Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Surreal, sensual and profoundly funny, this is your chance to become acquainted with the work of Tom Robbins. He has been described as 'the most dangerous writer in the world' and (by the Financial Times) as 'one of the wildest and most entertaining novelists in the world today', and from the opening sentence of the story - 'Amoebae leave no fossils' - to the Special Bonus Parable at the end, you will be smiling all the way. Sissy Hankshaw is a beautiful and confused young woman who uses her abnormally large thumbs to turn hitchhiking into an art form which helps her escape from small-town, small-thinking Richmond, Virginia and on to an odyssey of hope and revelation. Arrested for trying to hitchhike an ambulance (twice, coming and going) and released, 'not least for the frustration she caused the fingerprinter', Sissy becomes a model for the Countess, the rich inventor and manufacturer of the world's most popular feminine hygiene products. He also owns the Rubber Rose ranch where unhappy women can be taught how to deal with even the most intimate beauty problems. The ranch has a lake which is on the flight path of the last flock of wild whooping cranes left in existence and when Sissy is sent there for a photo shoot the regime at the ranch is overthrown by the cowgirls who work there. Although married to Julian, Sissy finds true love at the ranch as well as enlightenment from Chink, a nearby hermit and guru. When the whooping cranes won't leave the lake the situation becomes a national emergency. Sissy's thumbs become more sinister and to escape their violence she returns to the ranch to join former loves as they square up to a shootout with the FBI. Threads of reality and sound philosophies do run through this action-packed adventure but manage not to spoil the fun. (Kirkus UK)