"A fable for our children, from Jesse James to Patty Hearst. A love story connecting the failure of love to the failure of the social contract; honestly, even daringly perceived, and very beautifully written." -James Baldwin

"Cattle Annie and Little Britches will undoubtedly be compared to True Grit, a book I admire, but Cattle Annie and Little Britches is a better book than True Grit. It is ranker, reeks of all of life's sweet stinks, is funnier, and is written in a clear, controlled language that vibrates on the page." -Harry Crews

"Good rollicking fun all the way, give or take a few shootings, robberies, gang fights, murders, and con jobs. Good entertainment." -Larry L. King

This delightful novel is based on the lives and adventures of two young women who did, indeed, live in the Old West in the 1890s and joined the famous Doolin-Dalton outlaw gang and fell in love with two members of the Gang and were called, as they are called here, Cattle Annie and Little Britches.

Britches, whose real name was Jennie Stevens, is the younger of the two (she's fourteen) and the more sensitive; she narrates the book. Annie (Annie McDougal) is a year older and is prettier, stronger, faster, and, as Britches learns, more vicious and less virtuous.

Britches writes of "...the dream we had, the dream of bad men, hard riding, lying low and living high." The dream comes true. But with all the adventure and excitement and freedom there also come sadness and death.

Here is a story in the tradition of True Grit and Addie Pray. It is energetically and yet delicately done. And for all its fun and sweet loving and hell-raising, it is at bottom a serious tale of girls becoming women and the choices they must make.