The Flock

"'My sheep book,' Austin called it. Like her other early works - especially The Land of Little Rain, Lost Borders, and Isidro - The Flock explores the interrelationships between landscape and human culture through the portrayal of a particular aspect of Western society. It also represents Austin's effort to rethink and revise the age-old pastoral tradition in an American setting....The Flock is not about Austin, and yet we have such a strong sense of personal presence, in her voice and style, that we are made to think about the way a mind comes to understand and be changed by listening to the stories of 'others' and retelling them. The reader is jolted from a position of passive reception of information into an awareness of the ambiguous creation of meaning." - Melody Graulich, editor of Exploring Lost Borders: Critical Essays on Mary Austin"