area.
June 6, 2012
Going into the University of Nevada, Reno, I was required to read this book, as well as in one of my later classes my junior year. I didn't like it the first time I read it. But the second time I did, the imagery of the land was just beautiful. The fact that it is nonfiction blows my mind. It seems too beautiful to be true. Definitely a great read about the beautiful state of Nevada.
February 27, 2024
This book by Robert Laxalt was published in 1957. It tells of Laxalt's father, a Basque shepherd, who has been living in the American west for nearly fifty years. Laxalt is able to get him back to his home country for a visit as time grows short for both his father and the relatives left behind.
Laxalt writes beautifully of both the land and the people. He is able to capture the father's joy in returning to his homeland but also his realization that America is now his home.
Laxalt writes beautifully of both the land and the people. He is able to capture the father's joy in returning to his homeland but also his realization that America is now his home.
November 14, 2016
This is my first introduction to Laxalt. I was told he's the Hemingway of Nevada, so went into the read pretty skeptical. He really is! Laxalt says so much in each sentence. As Hemingway did, he describes settings and fills in details by allowing his characters to tell stories - both through their words and their actions. He himself is the costar in this memoir about a trip he took with his father, and it makes me want to know his family.
He writes profoundly in so few words (Hemingway again!) about the immigrant experience, and returning home to loved ones absent for decades. He also manages to give a pretty decent intro to the history of Basque immigration to the American west, and of a battle between shepherds and cowboys across the desert lands. He piqued my interest enough that I now want to learn more about both of these, and want to send a Krakauer or Larsen to go do an in depth history book as a follow-up here.
This is really a beautiful short read, and a reminder that we are all immigrants.
He writes profoundly in so few words (Hemingway again!) about the immigrant experience, and returning home to loved ones absent for decades. He also manages to give a pretty decent intro to the history of Basque immigration to the American west, and of a battle between shepherds and cowboys across the desert lands. He piqued my interest enough that I now want to learn more about both of these, and want to send a Krakauer or Larsen to go do an in depth history book as a follow-up here.
This is really a beautiful short read, and a reminder that we are all immigrants.
February 4, 2025
This is an excellent book. Robert Laxalt recounts his experience growing up in Northern Nevada, and the accounts of his father, who came to Nevada from the Basque Country to heard sheep, as so many Basques did in that day. After coming to the United States as a young man to seek fortune and opportunity, and being met with both of those, as well as relentless hardship, Dominique has grown old in America. He has lived in the U.S. for much longer than he had originally intend to, and has given up all hopes of ever returning home to the Pyrenees. A letter comes from France with word of his dying sister, whose condition seems to be worsening. In a fight against their father’s stubborn excuses, his children make all of the arrangements for their father to return to his homeland. It is a both heartwarming and heartbreaking story that so beautifully illustrates the life of the immigrant and the children of immigrants. Laxalt writes so beautifully and thoughtfully in general, but especially about his father. The stories that he recounts feel intimate, like the ones you might hear over a meal spent with family. This book made me laugh, and cry, and smile very deeply. I will think of it each time I have a class in the Laxalt Mineral Engineering building at UNR, and whenever I am in the sagebrush covered mountains of Nevada.
November 7, 2019
Just wonderful!
February 16, 2018
Beautifully written and surprisingly moving.
June 21, 2022
Quotable:
All of us together were of a generation born of old country people who spoke English with an accent and prayed in another language, who drank red wine and cooked their food in the old country way, and peeled apples and pears after dinner.
We were among the last whose names would tell our blood and the kind of faces we had, to know another language in our homes, to suffer youthful shame because of that language and refuse to speak it, and a later shame because of what we had done, and hurt because we had caused a hurt so deep it could never find words.
And the irony of it was that our mothers and fathers were truer Americans than we, because they had forsaken home and family, and gone into the unknown of a new land with only courage and the hands that God gave them, and had given us in our turn the right to be born American.
And in a little while, even our sons would forget, and the old country people would be only a dimming memory, and names would mean nothing, and the melting would be done.
All of us together were of a generation born of old country people who spoke English with an accent and prayed in another language, who drank red wine and cooked their food in the old country way, and peeled apples and pears after dinner.
We were among the last whose names would tell our blood and the kind of faces we had, to know another language in our homes, to suffer youthful shame because of that language and refuse to speak it, and a later shame because of what we had done, and hurt because we had caused a hurt so deep it could never find words.
