Even Cowgirls Get the Blu...

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Tom Robbins

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Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

by Tom Robbins

3.65 · rating details · 20,569 ratings · 984 reviews

The whooping crane rustlers are girls. Young girls. Cowgirls, as a matter of fact, all “bursting with dimples and hormones”—and the FBI has never seen anything quite like them. Yet their rebellion at the Rubber Rose Ranch is almost overshadowed by the arrival of the legendary Sissy Hankshaw, a white-trash goddess literally born to hitchhike, and the freest female of them a

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Mass Market Paperback, 416 pages

Published December 28th 1981 by Bantam Books (first published 1976)

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Apr 19, 2007

emily cress rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone- just to prove my point

Tim Robbins is an ASS. He is a creative literary genius and he throws it in your face all throughout this book. You will walk away from this novel not only because it is gross, (or because you have pieces of Tim Robbin's genius on your face), but also because you wont be able to figure out why someone so apparently gifted would write about this trivial crap. It will stump you for days, and on the fifth day you will realize that TR is just what he appears to be...a gifted and obscenely talented A...more

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Apr 08, 2007

Helena rated it

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Shelves: essentials

You know that road trip you've always wanted to take? (Maybe you've taken it already and if so, I am jealous of you.) You know that road trip you're always planning, the one where you drive a beat-up, gorgeous, car full of books and old clothes, and mix tapes and takeout containers and random souveneirs of americana, through america, maybe by yourself or maybe with one or a few of the people you love most in the world? And you take polaroids of yourself and your wear ripped up jeans and drive ba...moreYou know that road trip you've always wanted to take? (Maybe you've taken it already and if so, I am jealous of you.) You know that road trip you're always planning, the one where you drive a beat-up, gorgeous, car full of books and old clothes, and mix tapes and takeout containers and random souveneirs of americana, through america, maybe by yourself or maybe with one or a few of the people you love most in the world? And you take polaroids of yourself and your wear ripped up jeans and drive barefoot and wear big hunter s. style shades and hang one foot out the window sometimes and sometimes when traffic is bad you park the car by the side of the road and turn the music up real loud and dance until the traffic dies down and find beautiful, hidden places that you can't get to by plane or bus or chartered tour, those places in america (you know they're there) accessible only by Really Awesome Roadtrip? And you stay up driving all night and pointing out stars through the windshield and sometimes you have long conversations where you get honest and earthy and grounded and dangerous in a way you can't get except in a car, on a road trip, somewhere halfway into America, and sometimes you have sex in the car, late at night in parking lots or in the afternoon with summer making the leather seats sticky and making car-smell and body-smell the same thing and afterwards you go the a dairy queen by the side of the road and buy milkshakes and drink them giggling like kids getting away with something? And you drive over mountains that you think you maybe won't ever find your way out of and through states like Wyoming where there's nothing but the road and the sky and you feel so gloriously small that you completely forget what you look like? And you meet gorgeous, prophetic, fictive strangers and have incredibly intense experiences with them and feel like you're in a movie and novel and a rock song and love them perfectly because you know you won't ever see them again? And get, finally, to the other side of the country, tired and sore and stained and achy and grouchy and just totally, totally transcendent, and feel that you understand yourself in a way you always wanted to understand yourself, but never knew how to get to before?

This book is like that road trip.

[Significantly cheaper, too.](less)

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Dec 01, 2009

Carrie rated it

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Shelves: fiction

I found the first two thirds of the book to be engaging, after that I felt like I was reading the term paper of an intro to philosophy student.

Also, even if the first two thirds were engaging, I was often uncomfortable, and not uncomfortable in that "hey, I'm stretching my thoughts beyond their normal boundaries" kind of uncomfortable, just the regular kind of uncomfortable.

Take for example the legend of Sissy's earliest hitchhiking endeavors. Reading about a y...more

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Jul 14, 2007

Robert Page rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Anyone who wants to get 100 pages in and give up in despair

Bah. Many people won't find this review helpful. I do care about that, but not enough to change my review, because I feel it encompasses my feelings for this book quite fully. Here it is:

I had to choose between continuing to read ECGTB or staring at the back of the airplane seat in front of me.

