Black Angus

Book excerpt: An Ozarks rancher takes a desperate gamble in this searing novel from “one of the truly great American writers of the 20th century” (The Guardian). Bob Blanchard spent his entire inheritance on a cattle ranch in the Missouri Ozarks—but it hasn’t turned out the way he’d hoped, and he’s now being threatened with foreclosure. The cattle are sick, and the herd can’t survive, so Blanchard agrees to a reckless scheme to sell the cattle before their illness is widely known. But when a faked cattle rustling and an insurance scam goes wrong, the plan begins to crumble from the inside out. “A commanding writer of unusual delicacy and power.” —The New Yorker “A born storyteller.” —St. Louis Post-Dispatch