Robert Day is professor of English and creative writing at Washington College in Chestertown Maryland.

Spangler Star Tukle is a Kansas cattleman with 6,000 acres and a low boiling point. (Tukle is so choleric that he empties a shotgun into a power mower that has offended him.) When the rancher decides to drive his 250 head of cattle to the Kansas City stockyards to save shipping costs, you can expect Murphy's Law to become 100 percent operative.... Atmospheric. - New York Times Book Review ""Fetching, with some tall, raunchy saddletalk and a style as clear as sweet buttered corn."" - Kirkus Reviews ""Tightly written... and powerfully evocative. The smells, sights, and sounds of Kansas are described so well at times that one begins to cough as the dust crawls up through the floorboards of the battered pickup."" - Baltimore Sun ""Very real, earthy, and vital.... Exceedingly well told and funny."" - Kansas City Star ""Call it a mid-western. Call it cowboys and urbanites. Call it well-written entertainment."" - Booklist