I chose the back of the seat.

Repeatedly.

I'd read a section, and think to myself "This is shit!" and put it down to stare at the seat in front of m...more

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Aug 11, 2009

A.K. rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: s-e-x, slipstream-and-speculative, queer

Lost a star as one of the morals of the story is "Lesbians, deep down, need dicking." I'm not going to get mad at a lesbian-identified person who falls in love with or wants to have sex with men, but Robbins goes on to explain that this is literally what lesbians, lovely and sweet and cute as their affairs are, need. Boo.

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Jul 16, 2007

Michael rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: contemporary_fiction, bullshit, comedy-parody

Gosh, but I hated this book. It felt smarmy. And mind you, I love people like Pynchon et al, but this felt like it thought it was smart but wasn't very, and it hasn't aged well. Made myself finish it because I'd been told I'd love Robbins, but this was my introduction and I never looked back.

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Jan 19, 2008

Sarah rated it

· review of another edition

"AMAZING! This book came into my life by chance and I am glad it did. A hilarious and engaging read that also questioned and affirmed pieces of my own life in powerful ways. Apparently this book has been around for a generation, but I think it needs a rebirth - it is still relevant, maybe even moreso now that the "mainstream" has changed.

Some specific points from the novel that I love:
Why are white people always looking for spirituality in other cultures? We ha...more

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Oct 22, 2007

Christine rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: To anyone who just read 5 non-fiction p the wold is ending - humans such - books in a row.

Passage From Book:

This sentence is made of lead ( and a sentence of lead gives a reader an entirely different sensation from one made of magnesium). This sentence is made of yak wool. This sentence is made of sunlight and plums. This sentence is made of ice. This sentence is made from the blood of the poet. This sentence was made in Japan. This sentence glows in the dark. This sentence was born with a caul. This sentence has a crush on Norman Mailer. This sentence is a wino ...more

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Aug 17, 2007

Wyn rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Everyone !

My all-time, absolute, favorite book ever. The 'stranded-on-a-desert-island-with-only-one-book' favorite. I can read this one over and over.

Hitch-hikers, lesbians, whooping cranes, feminine hygenine products - it has everything. And written in a lyrical manner that begs to be read out loud. (Trust me - I have done this. Parts of this book are poetry.)

I haven't given away as many copies of this as I have 'Good Omens' because I think it doesn't have as broad an appeal....more

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Jul 24, 2007

Adriana rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: women one and all

I think this book can be best summarized by quickly scanning the list of reviews; people love it or they loathe it.

Me? I loved it.

I'll admit that I might be biased in favor of this book simply because I have a fairly unusual set of opposable digits myself. You see, first and foremost, this is a story about thumbs. Well, its is a story about thumbs, cowgirls, body odor, literary theory, feminism, epiphanies, dirty old men, the end of time, sex, psychoanalysis and liber...more

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Apr 02, 2008

Deez rated it

· review of another edition

Okay so overall I did like this book, but I am not giving it more then these two stars. You know why? Because I have a problem with a man that writes about lesbians who then interjects himself sexually into the story at the end and has the lesbians hook up with men. Fuck you Tom Robbins! You took a giant shit in the middle of perfectly good and delicious pie. You ruined it. Otherwise the story would have been awesome. I felt so cheated at the end. Another reason I don't like you is because back ...more

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Aug 27, 2008

elisa rated it

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Shelves: 2008

this was my first tom robbins so i don't know if he always writes like this, but i have never read anyone like him before. what a quirky, unique way of writing. at times it was so weird that it was distracting, and overall i think it was just a little too over the top for me. but this book is funny at times, and has some really great themes, about freedom and happiness, about being yourself and embracing who you are, about time and how the world thinks about it...also i have to say it was a...more

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Mar 17, 2009

Robyn marked it as tried-to-read-or-listen · review of another edition

Shelves: gave-up, fiction

I think I'm supposed to like this but it just annoyed me. Good narrator though. Life's too short for annoying books. Moving on...

