THE LAST COWBOYS AT THE END OF THE WORLD: The Story of the Gauchos of Patagonia

Reding's first book is a fascinating tale of cattle herders (gauchos) living in the desolate reaches of Chilean Patagonia. A successful mix of journalistic reportage and cultural study, it uses the complex linguistic fabric of the gaucho to weave a dynamic story that reads more like fiction than pop-anthropological research. For the better part of a year, Reding lived on land owned by a hardworking, harder-luck couple, Duck and Edith; much of the account focuses on their lives and those of their few neighbors. As a child under Pinochet's regime, Duck saw many people "disappeared" from his semiurban slum, a hotbed of Perón-inspired socialism. Meanwhile, Reding himself embarks on engaging cattle drives, has close brushes with devils real and imaginary, and lives and breathes the stunning isolation and loneliness of life on the high plains of the middle Cisnes River. Despite his fairly intimate relationships with his generous, likable but deeply troubled hosts—Duck is a violent alcoholic; Edith is terrified, angry and convinced her husband is possessed by the devil—Reding also delves deep into the inevitable cultural, social and economic divide between them. The gorgeous landscapes, the threatening scenes of drunkenness and folly, the prosaic workdays and the cowboy particulars are surely reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy's Border Trilogy, but present here is a fastidiously humanist angle, in which the interloping narrator never forgets humility or sensitivity. An exciting third act plays out all the promise and horror when Duck, Edith and their children leave the mountainside and move to the slums of Coyhaique, a fated move for the story's protagonists as they undergo the trials of drink, exorcism and urban decay. (Dec.)