And the irony of it was that our mothers and fathers were truer Americans than we, because they had forsaken home and family, and gone into the unknown of a new land with only courage and the hands that God gave them, and had given us in our turn the right to be born American.
And in a little while, even our sons would forget, and the old country people would be only a dimming memory, and names would mean nothing, and the melting would be done.
September 2, 2017
The author's father emigrated to America from the Basque country, a region in the Pyrenees Mountains between Spain and France that has its own language and culture. Like many of his countrymen, he became a sheepherder in Nevada, spending most of his life alone with his sheep, miles from other people. He thought he would go home one day as a rich man. But that never happened. Now, after 47 years, Laxalt takes his father on one last trip to his homeland. Dominique is old now, as are the remaining members of his family. It's a bittersweet journey, yet there is also much joy. Laxalt, who went on to write many more books about the Basque country and its people, serves as our witness throughout. He shares his father's sheepherding stories and takes us to see the people and places of his youth. It's all Dominique's story, told beautifully and elegantly in this slim book. Laxalt doesn't analyze the Basque culture or bombard us with research. He simply opens the door and lets us come along. I swear I could taste the wine and hear them singing.
March 26, 2019
My first Robert Laxalt book, and SPL reminded me of "To Kill a Mockingbird" in the way he writes about simpler times. He draws a picture of a Nevada now lost in time and overcome by neon and glitz. This was an era when herders, farmers, and ranchers were the core of the Silver State's pioneer spirit. Mr. Laxalt's family, both stateside and in the old country, come alive to the point that we could almost recognize them if we were to meet them. This book is for fans of real Western tales of courage and nostalgia.
June 5, 2016
So, to be clear, I give very few 5s. This is an extremely well written book from the 1950s that will remain timeless...
This is a wonderful, relatively short (read-in-one-setting) book about (I think anyway) the relationship between a son and his father. And about total acceptance of another human being for the person they really are.
I selected this one for one of my men's book groups and we shall see how it is received.
This is a wonderful, relatively short (read-in-one-setting) book about (I think anyway) the relationship between a son and his father. And about total acceptance of another human being for the person they really are.
I selected this one for one of my men's book groups and we shall see how it is received.
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
January 28, 2018
This is a beautifully written and meaningful book about the immigrant experience in the American West, particularly for Basque people, Nevada history, and the remarkable man at the center of the book, the author’s father, Dominique Laxalt. It is short, but deeply engaging. I want to read more by Robert Laxalt now. My major reading tip is to keep checking the Basque terms sprinkled throughout the book with a Basque-English dictionary.
February 28, 2017
I now believe I understand a bit more about being a Nevadan. Wonderful story of understanding an older generation, and of the generation that made the transition from Europe to the US.
August 22, 2018
Wonderful
What a wonderfully told story. Such a weaving of time and place without ever feeling lost. This is the first book I’ve read by Robert Laxalt and I’m now such a fan.
What a wonderfully told story. Such a weaving of time and place without ever feeling lost. This is the first book I’ve read by Robert Laxalt and I’m now such a fan.
October 3, 2019
This book has literally changed my perception of the world. It was eye opening and wonderful.
December 14, 2024
Part biography, part memoir, "Sweet Promised Land" is all heart and covers a lot of ground, physically and thematically, in its modest 158 pages: the Basque immigrant experience in the New West, sheep herding (of which I knew almost nothing about), particularly the confrontations between shepherds and ranchers in Nevada's high desert and the Eastern Sierra Nevada but also the camptender's skills, responsibilities and protective nature and what happens to a prosperous sheep business when the agriculture and livestock businesses begin to severely decline in the 1920s.
Because the author, Robert Laxalt, is the immigrant shepherd's (Dominique's) son, we also learn a bit about how he and his mother and siblings accommodated the father's long absences spent in the mountains away from home. The brothers, for example, took turns meeting their father at a designated juncture in the desert to replenish him with critical supplies. Along the way, their mother ensured they received an education, and they did, becoming the first in the family to do so.
Robert Laxalt brings occasional touches of humor and tension to these recollections of family routines, which, really, are anything but "routine" - certainly for anyone reading the book today.
But most of all, the author just brings honesty. Maybe that's what I've found missing from many memoirs/biographies - honesty, or at least a lack of aggrandizement - and why I don't read many of them. Or maybe I just prefer a good story arc. I got that here.
About half of the book is set in Nevada and the other half in and around Tardets in the Pyrenees range in France, after the family finally convinces Dominique to make the return trip (with his son) to his homeland for the first time since he left for the U.S. 47 years prior with no intention to stay permanently. They are successful largely due to Dominique's oldest sister's illness and Dominique's own declining health.