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Apr 16, 2009

Holly Paluck rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fun-light-books

A wonderful story of a girl with rather large thumbs which lead her on many adventures as a natural 'hitchhiker', who learns to love her unique appendages!

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Dec 11, 2011

Debbiegordon rated it

· review of another edition

I am sorry to say I have to add this book to my "did not finish" list. I usually enjoy Tom Robbins, but what a horrendous book this was.
I wanted to like it...I tried very hard to like it. I've only had good experiences with Robbins in the past, so it took me awhile to realize that I really was not enjoying this book at all.
I can't even quite express why I disliked it....it had aspects of Robbins’ writing that I liked, but it just seem so exaggerated. The escape from reali...more

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Jul 22, 2011

Susan rated it

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Shelves: fiction, glbt

I give this book 2.5 stars. I almost liked it. Certainly Robbins has some intriguing ideas, and he can turn a nice phrase once in a while. But I found his long lists tedious: if something could be said well with one phrase (or word or clause), Robbins chose instead to list all the possible phrases he could have chosen for that position in that sentence. I kept wishing I could skip over them, which, since I was listening to the audio book, I really couldn't do.

I think this book migh...more

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Jun 22, 2011

Marcie rated it

· review of another edition

This is some of the best writing I've read on the sentence/paragraph level. I wasn't particularly concerned with where things were going plotwise at first because it was such a pleasure to read Robbins's prose, but I eventually found myself drawn into the story too.

This book is silly, clever, thoughtful, endearing, sweet, dirty, poignant, thought-provoking, funny, pithy, punny and charming, etc. The feminism made me proud to be a woman without turning me against men. Robbins is ...more

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Feb 14, 2011

Brooke Johnson rated it

· review of another edition

I hated this book and would give it half a star if I could.

Let me be clear- he is a good writer and knows his way around the words BUT the book reads like this: "I celebrate randomness... Random, random, in your face moralizing, random.... Ah ha, you think I've taken it too far, well, sucks for you because I'm going to take it further. In fact, if you don't enjoy this next tangent it's because you are not as enlightened and intelligent as I am! Random, random, in your face moraliz...more

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Sep 14, 2010

Ben Wrobel rated it

· review of another edition

Some people would argue that the story is not the most important part of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", rather, the story only serves as a vehicle for the philosophy and existential musings of a young and emboldened Tom Robbins. I would argue that that that doesn't go far enough - the story actually gets in the way of Robbins' rants.

Robbins was a counterculture icon when this book was published in 1976, and his rambling odes to freedom, irrational behavior and, yes, female ...moreSome people would argue that the story is not the most important part of "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues", rather, the story only serves as a vehicle for the philosophy and existential musings of a young and emboldened Tom Robbins. I would argue that that that doesn't go far enough - the story actually gets in the way of Robbins' rants.

Robbins was a counterculture icon when this book was published in 1976, and his rambling odes to freedom, irrational behavior and, yes, female genitalia, stand alone as the highlight of this book. What holds it back is that Robbins tries to transform his metaphors and symbols into flesh-and-blood character - so that the idea of the thumb as a symbol of human movement and freedom (other animals lack its "flexibility") gets personified in the main character, Sissy Hankshaw, who literally has enormous thumbs and uses them to hitchhike. Or the free-thinking cowgirls who represent free spirits, feminist thought and a living-off-the-earth cerebral lifestyle, but come off as stock characters who alternately speak and act like B-movie cowboys or Robbins-school intellectuals.

The plot that Robbins creates for these characters suffers from poor pacing and silly plot twists, so it was no surprise to learn that the film adaptation flopped when it only managed to convey the narrative and not the deeper philosophy. However, I suppose a certain amount of plot is necessary so that the reader has a reason to continue (I never finished "Zen and the Art of Motorcycle Maintenance" for this reason) and Robbins at least seems fully aware of the narrative's easy convenience, often making meta comments in the book's last few chapters.

