Book Review and Giveaway: The Big Empty by Loren Steffy | Lone Star Book Blog Tours

Blaine wants to get the factory up and running and meeting production goals on time and under budget. Trace wants to protect the town’s scarce resources and see them managed so that the needs of both town and factory can be met. They both realize that something has to give, and they make grudging efforts to find some common ground. Some of those efforts are comical – Trace inviting Blaine, his high-maintenance wife who’d rather be anywhere but West Texas, and his emo son with a drug habit to a barbecue at the ranch, for instance. The Witherspoons thoughtfully bring their own food to accommodate their vegetarian eating habits, and the Conquistador folks are a bit befuddled as to why anyone would make a burger patty out of vegetables when there are perfectly good burgers made of beef to be had. Some of those efforts hurt – Blaine invites Trace to tour the chip factory, and it becomes a literal pain for Trace as he struggles to navigate the sterile, unfamiliar environment. But they’re trying. Can they find enough common ground for the factory to succeed and bring prosperity to Conquistador?

Blaine and Trace are both well written characters. Blaine was at first a thoroughly unlikable character. He just came in wanting to do things how they were done back in California without thinking that hey, we aren’t in California anymore, maybe we need to rethink this. As the story unfolded, though, I started to feel a little bit sorry for him. He didn’t know what he was getting himself into, and he was so accustomed to doing things a certain way that it was difficult if not impossible for him to shift gears. His efforts to achieve a task that seemed to become more impossible each day were almost uncomfortable to watch. Trace was more likable, but I felt sorry for him, too. He struggled to maintain his way of life, and struggled to teach the newcomer how to adapt to West Texas. He ached for what he saw as his son throwing away a better future than what the cowboy life offered. He wrestled with guilt at not spending enough time with his mother, who was declining due to dementia. Both men have to find ways to adapt to new and different things.

I’ve never been to West Texas, but Steffy’s writing lets me envision the never-ending expanse of flat, dusty land that has its own harsh beauty. The setting here is more than just the physical space that the characters occupy. It takes on a life of its own. The dust isn’t mindful of how clean the chip factory needs to be; it just goes where it goes. When one of the new electrical lines run out to the factory collapses and sparks a wildfire, the fire threatens the town and the new facility alike. The immensity of the Big Empty is harsh to old-timer and newcomer alike, and environmentalism takes on a whole different meaning there.

This didn’t read like a debut novel. It was well written and well worth the time I invested reading it. Five stars, and I hope to read more from Steffy in the future.

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