Wrangling Women, Humor and Gender in the American West. Kristin M. McAndrews. Reno, Nevada: University of Nevada Press, 2006; illustrations, map, notes, bibliography, biographies, index; xvi + 175 pages; ISBN 13:978-0-87417683-4; $34.95US (cloth).
Kristin M. McAndrews' book W rangling W omen provides a detailed examination of the humour and tall tales told by the women who work as ranchers, trail guides, horsetrainers and packers in a small m ountain comm unity of W inthrop, W ashington. McAndrews conducted interviews with several of these nontraditional women to find out how they cope with the sexism they experience in their work. Humour is one of the most used devices incorporated by the women and McAndrews documents many of the tall tales, incidences and jokes that the women were involved in and what it reveals about gender in the American W est. Unfortunately, the book struck m e as a dissertation turned into a book because it excessively calls on the expertise of others to provide support for the author's points. Because of this the book was often times dry, long, and cumbersome to read. The author frequently goes into great detail about how particular stories or jokes fit into

particular categories of humour. I found this distracted from the readability of the book and because of this the author is not as effective as she could have been.
One interesting aspect, from the perspective of W om en's Studies, is the use of the insider/outsider point of view. W hile the "wrangling wom en" are insiders in terms of the tourists they serve, they are still outsiders because they are women doing a "m ale" job in a patriarchal culture. Such a perspective gives the reader a good overview of the women’s "gendered" position in this male-dom inated field of work. However, there is very little discussion about feminism or how these wom en view fe m inism .
The wom en's stories are remarkable and the author uses a num ber of black and white photographs of the women to give us a sense of who the women are. The author also provides biographies of the wom en and notes to provide more in-depth information. However, given the very interesting title I thought it would be a delightful book to read. I was disappointed.
W endee Kubik University of Regina