cover image The Hero of the Herd: More Tales from a Country Veterinarian

The Hero of the Herd: More Tales from a Country Veterinarian

John McCormack. Crown Publishers, $23 (272pp) ISBN 978-0-609-60373-4

With 30 years of successful veterinary practice behind him, McCormack (A Friend of the Flock) has a wealth of stories about people and animals in rural Choctaw County, Ala. Back in the 1960s, McCormack was the first vet in the county; he had a big-animal practice, treating everything from household pets to cows, pigs and horses. Most of his clients were small farmers. McCormack recounts his first cesarean surgery of a young heifer, during which tough-talking bystanders became nauseated and fainted; he describes the rescue of a calf and its owner from a deep gully. Colorful characters abound: Carney Sam Jenkins, taxidermist, amateur vet, expert on ""hollertail""; Miss Ruby McCord, proprietress of the local grocery; Goat, the mailman and purveyor of gossip. There are tales of searching deep woods at night for a sick cow and the curious case of the sunburned piglets and the evil Fred, runt of the litter. McCormack is a firm believer in the value of a ""good guffaw,"" and he provides plenty of them with his lively anecdotes. Many of the stories have as much to do with the idiosyncrasies of small-town life as they do with the treatment of animals. But the author manages to convey, without giving way to a saccharine idealism, the pleasures of living in a place where people don't lock their doors. (Oct.)