Fields and Pastures New: My First Year as a Country Vet

Dr. McCormack in the US can be likened to James Herriott of England. His stories of animals that he treated and the start of his career in the 1960's makes the reader feel they are right along side him assisting in whatever procedure needs to be done to his animal patient.

I am a person of great compassion for animals and as a reader, I was truly appreciative that the love and compassion that Dr. McCormack has for his animal patients shines through to the reader's soul. I laughed with this book..I have cried with this book...I have pulled for the sick animal in this book...I have rooted Dr. McCormack through as he treated tough cases in this book.

There are books about animals and then there are the special books about animals because the respect, compassion from the writer is there and the animal patients become real as one reads along the journey in the book.

If you are a James Herriott fan or an animal lover who is a reader, I highly, and I stress highly, suggest getting this book and reading it!


Good Vet Stories, Great Portrait of Alabama   April 18, 2001
J. Glisson (Atlanta, GA USA)
3 out of 3 found this review helpful

My people are not from Choctaw County, but we're from "around there." This is not only a sympathetic and heartfelt account of a rural vet practice in the sixties; it's a very accurate look at the folks you were likely to meet then and there, both the good and the bad. I have met most of the folks he talks about, or at least their near relations. Dr. McCormack's extended meditation on the verbal mangling of his job description by his neighbors is alone worth the price of admission, although the account of his visit to the Governor's Mansion driving the "rounds vehicle" and a too-long-delayed boar cutting run it very close. Excellent book.


A good read anytime!   July 15, 2000
1 out of 1 found this review helpful

I really enjoyed this book. It had good detail, and you really felt like you were going on the rounds with Dr. McCormack. I have read it several times since I bought it, and it is hard to put down each time, even though I know the outcome!

I enjoyed reading how tough it was to convert some of the farmers to the methods of modern veterinary medicine, and it was interesting to read the different methods the farmers had preferred to treat the illnesses in their livestock and pets until their was more modern help available.