The Winter Family (Thorndike Large Print Western Series), by Clifford Jackman
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The Winter Family (Thorndike Large Print Western Series), by Clifford Jackman
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For almost three decades, the Winter Family traverses America’s untamed terrain both serving and opposing the fierce advance of civilization. Led by cold, hardened Augustus Winter, the gang creates an ultraviolent storm whether as political thugs in a brutal Chicago election or as bounty hunters in the deserts of Arizona. There’s a hypnotic logic to Winter’s grim borderland morality that plays out, time and again, in ruthless carnage.
The Winter Family (Thorndike Large Print Western Series), by Clifford Jackman - Amazon Sales Rank: #2812626 in Books
- Published on: 2015-09-16
- Format: Large Print
- Original language: English
- Number of items: 1
- Dimensions: 1.40" h x 5.60" w x 8.60" l,
- Binding: Hardcover
- 620 pages
The Winter Family (Thorndike Large Print Western Series), by Clifford Jackman Review Longlisted for the 2015 Giller Prize“Calculating and poetic . . . holds you with a compelling brutality from which it is impossible to turn away.” --Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mysteries “Capable of standing in [Cormac McCarthy’s] company, which is high praise indeed. The Winter Family is a philosophical spaghetti western that doesn’t stint on the tomato sauce, served up with flair.” —Quill & Quire (starred review) “Sadistic but mesmerizing. . . . From the first rifle shot to the last burned body.” —The New York Times Book Review “Stink and filth, corruption and depravity, lawlessness and unruliness. . . . [Augustus Winter is] as fascinating as any other complicatedly deadly thing.” —The Globe and Mail“The adventures of a gleefully nihilistic group of outlaws. . . . Brutal, at times darkly funny, and utterly gripping from the first page to the last.” —Scott Smith, New York Times bestselling author of A Simple Plan and The Ruins “A blood-soaked historical western covering over three decades of mayhem. . . . [A] vivid portrayal of men who choose violence and lawlessness as their way of life, and the justifications they create to rationalize their immoral behavior. This is a chilling tale.” —Publishers Weekly “A wild ride into the conflict between freedom and civilization written in brains and blood. . . . This book is a round house punch of awesome. It came out of nowhere and tackled me into the dirt.” —Michael D. Griffiths, SFReader.com “Enormously enjoyable.” —Literary Review of Canada “Satisfyingly violent.” —The Toronto Star “Bloodletting as philosophical exercise, and not for the faint of heart.” —Kirkus Reviews “Brutal. Nihilistic. Extreme. Clifford Jackman's debut, The Winter Family, lit my synapses up like a pinball machine. I joined golden-eyed Augustus Winter and his band of merry sociopaths on their journey through the dying West, civilization squeezing in from every angle—this is a raw, blood-splattered picaresque that I enjoyed immensely. Jackman throws nine kinds of hell at you in this book, unloading with both barrels, and never lets up the intensity.” —Craig Davidson, author of Cataract City
About the Author Clifford Jackman was born in Deep River, Ontario, and grew up in Ottawa. He studied English literature at York University and Queen’s University before attending Osgoode Hall Law School and being called to the bar in 2008. He lives in Guelph, Ontario, with his wife, Cathy, and his son, Anthony.
