AlthoughLast Go Round, with its rollicking evocation of rodeo life at the first Pendleton Round Up, is not as psychologically and socially probing a work as One Flew Over the Cuckoo's Nest (1962) and Sometimes a Great Notion (1964), Kesey does provide thought-provoking commentary on race. Kesey's tall tale centers on three contenders for the title of World Champion Broncobuster: George Fletcher, a Negro former rodeo clown; Jackson Sundown, a Nez Perce Indian; and Johnathan E. Lee Spain, a Caucasian youth from Tennessee. According to Kesey in his introduction, newspaper accounts of the 1911 Pendleton Round Up were "more interested in complexions than achievements." In fact, he observes that in a rare print of the trio, "the complexions are even hand-tinted, to make sure posterity gets the point: one rider's face is tinted Indian copper, one.....
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