Lonesome Animals

by Bruce Holbert

In Lonesome Animals, Russell Strawl, a tormented former lawman, is called out of retirement to hunt a serial killer with a sense of the macabre who has been leaving elaborately carved bodies of Native Americans across three counties. As the pursuit ensues, Strawl’s own dark and violent history weaves itself into the hunt, shedding light on the remains of his broken family: one wife taken by the river, one by his own hand; an adopted Native American son who fancies himself a Catholic prophet; and a daughter, whose temerity and stoicism contrast against the romantic notions of how the west was won.

In the vein of True Grit and Blood Meridian, Lonesome Animals is a western novel reinvented, a detective story inverted for the west. It contemplates the nature of story and heroism in the face of a collapsing ethos –not only of Native American culture, but also of the first wave of white men who, through the battle against the geography and its indigenous people, guaranteed their own destruction. But it is also about one man’s urgent, elegiac search for justice amidst the craven acts committed on the edges of civilization.

Genres: Westerns, Fiction, Mystery, Historical Fiction, Thriller, Crime

272 pages, Hardcover

First published April 1, 2012

About the author

Bruce Holbert grew up in the country described in Lonesome Animals, a combination of rocky scabland farms and desert brush at the foot of the Okanogan Mountains. What once was the Columbia River, harnessed now by a series of reservoirs and dams, dominates the topography. Holbert’s great-grandfather, Arthur Strahl, was an Indian scout and among the first settlers of the Grand Coulee. The man was a bit of a legend until he murdered Holbert’s grandfather (Strahl’s son-in-law) and made Holbert’s grandmother a widow and Holbert’s father fatherless. A fictionalized Strahl is the subject of Lonesome Animals.

Bruce Holbert is a graduate of the University of Iowa Writers Workshop, where he assisted in editing The Iowa Review and held a Teaching Writing Fellowship. His fiction has appeared in The Iowa Review, Hotel Amerika, Other Voices, The Antioch Review, Crab Creek Review, The Spokesman Review, The West Wind Review, Cairn, RiverLit and has one annual awards from the Tampa Tribune Quarterly and The Inlander. His non-fiction has appeared in The New Orleans Review, The Spokesman Review and The Daily Iowan, and his poetry in RiverLit.

Reviews

[Still · Rating 5 out of 5]

Outstanding Literary Western in the tradition of Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, Larry McMurtry's Lonesome Dove and especially Trevanian's Incident At Twenty-Mile .

Although I came to love this novel it was as if the author did everything in his estimable power for 40+ pages to drive me away. Around about page 61 Holbert beat me into submission, catching my interest, holding my attention, and keeping me in a state of considerable suspense until at last I turned the final page.

Memorable dialogue throughout, reminiscent of McMurtry's exchanges between his main characters "Gus McCrae" and "Woodrow Call" -querulous, witty, philosophical, theological.

Russell Strawl is sixty-two years old, a retired sheriff and a tracker of men. He is a man capable of mayhem and sudden, deadly violence. Some of his actions have been called for, some of his actions resulted in his tiring of chasing a villain here and there. Why waste another day on the trail tracking a man wanted for thieving and murder when he refuses to surrender while he's clearly visible in your gunsights?

Strawl is wasting his life away living on the ranch he left his children when his former deputy, now holding down Strawl's old job as sheriff hires him on behalf of three counties to help find a maniac who is on a murder spree. This murderer comes like a ghost in the night and kills his victims in the most diabolical manner imaginable.
Strawl agrees to take the job mostly out of entertainment.

Set in the 1930's with the building of the Grand Coulee Dam taking place around him, cowhands becoming construction workers, ranch owners gone under from the failure of banks in the Crash of 1929, Strawl has pretty much seen the West he knew so well vanish.

Why not one last great adventure?

I greatly enjoyed this novel and would recommend it.

[Kenneth · Rating 1 out of 5]

The blurb is compelling but, in the end, it does the book no favors. Whereas nothing in it is untruthful, exactly, it just assures the book of falling way short of the expectations it raises. There's nothing remarkable at all about this work. That the book would somehow have something important to say, I reject.
It mostly comes across as a desperate attempt at copying McCarthy but it doesn't even do that well (a lot of other reviewers clearly disagree, mind). It just screams of trying too hard: It's really unromantic, it's grit is truly gritty, it's violence is oh so violent. And so on and so forth.