Excerpt. © Reprinted by permission. All rights reserved. Prologue: Oklahoma 18891High summer night in Oklahoma. Warm winds that smelled of apple blossoms. Now and then a lightning bug winked on and drifted through the air. Quentin Ross caught one in his fist and held it there, its radiance leaking between his fingers and reflecting in his shallow eyes. For a moment he rolled the lightning bug between his thumb and forefinger, and then he crushed it, smearing himself with its luminescence, and he smiled, wide and empty.The Winter Family was camped in a stand of blackjack oaks. There was no fire but the moon was up, pushing the stars back into the darkness of the sky. Charlie and Johnny Empire lay on their sides, playing cards and bickering. Fred Johnson wrote in his little book and drank whiskey from a cup not much bigger than a thimble. Quentin wandered from tree to tree, humming to himself, soft and tuneless. The others tried to sleep, tucked between tree roots or curled in bedrolls like pill bugs. All of them, except for Augustus Winter.He sat astride a pale horse, like Death, leaning back in his heavy saddle and smoking a cigarette in an ivory holder. The suit he wore was well tailored but growing threadbare. His straw-white hair was cropped short and he had an extravagantly waxed mustache. His eyes were very light amber, almost yellow, the eyes of an eagle or a cat. Occasionally he would remove a watch from his pocket and glance at it, turning it in the pale moonlight, watching as the second hand marched around, and around, and around.It is often observed that murderers do not look like murderers. No one said that of Augustus Winter.A little after midnight Winter cocked his head. “They’re coming.”“I don’t hear anything,” Quentin said.But soon they all did. The sleepers were kicked and prodded into wakefulness, the lantern shuttered, weapons drawn, instructions whispered.O’Shea and two of his hands came around the bend and rode up to the camp. Everyone relaxed. O’Shea pulled up his horse, unstrapped a bag tied to his saddle, and tossed it to Quentin.“I’d be grateful if you count it now,” O’Shea said.Quentin knelt down, opened the sack, and rifled through the bills quickly. Then he stood, his knees creaking.“Yes, it’s all there, as we agreed.”“Good,” O’Shea said and began to wheel his horse around.“Now just a moment, Mister O’Shea,” Quentin called out. “Please, just a moment more.” Quentin’s voice was very deep, melodious. He spoke slowly, as if he were thinking very carefully, or reciting poetry.O’Shea turned back to him, reluctantly. Both men were around fifty, but O’Shea was a tall man with a healthy mane of gray hair, while Quentin was small and fine boned.“We’ve run into some unexpected expenses . . . ,” Quentin began.“Oh god damn you,” O’Shea said.Quentin continued as if O’Shea had not spoken.“. . . which were not included in the initial estimate of our--”“Estimate?” O’Shea shouted. “We had a deal, you thieves.”“Yeah,” Winter said. He did not speak loudly but all the men fell silent, and the bugs too, and the wind seemed to die down to nothing. “Yeah. Thieves, Mister O’Shea. And worse.”O’Shea looked at Winter and bore his gaze. That was something not every man could do. O’Shea was not like every man. Willpower radiated from him. And he was angry now. He looked at the dirty mob of killers under the trees, white trash and blacks and Mexicans, in their muddy boots and sweat-stiff dusters, thin and poor and dumb as nails. One of them was using baler twine as a rifle strap. He thought: Am I to let these men get the better of me? But then, it was only money.“How much?” O’Shea asked. Quentin told him. O’Shea nodded and said, “The money will be ready when you get back. I trust that is all.” Not a question.But Quentin said, “Just one more thing, Mister O’Shea! Please! One more thing. A member of our band has taken ill. He needs a doctor. We would be grateful if you could bring him back to town.”“Oh for heaven’s sake,” O’Shea snapped, but they were already bringing the sick man forward, surprisingly small, wrapped up tightly in a stinking bedroll. O’Shea stood up in his stirrups and looked down. He frowned. The man was an Indian, but his skin had gone gray and seemed thin, as if his bones were likely to poke through at any moment. Greasy foam flecked around his lips and nose and the whites of his eyes were jaundiced, the color of egg yolk.The little Indian regarded O’Shea with piteous weakness. O’Shea frowned in disgust.“His name is Bill Bread,” Quentin said.“One of you take him,” O’Shea said to his hands.“Farewell, Mister O’Shea,” Quentin called, and tipped his hat. “Take good care of Mister Bread!”The Winter Family laughed as the hands threw Bill Bread over the neck of one of their sturdy ponies and rode off, holding their noses. They all laughed, except for Augustus Winter, who watched O’Shea’s horse in the dim moonlight, until it was lost in the trees.2The next morning, Bill Bread was awoken by a strange, high laugh like the call of an asthmatic loon. When he opened his eyes he did not know where he was. A small, clean room with a glass window and wallpaper printed with rocking horses and flowers. The bed was high off the ground and soft.A crippled boy stood in the doorframe, wearing short pants and suspenders and a shirt with a collar. Large, thick spectacles were strapped to his face with a black cord. When Bill looked at the boy, the boy averted his gaze to the ground, then the window, the foot of the bed, anywhere but Bill.