The Last Cattle Drive: 30th Anniversary Edition

I bought this book for my Kansas-born-and-raised dad as an early Christmas present. He reads it while I'm watching TV and you can hear him cracking up every few minutes at something Spangler says. Several times he's broken out into straight out LAUGHS! Rare for a constantly grumpy cowboy... He absolutely loves the book and can't stop talking about the characters and the story. This is great for any old cowboy who doesn't mind some raunchy humor and lots of cussing.

Humorous in places, but devolves into just a story about a stubborn old man being stubborn and cranky.

I grew up on a farm and we also raised cattle and pigs. I remember having to move some cattle from one pasture to another, but usually just 1-2 miles, and in the country. This book takes moving cattle to a whole new level! Anyone will be able to enjoy the humor in this book, but people who have experience with cattle will truly enjoy the experience!

The recipient liked the book.

This is an excellent book if your from anywhere near Hays Kansas and the surrounding area. Heck it is probably a great book no matter where your from. I've lost my copy and have thought about buying another just so I can share it with people. Maybe a red tomato beer is what you need to drink while reading this.

This is the 30th anniversary edition of Robert Day's 1977 novel, with a 2005 forward by Howard R. Lamar. It is an accurate portrayal of a swath of Western Kansas life and geography in the 1960's and 70's. In 2021, it is more valuable as a sociology text than the humorous fiction it was intended to be. The story line centers around a Western Kansas rancher, his wife, an elderly ranch hand, and the green Eastern Kansas ranch hand/teacher who narrates the tale. Rather than paying to ship his cattle from Hays to the stockyards in Kansas City, the rancher decides to drive them overland, the old-fashioned way. All the catastrophes are predictable and there are funny lines from time to time.What's not so funny are the characters' very everyday prejudices and bigotry. As I can attest from personal family experience, they are quite authentic. Anyone who argues today that racism and sexism aren't long-standing American traditions has only to read this fictionalized account for a small slice of reality. Even in 1977 I would have been more disgusted than amused by this story.What I appreciated most, and wanted to read more about along with the movie-type action, were the descriptions of what made Western Kansas a beautiful place. Day was able to evoke rich memories of mile after mile of "the physiognomy of the land: limestone fence posts, creaking windmills, cottonwoods more in bunches than in groves."Readers who might be annoyed by the 90% scatology (little profanity) would be wise to skip this title.

Just re-read this book for the first time in 20+ years, and found it more hilarious than the first time. I'm a native Kansan, although have lived many other places, including the New York area. Highly recommended for anyone who knows and loves about Kansas.

If you are a native of Kansas this book may be a delight. One gets a profound sense of the bifurcation of the Kansas Plains to the industrial machinations of city life. However, if one is looking for literature I recommend looking elsewhere. Even though Cattle Drive is a delightful little tale it leaves the reader with a bad taste in his or her mouth. Why? There is an implicit urge present in the story that verges on Egotism of the highest sort where it is obvious the author struggles not with narrative but his own fascination at his ability to type words. Moreover, the novel would work better if the voice were autodiegetic instead of didactic. If you found that last sentence furstrating don't read the book. Incidently I do recommend the movie City Slickers with Billy Crystal, a tour de force of cinematic comedy. Crystal got it right. Day didn't. Sorry, Mr. Day I hope your next novel acheives what this one obviously aspries to but ultimately fails at.