Cowkind

Petersen's bovine characters may be cut from the same fictional cloth as George Orwell's barnyard politicians and the rebellious rodents in William Kotzwinkle's Dr. Rat, but the author's allegorical first novel is an uneven affair, alternating between tongue-in-cheek humor and dark political satire as he examines life on an upstate New York family dairy farm in 1960s and early '70s. Petersen begins his tale with some fine comic chapters in which he introduces the various members of the dairy herd-feisty Smitty, dreamy, otherworldly Aretha and wide-eyed, star-struck Peanut, who meets with tragedy when she tries to run off and join the circus. The human family, however, is a far more contentious group that includes hard-driving Farmer Bob, his stoic wife, Edna, and Gerry and Renee, a pair of rebellious teenagers who can barely disguise their contempt for their parents' way of life. Rather than sustain a single conflict, Petersen bounces back and forth between bovine and human issues, dealing with generational problems, the difficulties caused by modern farm technology and the cows' attempts to steer the humans back toward a naturalistic way of life. The animal humor is first-rate, but Petersen's yarn lacks focus, and the constant shifts in narrative tone are jarring. Moreover, the climax, in which Farmer Bob attempts to come to grips with a family tragedy, is turgid and labored. The first half of the novel is a comic delight, but once the humans take over the story, much of the charm vanishes in a hurry. (June)