“Where am I?” Bill tried to say, but his throat was dry.The boy let out that distinctive laugh again then limped away, leaning on a pair of canes.“He’s awake! Yes! He’s awake now. Awake!” the boy said.Heavy footsteps. A tall man appeared in the door, bald, with shaggy white sideburns.“Mister Bread, was it?” the man said.Bill nodded.“I’m Doctor Simpson. Do you pretend not to know what has made you ill?”Bill closed his eyes.“If it is a lecture you fear, let me set your mind at ease. I don’t waste them on men like you. I will only urge you to stay away from the Keeley Institute. Their ‘gold cure’ for drunkenness is fraudulent. You will be dead in six months anyway; in the meantime, stay away from them.”“Six months?”“If you want to live, you know what to do.”“Yeah,” Bill said. “I just don’t know how.”“Oh, you know how,” the doctor said. “If you’ll pardon me for saying so, there is nothing complicated about how to stop pouring whiskey down your throat. You know how, of course you do, but you don’t know why. Do you, Mister Bread?” The doctor regarded Bill as if he did not entirely consider the question to be rhetorical, or perhaps simply to admire the effect of his own words. Either way he was disappointed. Bill said nothing.“Sleep and water,” the doctor said. “Mister Bread, good morning.”The doctor tromped out of the room. Bill heard that queer laugh one more time, and then the house was quiet.He lay still but he could not sleep. Despite the pounding in his head and the terrible painful nausea radiating through his stomach, a strange energy, a lightness, was swimming through his limbs. He swung his feet around and pulled himself out of bed. At first he thought he might be sick, but it passed.It was darker in the hallway without the dim light from the window. Bill made his way down the corridor, taking small steps and leaning against the wall. The rug felt good on his stocking-clad feet. Small bedrooms lined each side of the corridor; he was in the servants’ wing.When he reached the end of the hall he went down the stairs into the foyer and then made his way to the parlor, where he sat down in a rocking chair. He rocked back and forth and watched the early morning light come in through the window.Bill rocked back and forth, and perhaps it was only light-headedness from the walk down the stairs, or dehydration. Perhaps he was still drunk, but it seemed to him that everything was beautiful here. How long had it been since he had slept in a grand house like this? As a guest? Instead of in dirty hotels, hasty camps, dark sheds. Life on the run, as an outlaw, hunted by the army and the police and, worst of all, the Pinkerton National Detective Agency. Now here he was, in a nice house, with lace on the tables and family portraits on the walls, the smell of furniture polish and warm wood. It was nice. It felt right.Six months, he thought. It wasn’t so long.3The Winter Family crouched on the top of a hill about two hundred yards to the west of the Indian camp. They were all low to the ground, their dirty greatcoats pooled around them like skirts, speaking in whispered tones.A fine mist hung in the morning air. The rising sun was poking through the trees, dimly illuminating the little lean-tos and sheds. One skinny mule paced restlessly back and forth. Otherwise the camp was still.“They are a ragged bunch, aren’t they?” Hugh said, pushing his spectacles higher on the bridge of his nose. “I kind of thought old O’Shea might have been laying it on a bit thick, but they look more like the Sioux or Cheyenne rather than a civilized tribe.”“What do you think, Augustus?” Quentin said. “If we come up on them with knives, we could kill some without awakening the others. Perhaps Charlie and Johnny could--”“We’re not going to do this,” Winter said.Quentin blinked. “Pardon me?”“We’re going to go back to town,” Winter said. “And kill them instead.”Johnny Empire laughed, honking, and his brother shushed him. The other men simply stared. It sounded like a joke, but every man knew Winter never joked.“Did you lose your damn mind?” Fred Johnson said. He was tall and broad across the shoulders, a fifty-year-old ex-slave with silver streaks running through his dark, curly beard.“When Quentin asked for more money O’Shea didn’t even blink,” Winter said. “That means he don’t have to go to no bank for it. He’s got it in his house somewhere. And that shitsplat of a town don’t got any more people in it than that little Indian camp down there. Why should we kill Indians when we can kill white men for twice the price?”The men were silent. They tried to think of something to say. None of them had the courage, except for Fred Johnson.“Winter,” Johnson said. “You done lost your goddamn mind. We can’t just go kill a whole town full of white folks. It’s--”Winter exhaled, sharply, and his eyes caught fire and turned to gold in the dawn light. Johnson’s words all dried up.