Set in Wyoming and India, the short-story collection Cowboys and East Indians explores the immigrant experience and the collisions of cultures in the American West as seen through the eyes of outsiders. From Indian motel owners to a kleptomaniac foreign exchange student, to a cross-dressing sari-wearing cowboy to oil-rig workers, from an adopted cowgirl to a medical tourist in India – the characters in these stories are lonely and are looking for connection, and yet they can also be problematic and aggressive in order to survive in an isolated landscape.
These stories focus on the not-often-mentioned rural immigrant experience. For these characters, their identity is shaped not just by their own personal history, but by place, from the very land they live on.