Come Winter

by Douglas C. Jones

Book Overview

-- 1992 Owen Wister Award, Western Writers of America This description may be from another edition of this product.

• Format: Hardcover
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0805009442
• ISBN13: 9780805009446
• Release Date: January 1989
• Publisher: Henry Holt & Company
• Length: 418 Pages
• Weight: 1.70 lbs.

Customer Reviews

Historical fiction of the highest order.

This final installment in Douglas C. Jones' trilogy about empire-builder Roman Hasford puts a fine, if rather sad, cap on Hasford's life. Who would have thought that the boy who witnessed the pain and death of the Civil War in "Elkhorn Tavern," then learned the power of entrepreneurship in "Roman" (or "Roman Hasford," in paperback), should wind up such a bitter and battling old man? If not for Jones' excellent writing and extraordinary gift for capturing the details of a scene, Hasford's tale might have been too hard to take in its entirety. Jones ranks right up there with Larry McMurtry ("Lonesome Dove"), A.B. Guthrie ("The Big Sky"), and Ron Hansen ("The Assassination of Jesse James by the Coward Robert Ford") in creating stories that appeal not only to lovers of western historical fiction, but to those who thrill to the crafting of an eccentric character, a deftly woven plot, and finely wrought sentences. This is not fiction for half-attentive Louis L'Amour fans; it's much, much better than that. Jones has a keen sense of drama, an easy-going style to his prose, and an obvious love for the heritage of Arkansas and the West that comes through on every page--sans pathos, without the need for comic interludes of bodice-busting romance, and without making latter-day judgments on the actions and thinking of his historical characters. Jones isn't just a terrific genre writer; he's a wonderful writer, period.