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Bullshit Rodeo

Misti Rainwater-Lites (Goodreads Author)

4.89 · Rating details · 19 ratings · 8 reviews

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Paperback, 280 pages

Published January 2014 by Epic Rites Press

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Mar 18, 2014 Ally rated it it was amazing

Bullshit Rodeo. Man, what a ride. Nothing like a book about someone who regrets all their life choices to really make you stop and think about your own. Ms. Rainwater-Lites writes a gripping stream of consciousness tale of a desperate woman trapped in a meaningless marriage and struggling with the demands of parenthood. Trapped in Texas, Misti grapples with her burning desire to uproot her life and really truly live as a woman and as an artist. Mixed with heartbreaking stories about her past and ...more

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Dec 04, 2012 Bud Smith rated it it was amazing

A real excellent book. Lots of magic here. Lots of darkness and nostalgia and blinding lights shining unexpectedly when least expected. Bullshit Rodeo was raw and thrilling in the best way. i don't think I've ever read a book that encapsulated 'longing' into such a potent form.

Bonus: this book turned me on to many other books and records that are referenced in the text. Love when that happens. ...more

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Mar 23, 2014 Devin McGuire rated it it was amazing

Let’s get this out of the way first. Bullshit Rodeo is not a book for the feint of heart. You’d better strap in and don your crash helmets for this one…

It begins with ebullience. And if you miss that part of this book you’ve missed the whole point. All children have it, that joie de vivre that makes life so worth living, that boundless joyous free state of being that most of us end up losing at some point in life. Ah but how to hold onto that? It’s always a tragedy when that spirit is straightja Let’s get this out of the way first. Bullshit Rodeo is not a book for the feint of heart. You’d better strap in and don your crash helmets for this one…

It begins with ebullience. And if you miss that part of this book you’ve missed the whole point. All children have it, that joie de vivre that makes life so worth living, that boundless joyous free state of being that most of us end up losing at some point in life. Ah but how to hold onto that? It’s always a tragedy when that spirit is straightjacketed suffocated at an early age, even worse when it’s the parent that does the strapping in. A stage is now set for lifelong turmoil. In the case of Bullshit Rodeo a girl’s spirit gets squashed by an overbearing parent and her religion; the girl rebels, spits foul language, drinks, does drugs, gets tattoos, dances topless, gets pregnant, gives child up to adoption, continues to live the wild life, flutes of Dionysus forever calling her... etc. etc. For the most part she stays a child and is forever struggling to get her shit together, but the overbearing disapproving misery-producing mother doesn’t go away. If a parent is overbearing it’s only because they LOVE you. So with each successive failure in a rebellious attempt at freedom and ebullience it’s always the parent who comes to save their wayward child. Pulled from the edge only to be pushed there once again. With this stage set we find the heroine of Bullshit Rodeo, Misti Rainwater, middle aged now, married to a loving husband and father of their two-year-old son, a part time stay at home mom and a woman who is in crisis mode. The problem? That goddamned Dionysus and his drums are calling from distant hills again.

The lines Misti Rainwater-Lites writes in Bullshit Rodeo are delivered in hypnotic poetic bursts of passion with a gritty rawness. She deserves medals for her bravery and honesty. Is this fiction? I’m not sure. It reads from a semi-auto biographical standpoint and makes references to a writer whom to me was the best at this style of writing: Henry Miller. It even bears Miller’s watermark of influence too. I don’t know how many times I had to keep pausing while reading this book just so I could collect myself, still my heart, and catch my breathe. I’m not sure I’ve ever read prose quite like this before. It rolls and roars like a freight train. It is brutally foul and scathing, it is dark, it is raunchy and dirty, it is soaring, it is passionate, it is light and love and misery all wrapped up together like a bean burrito with a side of guacamole. Yes, it is funny; shit yes it is funny too!

It could prove easy for some to get lost down the rabbit hole in Bullshit Rodeo because it is a beautiful disaster of a non-linear mess. The narrative bounces back and forth. In the present Misti is on the precipice of leaving her husband and abandoning her son in nowhereville Texas so she can go chase the dream of a free bohemian lifestyle in San Francisco and a poet named Dan Zero whom she loves. This story of loving and leaving is woven throughout the entire novel. From a father who abandoned the family when Misti is young to go chase and settle with another woman, to a mother thrice married, to Misti’s own chaotic record of walking out on loves and husbands, of being a cheat, a demon, a cold hearted selfish bitch. Yet for all the moral depravity the heroine of this novel is draped in a shawl of crushing guilt. Her proverbial guardian angel on one shoulder and her demon on the other locked in violent epic battle as she dances precariously on the edge of the great abyss. For Misti believes that despite what she’s experienced as having a short shelf life, love in the end can save her: the love of Dan Zero in this case. This love however is an unrequited love. After prior relations with Dan Zero he eventually rejects her and ignores her. The pain of this unrequited love is a driving force throughout the book. She reacts to it with a childish denial refusing to give up on her dream of real true love. For her it’s part and parcel of ebullience. She has a loving husband and son but joy is still a wraith forever dancing just out of reach. Her heart still aches and yearns. For the reader this presents as the surprising reason to have empathy and find forgiveness and compassion for this broken princess; despite its cold hard tortured exterior, the function and aim of her heart is still pure and true.

