A novel from the dark heart of early twentieth-century Alberta, featuring a new introduction by Dr. Lily Cho.

A bully cattle rancher upends the lives of everyone he encounters and a pandemic makes those lives even more precarious. A full century after its first publication, Cattle remains a story of brutality. A curious Canadian mixture of Hardy and Steinbeck, Cattle is built on the deep contradictions of a settler ideology, asking readers to not look away from the many modes of violence bound up in Canadian history.

Our Throwback books also give back: a percentage of each book’s sales will be donated to a designated Canadian cultural organization. Royalties from sales of Cattle benefit Central Alberta Women’s Emergency Shelter.

Dr. Lily Cho is the current Associate Dean, Global and Community Engagement for the Faculty of Liberal Arts & Professional Studies at York University. July 2023, she will join Western University as its new vice-provost and associate vice-president (International). She is also appointed as professor in the department of English and writing studies within the Faculty of Arts and Humanities. Dr. Cho has published books on Chinese restaurants and the relationship between human rights and creative expression. Her book Mass Capture: Chinese Head Tax and the Making of Non-Citizens (McGill-Queens) won the Association for Asian American Studies 2023 Book Prize for Outstanding Achievement (Multidisciplinary).

Lily Cho's profile page

Winnifred Eaton Reeve's profile page

"I was shocked when I taught Cattle for the first time. My students found it so fresh and so immediate. The novel addresses so many contemporary issues: #MeToo, settler colonialism, a pandemic, and more. In the same year that the Chinese Exclusion Act was passed, Eaton even makes space for heroism on the part of a vulnerable Chinese man separated from his family and working for a brute of a man."—Dr. Mary Chapman, Professor at the University of British Columbia and Director of the Winnifred Eaton Archive

"If you're a fan of the hit TV series Yellowstone and its prequel 1923, you are going to absolutely love this novel."—Lost Ladies of Lit Podcast