“You’ve come with me this far,” Winter said. “You’ve come all this way, and now you’re going to start to tell me there’s some things that just ain’t done? That what you’re telling me, Freddy?”“They’ll hunt us down,” Johnson said.“In case you ain’t noticed, they’re already hunting us,” Winter said. “We got a whole fucking army of Pinkertons combing the woods for us, led by the same son of a whore that killed Dusty and Chris Neville and Manny and the Old Battle Ax. And he’s not going to quit till he kills us too.”“You think that’s as bad as it can get?” Johnson asked.At this, Winter smiled, hard and tight.“You’re the one that don’t get it, Freddy. This ain’t nothing compared to how bad it’s gonna get. Ten years ago if the law was on you, why, you’d just run into the woods. There was always more country. Wasn’t there, Freddy? You remember that feeling right after the war? Like you could just keep moving forever? Now it’s just Oklahoma. And after the big land run in April, Oklahoma’s not even Oklahoma anymore. Nothing but towns and railways and asshole Sooners like O’Shea. We’re fucking done. We need to cash out. And this is it. Right now.”Winter stood up. A woman, a girl really, had come out of one of the shanties. She looked up and saw Winter silhouetted against the bruised sky. They looked at each other. She was unafraid.Winter turned his head and spat.“Do what you like,” he said to them. “I’m going with or without you.”As he always would. But as always, they did not put him to the test.4O’Shea’s household stirred into activity. First the servants rose. Despite the ambitious size of the servant wing, there appeared to only be two: an elderly black man and his wife. The man sniffed at Bill Bread in his rocking chair, but his wife smiled and asked Bill if he wanted coffee. Bill accepted.Not much later O’Shea plodded downstairs, coughing and snorting like an angry bull. He went straight out into the fields and Bill could hear him through the windows shouting at his hired hands. After an hour he clomped back inside to the kitchen. The high-pitched laugh of the boy. O’Shea’s gruff responses.Bill held the mug of coffee in his thin fingers. He could not drink it--even the smell of it made him sick--but he liked its warmth. By now, Bill thought, the little Indian village had been wiped out. The Family would be miles away. Perhaps they were drinking; perhaps they were sleeping it off. Tonight he would ride to the rendezvous point with O’Shea or his men. Bill wouldn’t receive a share of the night’s profits, but they wouldn’t leave him behind. Of that much he was sure. For now he could enjoy this interlude of domesticity.One of the hired hands came in the front door, went into the kitchen, and spoke to O’Shea. Bill did not hear what the hand said, but he heard O’Shea’s reply.“What do you meant it’s been cut? Where?”The hand spoke.“Well, those telegrams need to go out today. Someone will have to carry them to a different telegraph office.”Bill dropped his mug of coffee on the carpet. He felt like his entire body had turned into glass. Hard, inflexible, transparent. And as if the room around him was not real, but instead a painting or photograph. The moment stretched on, and to his surprise, he found that he knew exactly what he had to do.
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3 of 3 people found the following review helpful. IF THE WILD BUNCH WERE A NOVEL, THIS WOULD BE IT By David Keymer If you want to read about Hell on Earth, The Winter Family isn't a bad place to start. Not at all. There are imperfections in this devastating novel but they pale before sheer force. The Winter Family is the literary equivalent of Sam Peckinpaugh's nihilistic movie, The Wild Bunch. As much as anything else, it's about a world with no redemption.The book follows the career of the desperado Winter family from its birth in Georgia 1864 (a by-blow of Sherman's march to the sea) through Chicago 1872 (a bloody intervention in a disputed election), Phoenix 1881 (the family's aborted pursuit of Geronimo), Oklahoma 1891 (hired to wipe out an Indian settlement) to California 1900 (for this one, you will have to read the book and find out). The leader of the band is Augustus Winter. Here's a description of him as a young man: "The young man, a boy really, . . . was tall and thin and the whitest man Johnson had even seen, with skin like snow and hair like straw, and eyes of pure gold. In the dawn light the boy looked as if he were made of silver, or mist." From the start, he's seriously scary. He quotes the Book of Revelations as defense for butchery but over time, the Bible recedes. All that's left is a rush to violence. He's the perfect nihilistic, a psychopath killer who murders and betrays as though the only motivation is to p*ss in the face of civilized behavior. It's "a new kind madness, as kind of alternate sanity, a different way of reacting and fitting into the world." And it's scary.In the late 1860s, the War over, the Family works for whomever pays them, whether the Klan or its antagonists, no difference. In Chicago, in 1872, they're hired guns brought in to win an election, but they go too far and are forced to run. The same thing is true in 