The Western is a classic of fiction. Stories of life on the American frontier before the establishment of modernity and so-called civilization have enraptured readers for centuries. But the genre has undergone its fair share of reinventions over the decades too. The old stereotypes of the courageous white cowboys versus the “savage” indigenous population have mercifully been subverted and the smudged version of history corrected.
Dark and revisionist Western novels helped to change the narrative, revealing the true violence at the heart of a colonialist force that defined a nation. These books are frequently brutal, showing what actually happened in a time that history tried to paint as one of “good versus bad” and heroes always doing the right thing.
The Wounds of My Father
John Ives, the privileged son of a powerful tycoon, is sent to oversee his family’s newest business venture in the swamps of Tampico, Mexico. He's at odds with his father's plans but cannot betray his family. Returning to San Antonio forces him to confront his legacy, one mired in blood and corruption that he has no desire to inherit.
Stella Moore is a schoolteacher searching for her missing sister. Her quest intertwines with John's hunt for redemption. San Antonio, however, is not a place where one can easily find forgiveness. Ambitions can be as deadly as treachery.
The Blood of My Mother
After the deaths of her white father and mixed-race mother, young Eliza Green is left all alone in the world without a family, a home, or any hope of a future. One of her few remaining relatives, her uncle, betrays her and she is sold into slavery by men who intend to use and abuse her in as many ways as possible.
After a life of pain, Eliza runs free and is able to carve out a quiet life for herself in her small Texas farm. But she'll have to do everything in her power to keep ahold of it as enemies and friends alike try to attack her. The Old West is a deadly place for a woman, but Eliza won't give up.
The Wake of Forgiveness
Karel was born on a moonless night in Texas in 1895, and his arrival led to the death of his mother. He is forever haunted by the woman he never knew, and his father's endless grief over the loss of his beloved wife. From an early age, Karel finds solace in horses, proving to be talented at horseback riding, so his father enlists him to ride in acreage-staked horseraces against his neighbors. As an adult, Karel becomes embroiled in a high-stakes race for the future of his family's fortunes as well as his own fate.
All God's Children
In 1827, Duncan Lammons, a disgraced young man from Kentucky, decides to leave his old life behind and join the American army in the province of Texas. That same year, Cecelia, a young enslaved woman stuck in Virginia, tries to run away for the first time. She soon becomes famous for her escape attempts but is always dragged back as a prisoner—until she encounters frontiersman Sam Fisk, who rescues her from a slave auction in New Orleans.
She doesn't trust him but still goes with him to Texas in the hopes of living a free life away from the brutalities of slavery. But this new land has laws just as, if not crueller, than those she is used to.
The Wintering Place
The O’Driscoll brothers have weathered horror after horror together in the wild plains of the Dakota Territory in 1867. After surviving a Sioux massacre, Michael is gravely wounded and the brothers desert their posts as soldiers. They flee north with Tom’s lover, Sara, and stumble across a place to survive the harsh winter.
The cold is unforgiving, the supplies low, and the arrival of two trappers with vicious intent make life all the harder. To make matters worse, the brothers are being hunted down for desertion, and their wanted posters are all over the state. To survive, they'll need to shed a lot of blood.
Blood Meridian
One cannot think of dark Western fiction without delving into the pitch-black realms of Cormac McCarthy’s magnum opus. Blood Meridian might be the ultimate revisionist Western, a blood-soaked tale of scalpers and war that has disturbed and enthralled readers in equal measure.
Born in Tennessee during the great meteor shower of 1833, a teenager known as "the Kid" falls in with a group of scalp hunters led by the Judge, a gleefully sadistic figure who takes joy in destroying everything he encounters.
Far Bright Star
Pancho Villa, the legendary Mexican revolutionary, is at the height of his powers in 1916. U.S. forces are trying to track him down, but despite their best efforts, Villa remains elusive.
Through the mountains and across the long dry stretches of Mexico, Napoleon Childs, a cavalryman whose best days are behind him, has been tasked with leading yet another hunt for Villa. The odds are against him, and as the months pass, his patrol is picked off one by one and Napoleon is left for dead in the desert. Survival seems impossible. Catching Pancho Villa is even more so.
Butcher's Crossing
In the 1870s, Will Andrews drops out of Harvard and moves west, ending up in a small nothing little town on the edge of Kansas called Butcher's Crossing. This is a lawless place full of men who spend their days making money and then gambling it away.
Andrews strikes up a friendship with one of these men and becomes enamored with his tales of the beautiful Colorado Rockies. It seems like the ideal place to make a new life for himself, so the men agree to travel together to the buffalo trail. But life in the wilderness is tough and winter is coming...
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