Still, Robbins excels when writing in the abstract, and many of his thoughts are lasting. Humans are too dependent on time and place, he writes, and we must look at our history and realize the absurdity of what we consider our goals. Poetry and "magic" should be our guiding forces (when he says it, it somehow makes sense). However, the book does not pretend to be a self-help guide, or to contain all the answers. The most eye-opening revelation, for me at least, was that a single mentor, shaman or religion cannot teach you how to be happy or give you all the answers. By very definition, those answers can only be found by looking inside yourself. Tom Robbins may not be willing to give us the answers, but he provides us a new way of thinking about them.(less)

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Jul 03, 2010

Bryan rated it

· review of another edition

two freakishly large thumbs up: A young lady with fantastically large thumbs. An all female ranch. Roundabout routes to self-descovery, hitchiking and whooping cranes. The troublesome part about reading "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" is twofold. The first is that you cannot put it down. The second is, having subjected yourself to such a large dose of Robbins trippy, meandering style, you begin to think like him. Worse, you begin to talk the way he writes. One moment, you're having a per...more

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Jan 20, 2010

Jennifer Brearly rated it

· review of another edition

This is a book that travels well. It moves from rural Nowhere to New York City to the wide open spaces of the Dakotas. It has the gemmy shine of a South American diamond, the sweetness of a Georgia peach, and the sauciness of a Louisiana chef. Robbins has written many fantastic books, some better than others. This is absolutely one of the best. What sets "Cowgirls" apart--though some will not agree with me--is its irreverent delight in the human being.

The key humans in this...more

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Jan 10, 2010

Carlyfaye rated it

· review of another edition

There's a lot to say about Tom Robbins. I have only read a few of his novels but I can already tell you: Yes, he does like similes. Yes, to an excessive degree. But to me, these are the gems to pick out when reading one of his stories. They are the parts I enjoy most even if it means digging through a few of them first. His arrogance is something almost amusing, but I have definitely had my fair amount of eye-rolls. Sometimes it feels like he projects himself in ways to test if one is actually s...moreThere's a lot to say about Tom Robbins. I have only read a few of his novels but I can already tell you: Yes, he does like similes. Yes, to an excessive degree. But to me, these are the gems to pick out when reading one of his stories. They are the parts I enjoy most even if it means digging through a few of them first. His arrogance is something almost amusing, but I have definitely had my fair amount of eye-rolls. Sometimes it feels like he projects himself in ways to test if one is actually smart enough to understand his wit. To some, he comes across as bombastic at times due to his "intellectual" choice in vocabulary. But hey, an author has the right to use whatever word he wants, and due to his focus on pushing societal restraints, I wouldn't be surprised if he does this intentionally to shake up the reader's own vocabulary comfort. I mean, the word does exist, it might as well be used once in awhile. One thing is for certain, you can always tell when you're reading a Tom Robbins book.

I like this story mainly for personal reasons towards connecting with the main character, Sissy. Overcoming social discomfort and prejudice due to outward appearance is something noticeable to a great degree. The plot itself isn't something that was profound, but the quirky characters are lovable, and how he connects things through religious facts, philosophies, and criticisms of modern day society while including dashes of humor to examine the characters' predicaments is interesting, and also engaged my own thinker-- though these "philosophical messages" do seem to get a bit redundant when taking his other books into account. Also, this book did attempt to focus on female empowerment, but was lacking real strength in my opinion.

I've noticed he's gotten quite the rap for overtly misogynistic sexual undertones. Which to a degree, is true. His sexual explicitness could also, at times, ride the line of vulgarity for some folk. I guess I'm simply not the type of person to experience excessive anger towards the more shallow natures of a human being through a fictional book. Some readers, however, may understandably be put off by his reoccurring focus on sex in his novels, but Tom Robbins also focuses on the positivity of love almost just as heavily.

