Hard country : a novel

Title:

Author:

McGarrity, Michael.

Personal Author:

McGarrity, Michael.

ISBN:

9780525952466

Publication Information:

New York : Dutton, c2012.

Physical Description:

607 p. ; 24 cm.

Series:

Kevin Kerney mysteries ; bk. 13

Kevin Kerney mysteries ; bk. 13.

Abstract:

Struggling with the death of his wife in childbirth at the end of the nineteenth century, John Kerney gives up his Texas ranch to pursue the outlaws responsible for his brother's murder and participates in nearly half a century of turbulent history in New Mexico Territory.

Genre:

Western stories.

Historical fiction.

Summary:

Holds:

Available:*

Library	Material Type	Shelf Number	Status
Searching... Main Library	Book	FICTION MCGARRI	Searching... Unknown
Searching... West End	Book	FICTION MCGARRI	Searching... Unknown

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Summary

A richly authentic epic adventure of rough-hewn men and courageous women, set in the hard country of the American Southwest frontier.

Hard Country is a rare and extraordinary story of one family's struggle to settle and endure in the vast, untamed territory of New Mexico.

In the wake of the death of his wife as she gives birth to his son, and the killing of his brother on the West Texas plains, John Kerney is forced to give up his ranch, leave his son behind, and strike out in search of the murderous outlaws and a place where he can start over. He drifts south until he meets a man who offers him work trailing cattle to the New Mexico Territory and forever changes his life.

Spanning the years of 1875 to 1918, Hard Country is the Western reinvented and enlarged into a saga that above all celebrates the people and the land of the great Southwest.

Reviews (1)

Kirkus Review

Satisfying oater of the old-fashioned--or at least McMurtryesque--school. Nobody ever said that taming the Wild West would be easy. But must it involve rattlesnakes dropping down from the ceiling to share the evening meal? It must if you're hard-bitten John Kerney, who just can't catch a break, even if he can read. His life out on the dusty plains of West Texas is punctuated by his wife's death in childbirth, his brother's murder and too damn many bullets. Enter a helpful stranger who, though he violates the code of taciturnity--"In the brush country of southwest Texas, a man's past was considered his own business, unless he was otherwise inclined to talk about it"--becomes a protector of sorts for Kerney and the son he has had to leave behind. So, too, is another rawhide-tough buckaroo, Cal Doran, who takes no guff himself. Alas, John is not with the narrative for long before other obligations come due, but his son more than takes his place in a narrative that soon becomes very busy, crowded with real-world characters from late 19th-century New Mexico, among them Pat Garrett (the lawman who gunned down Billy the Kid) and Oliver Lee (the rancher "on the east side of the Tularosa" who may or may not have gunned down a neighbor in a feud that still reverberates). There's plenty of period detail in this western by mystery novelist McGarrity (Tularosa, 1996, etc.). There's appropriate language to boot; as a wizened old rancher reflects, for instance, "A waddie looking for work on foot wasn't typical, and the saddle sure didn't show much pride." Yet there's no anachronism one way or another, not too much Walter Brennan-ish gibberish or too many false concessions to modernity. A well-rendered neoclassic tale of the Old West, worthy of a place alongside Lonesome Dove and Sea of Grass.]] Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.