Born again at the laundromat

In this quirky, moody, funny assembly of pieces from the "new West," Dave Carty explores what's left in the world of the modern cowboy. Bars, beer, bird dogs, and country music are slowly losing out to Safeways, chardonnay, Muzak and the rest of modern American civilization. But the die-hard Western traditions live on among the "cowboy" poets, whose musical, steady rhyming verse still charms; in unadorned cowboy bars where country music is still performed without frills; in corners of wilderness where a timeless silence is broken only by the rush of river water - until polypropylene-clad-river runners break the spell. Born Again at the Laundromat is at once a portrait of a stubborn corner of the American mosaic and the story of how a young man finds his place within it. From either perspective, it marks the debut of a marvelous new writer.