I enjoyed joining Dominique for these intimate and sometimes emotionally tumultuous reconnections with siblings and others who were barely adults when he left and who are now old or older, and I shared his disbelief over so many changed things and other things not changed at all.
And when Dominique and Robert stood together looking down into the pastoral village on their last sunlit evening in Tardets, and Dominique emotionally proclaimed his now true home, I fully believed him.
I think this book has launched a new interest in the regional literature of my birth state.
Because the author, Robert Laxalt, is the immigrant shepherd's (Dominique's) son, we also learn a bit about how he and his mother and siblings accommodated the father's long absences spent in the mountains away from home. The brothers, for example, took turns meeting their father at a designated juncture in the desert to replenish him with critical supplies. Along the way, their mother ensured they received an education, and they did, becoming the first in the family to do so.
Robert Laxalt brings occasional touches of humor and tension to these recollections of family routines, which, really, are anything but "routine" - certainly for anyone reading the book today.
But most of all, the author just brings honesty. Maybe that's what I've found missing from many memoirs/biographies - honesty, or at least a lack of aggrandizement - and why I don't read many of them. Or maybe I just prefer a good story arc. I got that here.
About half of the book is set in Nevada and the other half in and around Tardets in the Pyrenees range in France, after the family finally convinces Dominique to make the return trip (with his son) to his homeland for the first time since he left for the U.S. 47 years prior with no intention to stay permanently. They are successful largely due to Dominique's oldest sister's illness and Dominique's own declining health.
I enjoyed joining Dominique for these intimate and sometimes emotionally tumultuous reconnections with siblings and others who were barely adults when he left and who are now old or older, and I shared his disbelief over so many changed things and other things not changed at all.
And when Dominique and Robert stood together looking down into the pastoral village on their last sunlit evening in Tardets, and Dominique emotionally proclaimed his now true home, I fully believed him.
I think this book has launched a new interest in the regional literature of my birth state.
November 7, 2017
The question of whether you can “go home again” takes on special meaning in the book “Sweet Promised Land”, especially for all first-generation immigrants who leave their homeland to come to America. It is one man’s experience presented as a memoir, rather than as a fictional story, more the norm for mid twentieth century writers.
Dominique left his Basque home as a very young man. It was 47 years before his return in the 1950’s. Many will recognize that time and it will be a contrast they will feel and share. Others, who were not born until much later, will have less experience and will have to rely on the authors presentation of the contrasts. Either way it is a story of discovery.
Dominique, recalls the days of rich open ranges and dirt streets in the old country He then comes as a young sheepherder to America and the work is similar, but the land is less accommodating. America is the difference and it is indeed a land of opportunity that Dominique and his family benefit from.
Dominique’s wife was also a Basque who immigrated. They met in Reno. After they married she worked the sheep camps with him for a while and then she settled in Carson City running a small hotel where her focus was to get the children educated.
Late in his interesting life Dominique had a little stroke. He hadn’t been able to stop working before. When he tried, and then saw past friends who had quit working and not too soon later died, it upset him, so he went back to work in the mountains.
Dominique could now afford to quit. He could afford to go back to the old country and he wanted to. It took his family who loved him very much to convince him to go. The family probably didn’t realize that Dominique saw people at a much deeper level than they assumed. His youngest son was especially concerned that the trip be successful, and he went with him. They fly to New York City, Paris and then the Pyrenees where the homecoming is joyful.
A special time is spent with his sisters and extended family. He was a returning hero and the homecoming was an emotional time filled with great happiness. He did not know how he would feel when it was time to go, but he learned that it was no longer where he belonged. His son learned not just about the old country, but a lot about how his father’s wisdom.
The immigrant experiences provide a “source of ethnic pride”. The book is a classic celebration of Americana and something we all should read.
Dominique left his Basque home as a very young man. It was 47 years before his return in the 1950’s. Many will recognize that time and it will be a contrast they will feel and share. Others, who were not born until much later, will have less experience and will have to rely on the authors presentation of the contrasts. Either way it is a story of discovery.
Dominique, recalls the days of rich open ranges and dirt streets in the old country He then comes as a young sheepherder to America and the work is similar, but the land is less accommodating. America is the difference and it is indeed a land of opportunity that Dominique and his family benefit from.
