Cowboys Are My Weakness: Stories

"I've always had this thing for cowboys, maybe because I was born in New Jersey. But a real cowboy is hard to find these days, even in the West," says the narrator in the title story of Pam Houston's critically acclaimed collection.

In these strong, shrewd, and very funny stories, we meet smart women who are looking for the love of a good man, and men who are wild and hard to pin down. Our heroines are part daredevil, part philosopher, all acute observers of the nuances of modern romance. They go where their cowboys go, they meet cowboys who don't look the part — and they have staunch friends who give them advice when the going gets rough.

Cowboys Are My Weakness is a refreshing and realistic look at men and women — together and apart.

"A beautiful collection about sexual politics, old and new." Charles Baxter

"Exhilarating, like a swift ride through river rapids with a spunky, sexy gal handling the oars." Washington Post Book World

"Houston claims for women the terrain staked out by male writers from Hemingway to Richard Ford." Los Angeles Times

"A collection of smart, surefooted stores, full of humor, intelligence and a kind of steely-eyed wonder.... These are the stories that might have emerged had an intelligent woman followed Hemingway around." San Francisco Chronicle

"At her best, Ms. Houston snaps along in a sassy canter, her prose sharp and clean and full of sentences worth underlining." New York Times Book Review

"Houston's voice is something new in fiction...Bright, edgy, touching, and ruefully self-aware as she rewrites the old heterosexual blues...Her heroines — or perhaps they are all the same heroine — are lean and tough, self-created adventurers." Boston Globe

"A brilliant collection of stories... that strike at the heart and end up revealing much about the complex state of relations between men and women." Judith Freeman, Los Angeles Times

"Beautifully written and funny." Cleveland Plain Dealer

"Exhilarating, like a swift ride through river rapids with a spunky, sexy gal handling the oars."--Washington Post Book World

In Pam Houston's critically acclaimed collection of strong, shrewd, and very funny stories, we meet smart women who are looking for the love of a good man, and men who are wild and hard to pin down. "I've always had this thing for cowboys, maybe because I was born in New Jersey. But a real cowboy is hard to find these days, even in the West," says the narrator in the title story of Pam Houston's critically acclaimed collection. In these strong, shrewd, and very funny stories, we meet smart women who are looking for the love of a good man, and men who are wild and hard to pin down. Our heroines are part daredevil, part philosopher, all acute observers of the nuances of modern romance. They go where their cowboys go, they meet cowboys who don't look the part — and they have staunch friends who give them advice when the going gets rough. Cowboys Are My Weakness is a refreshing and realistic look at men and women—together and apart.

"Houston's voice is something new in fiction—bright, edgy, touching, and ruefully self-aware as she rewrites the old heterosexual blues....Her heroines are lean and tough, self-created adventurers."—Boston Globe "A collection of smart, surefooted stories, full of humor, intelligence and a kind of steely-eyed wonder....These are the stories that might have emerged had an intelligent woman followed Hemingway around."—San Francisco Chronicle "Brilliant....Houston claims for women the terrain staked out by male writers from Hemingway to Richard Ford....Her voice is wholly formed and perfect."—Los Angeles Times

Pam Houston was born in New Jersey and graduated from Denison University in 1983. Her collection of stories, Cowboys Are My Weakness, was the 1993 winner of the Western States Book Award, and now appears in eight languages. "How to Talk to a Hunter" was selected for Best American Short Stories 1990. Houston is the editor of the anthology Women on Hunting and wrote the text for a book of photographs called Men Before Ten A.M. She has been a contributing editor at Elle and Ski, now writes regularly for Condé Nast Sports for Women, and teaches creative writing at workshops across the country. Formerly a hunting guide and river guide, she lives at 9,000 feet near the Continental Divide in southwestern Colorado.