Here's what passes for philosophy:

"Time is too brief for philosophical musings to link absurd collisions of time and space and matter to justify a life that requires death. Finally only fear, useless fear remains. That is all there is to know. That is wisdom "

I rest my case.

[Sonic · Rating 5 out of 5]

This book was amazing!

Yet again we have what seems like a "son of Cormac McCarthy" and yet rather than being a limiting comparison, I meant it as the highest possible compliment.

And where McCarthy can write exquisitely without even an engaging plot, this writer, Holbert has given us all we could hope for and more in terms of both story and language.

File under: Best Western
heh heh heh





Recommended!

[Paul · Rating 4 out of 5]

Halfway through this before recalling i read it in 2018. Couldn't remember the ending so decided to read it for the second time. I rated it 4.5* in 2018 and see no reason to change that rating.

Time is too brief for philosophical musings to link absurd collisions of time and space and matter to justify a life that requires death. Finally only fear, useless fear remains. That is all there is to know.
4.5*

[Cindy · Rating 3 out of 5]

Holbert writes breathtaking prose. Some sentences are meant to be read and re-read for the sheer beauty of the words. However, the brutality of the story and the violence at its heart lessened my enjoyment of the prose.

[Cherise · Rating 5 out of 5]

I like to read violent, gritty books--books that push me out of my comfort zone and leave me shaken. With that said, there were passages in Lonesome Animals that blew right past unsettling and flat-out frightened me. The prose, while I found it occasionally difficult to follow, is incredible. As other reviewers have mentioned, it reminded me a great deal of The Sisters Brothers and No Country for Old Men. People who liked the raw characters and strong sense of place in Donald Ray Pollack's work might also enjoy (if that's the word) this book.

[Natalie Holbert · Rating 5 out of 5]

Normally this kind of book is not part of a genre I would normally read but it had been highly recommended to me by my parents. This said, this was one of the best books I have read in a very long time. I couldn't stop reading. A wonderful book with not only a great story but great insights philosophically as well. I would and will suggest this book to anyone looking for a good read. Definitely a must-read!!!!!

[Nick · Rating 3 out of 5]

I'll be short and sweet: If Cormac McCarthy were a genre writer and didn't keep a 19th century thesaurus at his side, he might pen something similar to this.

[Léon · Rating 4 out of 5]

Je sais pas trop quoi dire, je reviendrais plus tard.

[Jürgen Zeller · Rating 3 out of 5]

Mangels Zeit diesmal nur eine kurze, dafür aber eine sehr subjektive Meinungsäusserung zu einem gelesenen Buch. Joe R. Lansdales Das Dickicht hat mir Lust auf weitere Western-Geschichten gemacht und dieser Roman schien mir die geeignete nachfolge Lektüre zu sein. Rein vom Grundgerüst und auch inhaltlich ähneln sich die beiden Werke sehr stark. In Sachen Schreibstil unterscheiden sich beide Bücher aber frappant. Aus literarischer Sicht schreibt Bruce Holbert eindeutig lyrischer, eleganter und wahrscheinlich insgesamt deutlich hochwertiger. Er absolvierte diese Creative Writer Kurse und es ist nicht das erste Mal. dass mir Geschichten aus der Feder von Schriftstellern solcher Schreib-Schulen nicht besonders liegen. Mag die Erzählkunst noch so gewandt sein, mir gefallen sie mehrheitlich einfach nicht.

Der Beginn war vielversprechend aber bereits nach rund vierzig Seiten legte sich meine anfängliche Begeisterung und wich bis zu Seite einhundert mehr oder weniger vollständig und Ernüchterung stellte sich ein. Ich hab das Buch zwar bis zum Schluss gelesen aber die restlichen 200 Seiten konnten den mittelmässigen Eindruck nicht mehr verbessern. Die Hauptfigur Russell Straw ist gut gezeichnet und gelungen aber die Rhythmik, die Abfolge der Szenen fand ich seltsam sprunghaft. Obwohl die ein oder andere Passage durchaus originell ist endet sie abrupt und ich fand mich flux unversehens an einem neuen Ort wieder und ich fragte mich wie ich denn nun da reingerutscht bin. Mir fehlte der haftende Kitt zu den Protagonisten und die losen Kontakte sind insgesamt zuwenig um hier das Buch zu loben. Der Gesamteindruck steht und fällt halt mit der Verbindung zu den Hauptfiguren.

