Rowdy in Paris

by Tim Sandlin

Overview

Rowdy Talbot is not the world's greatest bull rider. Not even close. But he lives by the cowboy code, he never forgets to take off his hat during the national anthem, and he determines his successes and his failures in eight exhilarating seconds.

When at long last Rowdy's bull riding win at the rodeo in Crockett County, Colorado gives him a sought after championship belt buckle and some real cowboy credibility, he celebrates his triumph with Odette and Giselle, two young Frenchwomen he meets in the Gut Shot Bar and Sports Lounge. Through the haze of the next morning's headache, he discovers that the two have left for Paris with his prize buckle. So Rowdy does what any true cowboy would: he hops on a plane to the City of Light to get back what is rightfully his. What follows is a comic collision of cultures and personalities. Although Rowdy is hopelessly unprepared for his quest---in Paris it takes an outlandish four espressos to fill up a regular coffee cup, and cowboy boots are hell on pavement--true cowboys don't give up. Thrust into an unlikely melange of characters, Rowdy runs from a gang of disaffected French revolutionaries, uncovers a sensitive side to the thieving Odette, and befriends a turquoise-peddling CIA operative and a middle-aged courtesan, only to find that his new friends as well as his enemies are all caught up in a plot to destroy the American fast food franchise system. But even amid the chaos, Rowdy begins to realize that there's a whole other world beyond the back of a bull. By turns smart and satirical, biting and engaging, ROWDY IN PARIS is a surprisingly moving story about what it means to broaden one's horizons by opening one's heart.

"The great Tim Sandlin is in full stride with ROWDY IN PARIS, a novel that's funny, sharp, and endearing. Sandlin's cockeyed humor and piquant prose deliver once more all the delights we've come to expect from him." Daniel Woodrell, author of WINTER'S BONE
"ROWDY IN PARIS is a delight. If you read only one book this year about a sawed-off bull rider looking for a stolen buckle, love, dignity, and a decent cup of coffee in the City of Light, make it this one." Sarah Bird, author of WEIGHTLESS
"As tight and funny as anyone doing this comedy-novel thing." Christopher Moore

Product Details

ISBN-13:	9780989395762
Publisher:	Oothoon Press
Publication date:	02/27/2015

About the Author

Tim Sandlin is the author of the GroVont trilogy—Skipped Parts, Sorrow Floats, and Social Blunders—as well as Western Swing, Sex and Sunsets, and Honey Don't. He is also the author of a collection of columns from the Jackson Hole News called The Pyms: Unauthorized Tales of Jackson Hole.

What People are Saying About This

From the Publisher

“If you read only one book this year about a sawed-off bull rider looking for a stolen buckle...make it this one.”—Sarah Bird, author of Weightless

“You read it as though your life depends upon it... You laugh until your stomach aches. It’s truly that funny...It’s Sandlin at his best.”—Mark Spragg, author of The Fruit of the Stone

“You might split your gut laughing.”—Library Journal

“There’s at least a laugh a page.”—W. P. Kinsella, author of Shoeless Joe

 

Editorial Reviews

What do you think would happen if an emotionally dysfunctional bull rider chased two French women back to Paris because they stole his championship belt buckle? Do you suppose anyone would believe his story? Do you suppose he'd get mixed up with supercilious Gallic economic snob terrorists or be recruited by an unlikely CIA cab driver with an obsession for turquoise? You think he might wind up in a brothel or be defenestrated at least once? Do you think he might conquer some of his own phobias and help save France for good old American capitalism? Take a cowboy's tour of the City of Light with Rowdy Talbot and find out. You just might learn some self-evident truths such as "Never make assumptions about foreign women." You might split your gut laughing, too. Sandlin has written seven other novels, including Jimi Hendrex Turns Eighty), and if there's one thing you can expect from a Sandlin novel, it's a homely observation on every page, and some of those are bound to make you grin till your cheeks hurt. Highly recommended for all fiction collections where cowboy humor is appreciated. [See Prepub Alert, LJ9/1/07.]
—Ken St. Andre

Library Journal