Blue Rodeo by Jo-Ann Mapson (review)

306 WesternAmerican Literature Wild.Game.ByFrankBergon. (Reno: UniversityofNevadaPress, 1995.336 pages,$22.00.) Frank Bergon’s most recent novel, Wild Game takes on important issues for the American West, following the tasks he set for himself in both Shoshone Mike and The TemptationsofSt.Ed & BrotherS.Thanks to the UniversityofNevadaPress, all three novels are available. In Wild Game, based on actual events, Jack Irigaray, a biologist for the Nevada Division of Wildlife, confronts some of the violent consequences of western mythology still being played out at the end ofthe twentieth century. The novel traces the effects of Irigaray’s encounter with a poacher turned folk hero, Billy Crockett. Caught with illegal game, Crockett killsagame warden, abystander, andwounds Irigaray—all to avoid arrest on a game violation. Though many novelists have tackled environmental issues, and many have chal­ lenged the mythologyofthe old West, fewhave done sowith the complexity, intelligence and clarity that Bergon achieves here. Irigaray is no hero in the ordinary sense, but he manages, ultimately, to be an effective advocate for wildlife aswell as the Nevada places he loves. Bergon pits the haplessIrigarayagainst the media-hyped “mountain man,”Billy Crockett. Crockettcaptures the imaginations and hearts ofWesterners because he fulfills powerful fantasies—he goes “back to nature”and back toadefiant rugged individualism, becoming a murderer in the process. What makes Wild Gameso important as an analysis ofthe mythologiesofthe new and oldWestisthatIrigarayhimselfsubscribes, deep down, to much of the mythology, as so manyWesterners do. Wild Gameworks as novel in the “true crime”genre, but it does much more. Bergon leads Irigaray on a lengthy chase, pursuing his nemesis Crockett in the best western tradition, but he also leads him to challenge assumptions about masculinity, about the nature ofwork, and about his place in the world. In the process Bergon educates readers about northern Nevada, and about the various positions taken by Nevadans on critical land-use, wildlife, and environmental issues. Throughout he gives attention and respect to proponents of the views common to locals, ones that are least popular outside the region. Wild Gameasks hard questions ofthe WestandWesterners, but never patronizes nor preaches. Finally, we have a book that features a government employee in the West, neither idealized nor a know-nothing incompetent, but someone with knowledge, com­ passion, and a fully realized sense of place. NANCYCOOK UniversityofRhodeIsland BlueRodeo. Byjo-Ann Mapson. (New York: HarperCollins, 1994. 318 pages, $22.00.) On the opening page ofJo-Ann Mapson’s captivating second novel, Blue Rodeo, a range-toughened three-legged cattle dog couples with a California bitch suffering from depression and anorexia. Reduced to itsbarest outline like this, the scene seems aheavyhanded portend of the eventual pairing of Blue Rodeo’s leading human characters. Yet Mapson has deftly woven a story that resembles the Navajo carpets she describes so delectably in its pages—a complex and individualistic rendering ofa traditional pattern. Reviews 307 Mapson’sheroine, forty-year-old MargaretYearwood, has fled an upscale California life and philandering ex-husband for “the edge of nowhere”—a rented ranch house outside Blue Dog, New Mexico. But “how do you go about leaving yourself?” Maggie wonders as she struggles with an overwhelming sense of failure as a wife and a parent. “Could you simply rent a new life . . .foregoing people for a place?” Maggie would give anything to buy a new life for her fifteen-year-old son, Peter. A day of hooky from school turns disastrous when Peter contracts a near fatal bout of meningitis. Finallyrecovering from amonths-long coma, Peter, and his mother, contend with the illness’ permanent scar: Peter’s total deafness. Attempting his own flight from pain, Peter enrolls in a school for the deaf in far-away Santa Fe. Maggie surreptitiously follows, setting up camp in Blue Dog, awaiting reconciliation with her bitter son. In a melancholy reprise of faltering parent-child communications, Maggie gropes for a new way to “talk”with Peter. But even her clumsy attempts atAmerican Sign Language can’t bridge the chasm of old hurts between them. Maggie’sloneliness is matched ache-for-ache byneighbor Owen Garrett, a lean and weathered sheepherder and former alcoholic driven to a hermit-like existence by the accidental killing of another cowboy in...