Ein deftiger Wester mit teilweise brutalen bis harten Szenen zu dem ich keinen rechten Zugang finden konnte. Bruce Holbert hat an meinem Bauchgefühl bzw. an dem was mir gefällt in seiner Art ziemlich deutlich vorbei geschrieben. Dafür kann er nichts, dafür kann ich nichts. Wie gesagt, das ist meine ganz persönliche Meinung und ich erhebe keinen Anspruch auf Allgemeingültigkeit. Es kann durchaus sein, dass ich die Ausnahme bin und andere Leser/-innen gefallen an diesem Buch finden.

[Sheri · Rating 3 out of 5]

In some ways this reminded me of Cormac McCarthy's "No Country For Old Men." There's a rural sheriff, there are gruesome murders, there's a search for the perpetrator. But Holbert takes this way further than McCarthy, making "No Country For Old Men" seem like a walk in the park. For one thing, there is no big pile of drug money to provide a motive for the murders. For another, the sheriff seems as murderous as the murderer being sought -- so much so, that he's a suspect himself in these creepy killings, and a viable one, too. This whodunit is set in north central Washington state on and around the Colville Indian reservation. Holbert's narrative does a great job of taking you through the scenery of the area, giving you this surreal sense for the beauty of the place and the evil of most human hearts. Too grim for my taste, even after just finishing two Stephen King novels.

[Shelley Fearn · Rating 5 out of 5]

Russell Strawl, a retired lawman, has been single handedly chasing outlaws throughout the Okanogan valley since the 1880's. In 1930, someone is brutally murdering and then butchering Native Americans on the nearby reservation. Brought out of retirement, Strawl sets out on a single minded trek to search the killer out. It is a stark but beautifully written novel. It shows the journey of a man who, like to old West, is unable to survive the transition into the modern age.

I found Strawl a sympathetic character and heroic in his own right. This novel will haunt me.

Also read "No Country for Old Men".No Country for Old Men

[Harry · Rating 2 out of 5]

»Einsame Tiere« beginnt äußerst vielversprechend. Die Atmosphäre ist dicht und Charaktere sowie Plot wirken stimmig. Dann driftet der Roman aber rasch ab und liest sich zunehmend nur noch wie das pseudo-philosophische Gebrabbel eines imaginären wahnhaften Großvaters, der sich selbst ärgerlicherweise für wesentlich raffinierter hält, als er tatsächlich ist. Nicht zuletzt, indem er sich mittels eigener Hybris die Welt erklärt.

Wenn einen ins Deutsche übersetzten Neo-Western, dann lieber beispielsweise den ebenfalls bei Liebeskind erschienenen Roman »Böses Blut« von James Carlos Blake (https://www.goodreads.com/book/show/1...).

[Cindy Swift · Rating 4 out of 5]

Loved the writing, especially the dialog. The plot is compelling - lawman comes out of retirement to hunt a serial killer in the Pacific NW in the 1930's - and the violence is brutal. The characters are hard to like, and still get into your head. Native American culture, Western ranchers, and more. Couldn't put it down.

[Adam Lund · Rating 4 out of 5]

The only book I've read that's set in the remote areas of North Central Washington state, known as the Okanogan. This has an old west feel to it, but biblical allusions abound, as does perpetual violence. It reminded me of Blood Meridian. Well written and philosophical, this book has plenty of passages to ponder.

[Randine · Rating 5 out of 5]

This is kind of a heavy book. Feels almost a little too real but it takes place in the 1930's so there is something about that time that is transient anyway. Everything was changing. If I summed it up I would call it, "Silence of the Lambs Western Style". Very good writing.

[Mike Eckhardt · Rating 3 out of 5]

This is a deeply dark, and I mean dark, western tale, there are no heroes just varying degrees damaged. I probably would have rated it higher but I couldn't really get into the cadence of the writing.

[Gentlemanvillain]

Couldn't finish.

Protagonist is an awful human by any metric (torture, racism), and I have better things to do with my time than read about someone terrible, if the story isn't illuminating some kind of larger truth.

[James Wharton · Rating 5 out of 5]

Writing is incredile--vivid description, brutal at times but always intriguing. I couldn't put it down and read it in one day.

[Sue · Rating 1 out of 5]

I could not get into this book, just couldn't finish it and had to take it back to the library. Sorry Bruce Holbert.

[Thomas · Rating 3 out of 5]

In my opinion this book doesn't live up to the great literary reviews it received.

