The Outfit by J. P. S. Brown

Abstract

Reviews 415 Ford Swetnam is a prominent Idaho poet known for writing about the most common elements of western life. 301 is a long poem based on a dart game called “301.” The poem works its way through the game as the players start with a score of 301 and work it down, with all sorts of double ins and outs, to a score of zero. 301 is a tour de force in structure and metaphor with plenty of nifty classical allu­ sions and references to Ben Johnson juxtaposed with laughter and language of the saloon. PAUL VARNER Oklahoma State University—Oklahoma City The Outfit. By J. P. S. Brown. (Cody, Wyoming: MQM, 1995. 293 pages, $15.00.) The Outfit should be required reading for all critics and students of American cowboy literature. There are no gunfights, no hangings, no seven-foot-tall handsome horsemen, and, in the end, no one who gets a girl or a ranch of their own—they all get old, commit suicide, die of somewhat natural causes, or just disappear. In this fictional­ ized autobiography, Brown’s mixed-blood protagonist, Bert Sorrells, hires onto a Nevada ranch so big that the cross fence, which sup­ posedly divides the 1,000-square-mile outfit in half, is never found. Opening each chapter, Brown gives short definitions for key words: remuda, outfit, querencia, circle. These are not the typical sterile “lingo” definitions usually found in footnotes to cowboy sto­ ries, definitions that help the ignorant remain ignorant. Through his rich definitions, Brown serves as his own critic, helping the reader realize the figurative depth of his language. The Outfit is a timeless cowboy book, written from within and treasured by the cowboy culture. While books written from outside the culture wrestle with the issue of whether or not hanging some­ one for cattle stealing is wrong, Brown’s book wrestles with whether or not cattle stealing itself is wrong. Throughout the book, someone has been stealing cattle, but the reader never finds out who. Academics will discover a gold mine for studies in deconstruc­ tion, ecocriticism, and sense of place. Marxist scholars will be fas­ cinated by the wide class divisions, and yet the sense of pity and 416 Western American Literature goodwill expressed by the “lower” class toward the upper. Lesbian critics will be intrigued by the way Bert Sorrells continues to love and respect the beautiful, fun-loving, sad Bonnie, even after she freely chooses two female lovers. Critics interested in lenses from Zen to language will find a tension-filled, tenuous balance in this U. S./Mexico border-dwelling author’s ability to cross racial, lin­ guistic, sexual, geographic, and legal borders without judgment. In Brown’s world, the only unforgivable sin is expecting a day’s work from a tired horse. BARBARA “BARNEY” NELSON Sul Ross State University Bucking the Sun. By Ivan Doig. (New York: Simon & Schuster, 1996. 412 pages, $23.00.) Ivan Doig’s latest novel, Bucking the Sun, may have arrived in time to serve as an antidote to the latest syrupy representations of the West, such as The Horse Whisperer. Doig’s book should be required reading for those who would romanticize Montana, and it offers an important history lesson for all. The terrain of this book is still Montana, by now familiar territory to Doig’s readers, but boomtowns have replaced the range in this narrative. Scottish immigrants Hugh and Meg Duff have scraped a living from a bottomland ranch and raised three sons, but the New Deal, in the form of Fort Peck Dam, changes everything. Their land is con­ demned and they must establish a new life in perilous Depression times. The Duffs sign on to help build the dam, and the novel tracks their lives as they become boomtown residents and construction workers. Without their land, Doig’s characters cast about for a future, for a sense of whom and where each will be in the world. The process makes them less sympathetic than many characters in Doig’s earlier work, but the difficulties they face make them emblematic of many westerners’ lives. Bucking the Sun addresses many issues critical to the modern West, and...