Dominique’s wife was also a Basque who immigrated. They met in Reno. After they married she worked the sheep camps with him for a while and then she settled in Carson City running a small hotel where her focus was to get the children educated.
Late in his interesting life Dominique had a little stroke. He hadn’t been able to stop working before. When he tried, and then saw past friends who had quit working and not too soon later died, it upset him, so he went back to work in the mountains.
Dominique could now afford to quit. He could afford to go back to the old country and he wanted to. It took his family who loved him very much to convince him to go. The family probably didn’t realize that Dominique saw people at a much deeper level than they assumed. His youngest son was especially concerned that the trip be successful, and he went with him. They fly to New York City, Paris and then the Pyrenees where the homecoming is joyful.
A special time is spent with his sisters and extended family. He was a returning hero and the homecoming was an emotional time filled with great happiness. He did not know how he would feel when it was time to go, but he learned that it was no longer where he belonged. His son learned not just about the old country, but a lot about how his father’s wisdom.
The immigrant experiences provide a “source of ethnic pride”. The book is a classic celebration of Americana and something we all should read.
May 9, 2025
A beautifully written account of a man who came to America in his youth and worked his whole life as a sheep herder in Nevada. Robert Laxalt, the author, one of his stunningly successful children, recounts their trip back to Basque Country after his father had been away from home for 47 years. (One of his other sons, Paul Laxalt, became governor of Nevada and then US senator)
The writing is crisp and it’s a pleasure to read. It’s a timeless story and I’m so glad that they have kept this book in print. What I just read is the 50th edition! The author actually founded the University of Nevada Press.
In short, this is beautiful story about a Basque immigrant who lived a danger-filled life in the mountains outside Carson City in a by-gone era.
The writing is crisp and it’s a pleasure to read. It’s a timeless story and I’m so glad that they have kept this book in print. What I just read is the 50th edition! The author actually founded the University of Nevada Press.
In short, this is beautiful story about a Basque immigrant who lived a danger-filled life in the mountains outside Carson City in a by-gone era.
August 15, 2017
A well written book that covers a Basque immigrants adjustment to the American west at a time when many immigrants had come to America to find their fortune or escape poverty. The twist is that the immigrant as an old man returns to his home country along with his son who gains new insights into the father he knew but did not understand. While published 60 years ago, it still rings true for many immigrants who leave home in search of finding something better and the strange ties that pulls us both onward and backward.
October 24, 2017
I loved this beautifully crafted memoir by Robert Laxalt about his father, Doninique, who was a Basque sheepherder who emigrated to Nevada about 1910 to make his fortune in America. The father was a unique story teller, and through his stories, we learn about sheep herding as a foreigner, his wife raising their six children alone while he is in the hills with the sheep, losing everything during the Great Depression, his going back to the "Old Country" after 47 years in America, and then returning home to the "Sweet Promised Land," which is, yes, America.
October 13, 2023
Well written view of the hard life of Basque sheep herders in the Nevada desert. Loneliness but always a glimmer of hope,a dream of getting rich and returning home. Beautifully written as the son goes along with the father on a return trip to Basque country and hears his father’s story told to relatives there. But,he want to go “home” to America and his new life there! Clear descriptions of the desolate landscape in Nevade (compared later to the lush pastures in
Spain). And it becomes home with a loving wife and family in America.
Spain). And it becomes home with a loving wife and family in America.
October 31, 2024
“Sweet Promised Land” by Robert Laxalt is a memoir recounting his father’s return to the old country (France) after 47 years. Robert’s father, Dominic came to America and Nevada to become a rancher herding sheep and he and his partners did very well until the depression. All was lost so Dominic went back into the mountains as a sheepherder while the family lived in Carson City. The family saw Dominic only occasionally. As the years passed, the family felt Dominic was ill and maybe he should visit his family in France one last time. Robert retells their adventures during the journey.
October 11, 2021
I did not find this to be a significant book. It is the story of a Basque shepherd who emigrated to the US and ended up herding sheep in Nevada. The book is about the only trip he makes back to his homeland to visit his remaining relatives. The most interesting part of the book is when the war is described between sheep herders and cattlemen.
June 6, 2022
A must read for those from Nevada. A beautiful memoir of early sheep herding communities in Reno/Carson area and also a story of what it is to immigrate to a new place and create a new home in a foreign land.
January 13, 2024
The prose that Robert Laxalt uses to describe his father's experiences paint an absolutely beautiful portrait of the hard men that settled this part of Nevada. Beautifully written, a short book that was a joy to read.
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