Lone Star Book Blog Tour: The Big Empty by Loren C. Steffy (Review and Giveaway)

“You can’t live out here and not believe in a higher power. It’s by the Lord’s grace you survive, and by His will you don’t.”

The Big Empty by Loren C. Steffy is a literary mash up of the old and the new; the past and the present, all with a glimpse into the murky future of the small North Texas town called Conquistador and the main cattle ranch struggling to keep the entire area populated and profitable.

In 1999 and at the tipping point of expected change, Blaine Witherspoon, who is newly arrived from Silicon Valley to set up an electronic chip plant near Conquistador, and Trace Malloy, who is the manager at the local ranch and living out his generational cowboy legacy on his own dwindling spread, will either attract or repulse, depending on your views. These two meet in chapter one under less than ideal circumstances, setting a combative tone going forward. Their points of view are both presented, and presumptions, both accurate and misplaced, about each other and those on either side are tossed down in defiance. High tech versus old school battle it out for the precarious foothold in the scraggy Texas landscape, both intent on scratching out some level of progression and success and both shifting their focus to the disadvantages rather than the benefits of the opposite side.

As the characters interact, reluctant acceptance and maybe even admiration emerge. Maybe. Change often destroys before it builds up, and every person in Conquistador is all too aware of what’s at stake when that change barrels in from Silicon Valley, both the good and the bad.

In his debut novel, The Big Empty, Loren C. Steffy paints North Texas and the people with accomplished prose that will seep into your thoughts and bloom spectacularly across your imagination. The land is harsh, and the inhabitants across the generations have had to adapt to survive, but survival is more than amassing food, water, and shelter. Community, family, and honest work fill people with purpose, and The Big Empty shows that folks, even with all their diversity, opinions, and backgrounds, are more alike than they want to first believe.

The pacing of The Big Empty is as rambling and interesting as a horseback ride across Texas, with plenty of drama, flared tempers, stubborn attitudes, reluctant acceptance, and relentless Texas heat to keep the story compelling. The antagonist in this story ranges from the severe landscape and weather to the abundant judgments and assumptions. The people in Conquistador and the newcomers setting up the new high-tech plant clash and merge simultaneously, and the author portrays this amalgamation with literary panache.

The Big Empty is more than cowboys and ranch life across the vast North Texas landscape and more than big tech moving in and disrupting everything in its path. The Big Empty represents what so many fear and want at the same time: change. Change is inevitable, but this story shows that people can mingle ideas, behaviors, and ways to form a concerted front. Or not. Sometimes the land refuses to budge or maybe eases up just enough to keep people trying and hoping. Sometimes betrayal sneaks in and upsets everything. Sometimes disaster has the final say. Then again, sometimes change is simply about finding new ways to do old things or using old ways to do new things. One thing is for certain. You can’t confront change by punching it in the nose, no matter how insulting it is, and you can’t uproot the old ways completely by remaining prejudiced and ignorant. Just ask Malloy and Witherspoon.