This is a book that’s going to stick with me for quite sometime. It is in me now and in some ways it has caused an internal seismic rift that has awakened and changed something. That’s power. Despite the fact that everything about Misti Rainwater-Lites screams individual, the themes of this work, love and the human spirit’s desire and struggle for freedom are universal. Having been through a marriage and a divorce myself these themes really hit home and spoke to me and (given America’s divorce rate) might for many others as well. But it’s more than just the personal connection I experienced with this book. I think it works as a brilliant piece of art. Its wit, its humor, its gut wrenching pain and passion, it’s hypnotic poetic scrawls of Jupiter and the Texas starlight and vodka gimlet baths, its culturally grounding references of Patsy Cline songs, karaoke bars, Barbie dolls and microwave popcorn and special chats with Elvis whom is calling from the moon of Europa, all while constructing a tale of girl interrupted become middle aged women interrupted: all of this blends together to create a work that while standing apart as wholly unique in its own right speaks universally to the heart of truth in the human spirit. Something clear. Something those who are truly awake will understand and embrace the way great art should be embraced.

...more

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Mar 10, 2014 John Grochalski rated it it was amazing

It is a rare thing these days to come across an original voice in fiction. Most have been watered down by MFA program or in chasing the ghost of an idol through pale imitation. But Misti Rainwater-Lites has given me hope with Bullshit Rodeo. The novel is 100% original. It is also a stream of conscious, courageous, bold, brash, outrageously funny, sexy, scandalous, heartbreaking work of immense talent. I found myself identifying with the main character throughout, and just being blown away by the ...more

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May 30, 2014 Matthew J. Hall rated it it was amazing

I was astonished by how Rainwater Lites' writing could provoke such contradictory emotions as I read; laughing out loud at the top of a page, gritting my teeth with anger at its midsection and cringing from the infectious self-loathing at its bottom. This is the book you will want to throw across the room only to find yourself picking it back up again a few minutes later and starting where you left off.

Bullshit Rodeo is a carefully crafted, poetic, intelligent, insightful piece of unmissable con ...more

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Mar 04, 2014 Moctezuma Johnson rated it it was amazing

Shelves: moctezuma-s-choice-choices, best-of-2014

This is the best book I've read this year. I'm a huge fan. I get hard when I read Misti's work. Always. But this book is different than Misti's books of poems. It is deeper up in the cerebellum. It's so honest and brutal and funny and sad and heartfelt and embarrassing and necessary. This is hot you write, America! I ate my heart out while reading this. I took all my work and set fire to it. Why bother? This is the real thing. Nothing Bullshit about this Rodeo. She's got the lasso. She's got the This is the best book I've read this year. I'm a huge fan. I get hard when I read Misti's work. Always. But this book is different than Misti's books of poems. It is deeper up in the cerebellum. It's so honest and brutal and funny and sad and heartfelt and embarrassing and necessary. This is hot you write, America! I ate my heart out while reading this. I took all my work and set fire to it. Why bother? This is the real thing. Nothing Bullshit about this Rodeo. She's got the lasso. She's got the chaps on. She's the bull, she's the shit!

The book. Where to begin? Tough it is so packed with stuff! One, it's not really a book. It's the voice of the poet but in prose. And the prose isn't really prose. It's way too fucking pretty and bloody and wrapped in tamale leaves for prose. It's musical. Yet it's not sentimental whatsoever even though it's a kind of self-imagine love story. Misti Velvet is in love with Dan Zero. Who cares? But I did care because of the way it is in Misti's head. Even though she's falling for him over and over in her head it's not sappy. It's a real, vibrant, stain the sheets with your tears, bang your fist into the pillow while snot drips from your crying nose kind of love. It's the realization that life is hard. That you can't be all the roles you want to be at once. Misti wants to be writer, wanderer, mother, lover, whore, virgin all at once. She's got the chops for all the roles, but she's not a Hindu Goddess. She can't be all things simultaneously, so she has to choose and that choice is tearing her soul into pieces. Two, I can relate to the feelings of dying to escape where you are from. Take Texas for Misti or New Jersey for Moctezuma it's about the same. They are places that a person has to leave if they need to escape a provincial mindset. Three, it centers around her learning to be a mother for her son. Stories about families have a certain way about them and this was really well done because the book never seemed to be about that, it seemed to be about something else, but it was about family. And it brought it all together.

I remember the inside cover of a Tom Robbins saying "trying to explain a Tom Robbins plot was like looking at a snowflake and trying to explain slalom skiing." I feel the same way about this book. The way it is told is what makes it so good. It invigorates a language that is mostly being used to tag selfies. This is necessary and Misti has done it with class and power.

...more

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Nov 16, 2013 Ralph-Michael Chiaia rated it it was amazing

Shelves: great-books-by-great-writers-right

Reading this book is an out-of-body experience. Misti Velvet is pining for Dan Zero and the quality of this is so hyper-sensitive that it becomes sublime. It pulls you in. You can't stop it. It can't be stopped.

The whole book is built off of longing for a man she cannot have, for escape from Texas, for escape from motherhood. That's the plot, and who cares? This book is not about plot. It's about sensation.

I'm a father and a writer and I could relate to every single word of this story. The voi ...more

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Jan 14, 2015 Puma Perl rated it it was amazing

Upcoming review in Clockwise Cat. Misti is my spiritual daughter. She turns obsession into high art.

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About Misti Rainwater-Lites

Misti Rainwater-Lites

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Misti Rainwater-Lites writes books and deals in impossibilities. Her novel Bullshit Rodeo is available at amazon and from Tree Killer Ink. Misti shakes that metaphorical ass at Chupacabra Disco on a spastic basis.