Even Cowgirls Get the Blues

Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, a humorous novel by acclaimed bestselling author Tom Robbins, follows the journey of Sissy Hankshaw, a free-spirited, beautiful young woman with abnormally large thumbs, who seeks to make the most of her mutation by hitchhiking across America. Along the way, Sissy meets other strange characters and comes to better love herself. The novel, clearly inspired by the hippy movement of the 1960s and 1970s, demonstrates Robbins's appreciation for the absurdity and kindness of characters of all shapes, sizes, and temperaments.

The story begins in South Richmond, Virginia, where Sissy begins her life as something of a small-town spectacle. Her thumbs are so abnormally large that her parents and friends feel sorry for her. They worry that though Sissy is otherwise quite beautiful and pleasant, her thumbs make her a freak, and she has been dealt an unfair hand because of the mutation. Everyone in Sissy's life, it seems, is obsessed with her thumbs, except for Sissy herself. Sissy sees her thumbs as a unique characteristic that set her apart from the people in her small town, going so far as to say that her thumbs make her the vibrant, free-spirited person she is. Sissy's thumbs grow larger as she does; the larger her thumbs grow, the more Sissy feels a strong desire to use them for some larger, more cosmic purpose. Therefore, Sissy sets out on a hitchhiking adventure, choosing to use her abnormal thumbs to get the attention of drivers on highways across America.

In her travels, Sissy meets many strange characters, including a cowgirl named Bonanza Jellybean who prides herself on her open sexuality. Sissy also meets an escapee from a Japanese internment camp, whom people have mistakenly called “The Chink,” and who is presented by Robbins as a kind of mystical figure, who writes profound aphorisms on cave walls and laughs with strange intonations.



Sissy's travels take her to New York City, where she falls in with a gay billionaire executive called The Countess. The Countess, a tycoon in the feminine hygiene industry, is entranced by Sissy and her thumbs. Sissy does a bit of modeling for the Countess, and becomes one of the stars of his new marketing campaign, making a small name for herself in the commercial modeling industry.

The Countess introduces Sissy to Julian, a full-blooded Mohawk Indian and artist living in the city. Immediately upon their introduction, Julian and Sissy are drawn to each other, and they begin a whirlwind romance that turns quickly into a whirlwind marriage. Though they are madly in love, however, they begin to grow apart as they realize that they don't understand some of the most significant things about each other. Julian can't begin to understand Sissy's perspective on her large thumbs or the role that they play in her identity. Similarly, Sissy, judgmental of Julian's disinterest in expressing his heritage as a Native American man, thinks he should embrace his identity more fully in his art and his lifestyle. During a moment of particularly rocky conflict, Sissy decides to go on a business trip to the Dakotas, where she spends her time with a group of cowgirls and finally, meets The Chink.

After spending a few weeks with The Chink learning how to understand herself better, Sissy returns home to New York to see Julian. However, Julian isn't particularly happy about the changes his wife has undergone on her travels. He decides that the best thing to do is to send Sissy to a mental health clinic, where she can return to her normal self and be “fixed.”



Rather than return home to her husband, whom she now hates, Sissy decides to return to the cowgirl ranch after she leaves the mental health facility. There, she finds the cowgirls in battle with the FBI over the safety of a beloved flock of whooping cranes that have made a number of appearances through the course of the novel. During the shoot-out, Bonanza Jellybean dies, and Sissy and the other girls mourn her death. Once the matter is settled, the cowgirls announce Sissy as the new caretaker of the ranch, and Sissy settles into a world where is finally accepted for who she truly is.

Tom Robbins, an acclaimed cult novelist, wrote eight novels between 1971 and 2003. His most well-known book is Jitterbug Perfume, though many others, including Even Cowgirls Get the Blues, have a large base of fans. His most recently published novel is Villa Incognito (2003), and he recently published what he calls an “un-memoir” entitled Tibetan Peach Pie: A True Account of an Imaginative Life.