Better Luck Next Time by Julia Claiborne Johnson

Ward Bennett, young, good looking, and quick witted, works as a cowboy on dude ranch catering to divorcing women.  The year is 1938, the place is Reno, Nevada, and the wealthy women who visit the ranch must stay for six weeks to establish residency in order to divorce at the end of that time.  Ward, and Sam, the other cowboy, chauffeur the ladies around on shopping trips and to and from the airport as well as to lawyer’s appointments.  They provide trail rides and fishing expeditions and generally cater to the ladies’ needs—but with the utmost propriety as overseen by ranch owners Margaret and Max.

Some of the visitors at the Flying Leap are repeat customers; others are there for the first time; all are trying to work out the mysteries of marriage and seem determined to keep on trying until they have it right.  Ward, from a stable and loving family, has spent a year in college and a couple years in other jobs and thinks that his understanding of the world is pretty much under control.  When an aviatrix from St. Louis and an heiress from San Francisco come to the ranch that idea is upended as they unintentionally they wreak havoc in his life.  

The story is told in first person by Ward as he reminisces many years later about his time at the ranch, and although it’s almost completely focused on a particular time at the Flying Leap, it gradually reveals his life in later years.  The story is hilarious in many spots, touching in others, and it’s punctuated with cowboy philosophy,  malapropisms and asides that are a hoot.  

The audiobook is narrated by David Aaron Baker and perfectly captures the elderly retiree and the young cowboy he once was.  (Available from your local independent book store through Libro.fm.)

Julia Claiborne Johnson’s first novel, Be Frank with Me, is one of the most engaging books I’ve ever read, so it isn’t surprising that her second one would be as well.  And even though both are so humorous and have such perceptive observations on the human condition, they are very different stories.  I highly recommend them both.  

(Wm. Morrow, 2021; audio by Harper Audio)

Favorite quotes:

Ward on Jell-O:    Would you like some of this Jell-O? No? I don’t blame you .  They keep trying to pass this stuff off as dessert, but it just isn’t. Jell-O always makes me think of death.  Every time I attend a funeral for a patient, I look over at the widowed partner or bereft children and think, “Hoo boy, I hope you like a Jell-O salad, because several dozen will be wiggling your way in the next week or two.” How congealed salads jazzed up with marshmallows and pineapple tidbits got to be the go-to dish for the bereaved I’ll never know.  Of course, it’s not the gift that matters.  What matters is the impulse to give.  

Conversation at the ranch:    “Gambling is throwing money away,” Emily said.  “Spending hundreds of dollars on cloths you’ll never wear is throwing money away.  Buying books is an investment in the future.”
    “Emily’s right,” Nina said.  “Where there are books, there’s hope.  I have stacks of novels I haven’t gotten to yet.  It’s the best reason to go on living I can think of.”