Haints Stay

LoveReading Says

A Maxim Jakubowski selected title.

A rare example of a literary western in the now hallowed traditions of Cormac McCarthy and The Sisters Brothers, Winnette's sly adventures are a genuine delight, and at the antipode of the familiar heroics of the movies, Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey. When Brooke and Sugar, two killers on the run stumble across Bird, a naked, mute boy who is unable to explain his presence or past, the road is set for an orgy of violence and over the top incidents of a bloody nature as they come to confront their own instincts and thirst for excess.

Both fast-reading and meditative, the encounters each character makes once they are eventually separated in the wilderness of the West, make for a wry, picaresque philosophical tale of blood, ties that bind, and the permanence of evil. Quite unique and fascinating, even if you're not intrinsically a fan of westerns.

Reviewed by Maxim Jakubowski
Maxim Jakubowski is a London-based novelist and editor.
More reviews by Maxim Jakubowski

About Haints Stay

'Haints Stay turns the Western on its ear' - Washington Post Featured in: Slate Underrated Books of the Year 2015, Flavorwire Best Independent Press Books of 2015, Vice Magazine's '2015 Was the Year the Literary Versus Genre War Ended' best book list. Brooke and Sugar are contract killers without a contract. Bird is the 13-year-old who appears in their camp one night, with no memory and palms as smooth as stones.

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