This comic novel with serious overtones was written ten years ago. Bob Dollar, a young man who can’t seem to figure out what he wants to do with his life, is hired by Global Pork Rind to surreptitiously scout the sparsely settled Texas panhandle for failing ranches to buy up for corporate hog farms. His cover is that he is looking for sites for “luxury homes,” which doesn’t really fool the rural but not-stupid folks in the town of Woolybucket where he settles. There he meets a series of colorful, and colorfully named, characters who have lived there for generations. The desolate beauty of the land, the quirky nature of its long-time residents, and the rich history of the area are deftly woven into a rollicking story. Even more timely today than when it first was published, the novel also raises (without preaching) the contemporary concerns about confined animal feeding operations; water rights and the devastation of the Ogalala aquifer; and the destruction of the land wrought by the change from buffalo-grazing to cattle-raising. It is obvious that the author treasures the Texas panhandle and those who have eked out a living there. 361 pp.
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