All in all, I like Tom Robbins' colorful writing style, and would suggest this book if you're not familiar with it for it is both an easy and entertaining read.
(less)

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Nov 01, 2009

Ringthebells rated it

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This review has been hidden because it contains spoilers. To view it, click here.

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Jan 20, 2009

Sarah rated it

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Shelves: fiction, new-classics

Tom Robbins is a master of confounding readers and turning preconceived plots and societal notions on their heads. The value his narrators place on inanimate objects or personal philosophies usually win out over whatever cultural baggage readers bring to his work; probably that is because Robbins is so utterly charming in speaking to a need for more interesting, more vibrant lifestyles and self-definition.

Self-referential, he is. Indulgent of personal fantasies as filtered through ...more

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Feb 26, 2009

Shelley added it · review of another edition

I hated this book. Hated it. HATED IT. I can't say that enough, sometimes it feels really good to hate something that deserves to be hated. I think Tom Robbins is a chump. I think it's pretty funny that he attempted to write a novel intended to be taken as liberating to women, but managed to come up with some of the weakest women characters I have ever read about. I hate his voice, and I hate his snarky little interjections. I felt like this was about listening to Tom Robbins' drone on an...more

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Jan 21, 2011

Aishwarya rated it

· review of another edition

Recommends it for: Any lover of the "beat" philosophy, science, and crazy benign beliefs.

Recommended to Aishwarya by: literature-map.com

I'll say it as well, because it cannot be said enough - Robbins is a genius, and hilariously so, because he evidently enjoys bumming around ingeniously. Getting to the book... it is full of amazing play on words, amazing metaphors, and (what all these nazis of serious literature consider frivolous), magnificent narrative digressions in the first person. His feministic view is just the cherry on the top, but I was disappointed when he ultimately alluded to the male-female relationship as the only...more

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Mar 14, 2008

Beth rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: fiction, favorites

This is the first Tom Robbins book I ever read and it will always hold a dear place in my heart. People either love or hate Tom Robbins and I love him and everything that he writes, but this is definitely one of my favorites. The story of Sissy, a beautiful girl with giant thumbs, and a host of other hilarious characters is both a fun romp and a meditation on the most basic assumptions of our society. I'll never get tired of this book!

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Aug 26, 2007

Steve rated it

· review of another edition

Mr. Robbins is clever. But he has GOT to stop telling us about just how clever he is every other sentence. He must be terribly annoying at parties. This is the only book by him that I've read in whole, and I really enjoyed certain aspects of it. I don't want to read anything else by him.

It’s like that Eagles’ Greatest Hits album you have. You enjoy it, but you’ll never need any other record from the Eagles.

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Jul 30, 2011

Joseph Dunn rated it

· review of another edition

Shelves: literature

I don't know of any writer like Tom Robbins. If someone were to ask me to describe the plot to "Even Cowgirls Get the Blues" I would hesitate to respond. Well, because I don't think that is the way to approach this novel. Yes, there is a linear narrative revolving around Sissy Hankshaw, a southern-bell born with giant-mutant thumbs, a girl who made an art of hitchhiking, who made a spiritual practice through hitchhiking, who learned how to LIVE through hitchhiking. Sissy Hankshaw, ...more

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Dec 20, 2011

Erika rated it

· review of another edition

If you've read one Tom Robbins book, you've read them all. I really like Still Life with Woodpecker. I had a hard time throughout this entire book. I GET IT TOM ROBBINS. YOU THINK WOMEN ARE OPPRESSED AND ARE OBSESSED WITH TIMING OUR MENSTRUAL CYCLES TO THE MOON. I think Tom Robbins is the original hippie "I know how to write like a woman" smug male writer in a long line of smug male writers who like to prove that they can write from a woman's point of view and a just a little off on th...more

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About Tom Robbins

Thomas Eugene Robbins (born July 22, 1936 in Blowing Rock, North Carolina) is an American author. His novels are complex, often wild stories with strong social undercurrents, a satirical bent, and obscure details. His novel Even Cowgirls Get the Blues (1976) was made into a movie in 1993 directed by Gus Van Sant.

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