CATTLE KATE by Jana Bommersbach

Cattle Kate is a novel based on the legend of the lynching of Cattle Kate as a cattle rustler on July 20, 1889, in Wyoming Territory. In reality, the woman lynched never heard the name Cattle Kate; she was never referred to by that name until she was dead.

The book puts the reader in Ella's (later known as Cattle Kate's) shoes to set the record straight, telling her story in her words. It reads like an autobiography because Ella's story begins when she was a child in Canada. It follows her family's travels to Kansas and finally, her own travel to Wyoming Territory. Ella's voice comes across like she is writing a letter to the reader, which fits in the "this is the real story" theme. The dialogue is true to life, at least it's how I imagine those in the West spoke in the 1880s. There were a few typos but nothing too distracting and they didn't significantly pull me out of the story.

Part I of Cattle Kate is told in first person from Ella Watson's point of view; there isn't really a traditionally character/story arc, but it is interesting and kept me reading. If you enjoy reading autobiographies or biographies, you will enjoy Part I, which ends violently and graphically. Part II is told in the third person and Part III contains notes pertaining to each chapter, which I enjoyed greatly. My own historical research has been based in the Midwest so I'd never heard of the Cattle Kate legend. I liked reading Ella's story in her own words, the story of how the myth came to be, and where all of the facts the author used to pull it all together came from.

Cattle Kate is part fictional story and part history lesson. It did take me a little longer than normal to read it so, on a can't-put-it-down-scale of one for I couldn't even finish it to ten for I was up until the wee morning hours, I give it a seven.



Source: Bommersbach, Jana. Cattle Kate: A Novel. Poisoned Pen Press: Scottsdale, AZ.