1881 when they're hired as bounty hunters to break the back of Geronimo's revolt. They succeed, more or less, but again they leave as pariahs. In 1889, they're hired by an Oklahoma land baron to eradicate (kill everyone) an Indian village but they change sides. And fail. And with failing, run out of space. The only question from then on is where they can hide. The answer is nowhere.There is a passage in the middle of the book: in order to escape from Chicago with their hides intact, they have to jump aboard a freight train laden with pigs bound for the slaughter house. One of the original members of the family, Jan, wants to leave. Winter doesn't try to stop him but he talks to him about what the world is like: "Everything out there is a lie," Winter said. "Can't you see it? . . . They just pretend. They just talk. `Cause they can`t face this. . . . This is what's real. This is how the meat you eat gets on your plate. This is how everything works.This is a novel about unrepentant criminals in an age when there are still wide gaps in the safety net we call civilization. By the end of the novel, the net has tightened and the question from that point on is whether any of the outlaws can survive, and if so, for how long. In the end, civilization turns out to be more enduring --and meaner than even the meanest of outlaw gangs.
7 of 9 people found the following review helpful. I believe it was a fun introduction to the era By Mark Freeman I'll preface my review by saying that I generally don't read Westerns or 19th century historical fiction. This book offered me the chance to try a new genre and for that I am grateful. I believe it was a fun introduction to the era.The story follows 30 years in the life of a group of outlaws. The group starts with a few union soldiers and picks up various stragglers along the way, including an ex-slave who killed his master. The ex-slave becomes the catalyst for why the group eventually becomes outlaws, as they refuse to turn him over to the military.From the civil war, to a political battle turned violent, to the Indian badlands, the book takes the readers on a wild journey across America.While the book was about a group of psychopaths, the violence was handled very well. Some scenes included the gory details, but the majority were simple, clean and to the point. Their violence was about efficient brutality, not as much about revelling in the suffering of the victim. There were notable exceptions.Some of the characters were fairly well developed, but this is where I had the most trouble with the book. There were so many characters that it took me about half the book before I felt like I was finally able to track who was who. I also didn't get a good feel for the point of view and didn't grow attached to any individual throughout the story. There were too many characters, and most were rather shallow, that I couldn't figure out who I needed to follow. The most strange thing to me was the character Augustus Winter. The book is named after him, but he isn't really the primary character for 3/4ths of the book. For most of the book, I would have placed Quintin Ross as the primary character. This left Winter a curious person to me. I had almost no insight into his motivations and honestly couldn't care one bit about what happened to him or why.Overall, I think it was a fun read and I'm glad I did. If the author had cut the primary character count in half and spent more time letting the reader get to know them, I think it would have been a much more compelling story.
1 of 1 people found the following review helpful. Phew... By B. Hamlin Wow...this book did not let up for one second! The novel itself is very heavy, intense and in your face. Violence is non stop throughout but none of it is gratuitous in the least. Each drop of blood drawn or bruise delivered certainly has its place here. While reading this 'kind of' western, it occurred to me that if this were to become a movie it would be directed by Quentin Tarantino (minus his underlying humor).The tale weaves from Georgia, Chicago, Phoenix, Oklahoma to California and it seems like back again. It follows a hard crew of 'gentleman' shall we say that are lead by one of the most unique characters created. After completing the book don't be surprised if you still feel his trademark eyes upon you from time to time.Its tough to give an overview of the plot as it is a bit difficult to keep up with and follow. But for anyone with an eager eye for detail and that craves excitement after each page you really don't need to look much further. To call it a western is a bit unfair as it doesn't seem like a round em up shoot em down type of tale. This has very strong characters that are extremely developed (sometimes to a fault) which is hard to find in some westerns.I really really liked this book and found it unique, intriguing and most of all exciting. I am also not ashamed to say I was just a bit disturbed by the book, in a way that made me step back and really understand what the time was like and how I would have handled similar situations. Take a chance on this book and be prepared for just about everything.
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