Review: Cowgirl
Rating: 5 out of 5
Date: 04 6, 2014
Risa and her brother leave their home in a Jewish settlement and walk.  Aged eleven, Yani's orientation has already caused trouble.  Knowing they won't be missed by her mother, Risa packs for both of them and takes charge, aged fifteen.  Taken in by a ranch family in Nevada, the pair start to learn about handling horses, but it's Risa who wants to be a horse breaker.Wisely opening bank accounts as she earns a living, Risa also accumulates a brown mustang and a large dog while making friends among local Natives. Indians are not allowed to hunt bears, but white women can. She buys a run-down boarding house to set up her brother; Yani has been learning housekeeping skills rather than the cowhand work for which he is clearly unsuited. Risa has always stayed away from men, unimpressed. An Irish lad, Patrick, nicknamed Prettyboy, might change that attitude.I liked the swift movement; no words are wasted in getting where we're going. Risa is a self-reliant, brave young woman who continually feels responsible for her brother and who sees prospects where others see failure. She can't understand how someone could trade a good horse for a truck.  When she meets a man from their old faith in town, she stops Yani approaching him by asking if he wants to explain that he has converted.  Jewish people were unlikely to be understood as they followed their practices, so we seldom see their appearance in this period. Still, Risa recites the Kaddish after a friend's death. Patrick has his own highly amusing brush with his forgotten Catholicism.  The addition of a gay character emphasises that the novella is about anything but stereotypes, and readers will be fascinated to see how this tough COWGIRL story ends.  My main complaint is that I wish it was longer.Java Davis has also written a modern story called Triptych and an excerpt is at the end of this book. Go, girl!