Last Cowboys of San Geronimo

A contemporary Western debut about two brothers locked in a deadly feud, a woman on horseback trailing her husband’s killer, and the inescapable ties of home and family. When Silas Van Loy flees home on horseback to avoid capture for his brother’s murder, he is soon followed by both the police and his brother’s wife, Lena, who is intent on exacting revenge. She reluctantly lets her trusted stable assistant join her in a journey across the wilds of Northern California in the hopes of catching Silas for one final showdown. Stansel follows the chase and shares the story of the brothers’ rise from hardscrabble childhood to their reign as the region’s preeminent horse trainers, tracking the tense sibling rivalry that ultimately leads to the elder’s death. A fully realised tale that challenges notions of the modern West, The Last Cowboys of San Geronimo will satisfy fans of Kent Haruf, Larry McMurtry, Molly Gloss, and Smith Henderson, and establish Stansel as a new voice in this grand tradition. AUTHOR: Ian Stansell is the author of the collection of stories Everybody’s Irish, a finalist for the PEN/Bingham prize for debut fiction. His fiction has appeared in numerous literary journals, including Ploughshares, Joyland, Ecotone, and Cincinnati Review. His nonfiction has appeared in Salon,CutBank, and The Good Men Project. He holds an MFA in fiction writing from the Iowa Writers’ Workshop and a PhD in literature and creative writing from the University of Houston, where he was the editor of Gulf Coast.He currently serves as assistant professor of creative writing at the University of Louisville.