[L'atelier de Litote · Rating 4 out of 5]

1932, Strawl officier de police à la retraite va reprendre du service et pourchasser un tueur en série, qui sème des cadavres d’indiens atrocement torturés. Tout cela se déroule dans le grand ouest américain entre vallées encaissées et canyon de la mort qui tue. Je n’ai pas pu m’empêcher de visualiser un John Wayne en fin de carrière dans le rôle de Strawl. Ce personnage principal est incroyable, il tient le roman à lui tout seul ou presque. Russell Strawl est un héros comme on n’en fait plus, entièrement dévoué à son travail même si cela doit être au détriment de sa vie familiale. Il est rude, infatigable et pas mal abimé par la vie mais il est encore capable d’amour… pour son cheval. On retrouve tous les thèmes classiques au western, cow-boys et Indiens, shérif et bandits et une histoire sanglante dans les contrées encore sauvages du grand ouest. Un récit sombre porté par une plume descriptive qui nous fait visualiser parfaitement les scènes et des dialogues réalistes qui bien souvent m’ont fait réfléchir. Un roman graphique où l’on trouve la brutalité et la violence inhérente à la nature humaine exacerbée par la solitude et la vie dans ces contrées reculées et sauvages. Strawl a une façon toute personnelle d’appliquer la loi et les thèmes de la justice, de la culpabilité et du jugement sont quasi bibliques. Il fait partie de ce genre de policier qui tire d’abord et discute après et ma foi à cette époque et dans ces lieux cela semble presque se justifier. C’était aussi impressionnant de voir les changements s’opérer en lui allant de l’homme sur de lui à celui qui accepte son destin. L’univers que nous présente Holbert dans ce roman est mythique et vraiment magnifique, un roman qui soulève plus de question qu’il n’y répond. Bonne lecture.
http://latelierdelitote.canalblog.com...

[Damien Long · Rating 4 out of 5]

The Gunslinger meets dusty, depression era Central Washington (actually pretty similar landscape). Here's some mystery, a sprinkle of historical prejudice, a dash of gun - heck throw some more in there! - and some murders a la tableaux! Spoiler: if you can't handle the occasional Blood Eagle or trying to put back together someone who's been almost turned into a Marionette don't bother picking up the book. But on the other hand, if you appreciate descriptive story telling with thought provoking dialogue; treat yourself.

Strawl is a amazing character that I feel we can draw a lot of parallels to; he has a likeness to the classics, Clint Eastwood (in any western) or John Wayne (same deal). The brutality of the story is obviously exaggerated at times, but I believe is a good allusion into what the bloody history of the west really looked like. It's fun to think of the history of the west like a fun game of dress up and romance, playing cowboys and Indians - sheriffs and bank robbers. However, things are never quite as simple as that are they? Oh its the early to mid 1900s and you need answers, bust the guy upside the head with your pistol, blow out their eardrums... enough of this though, go read the book.

[Maya Lababidi · Rating 3 out of 5]

One thing is undeniable, this author is crazy fricking talented. He wields the English language like a paintbrush to craft a story like a river that floods like a torrent in some places and languishes peacefully in others. The only problem? Keeping afloat. He writes on such an elevated plane there were countless times I found myself not understanding what the hell was going on, whether it was the metaphor being crafted or some hidden message being insinuated. Similar to Tolkien, the way he constructed nature was amazing, such an attention to detail that it feels like you are witnessing the landscape being painted in front of you stroke for stroke. The protagonist was deeply deeply flawed but I still found myself drawn to him. I liked the characters, they all had a deadpan way of speaking but emotion still managed to work its way through. Even the narration was deadpan, which was disorienting when such gruesome things were being described. I didn’t expect the twist, but I don’t expect most twists so I’m not sure how much weight my experience holds.

[John Woodington · Rating 3 out of 5]

Every once in a while I get a yearning to read a graphically violent western novel that explores the indescribable nature of men who build their lives in the solitude of the vast American frontier. In general, this leads me to a Cormac McCarthy novel. Imagine my surprise when I came upon Lonesome Animals by Bruce Holbert, and felt my McCarthy-esque yearning somewhat quenched.

Lonesome Animals tells the story of Russell Strawl, an aging law(less) man who is called out of retirement to investigate some gruesome murders in the area. This setup has somewhat of a CSI feel to it, and honestly didn’t hook me right away. I’m not a big fan of whodunnits or procedural dramas, or mystery novels in general, and while this is the initial plot setup for the story, it doesn’t read all the way through as a simple mystery. Even on the first page, Holbert begins laying the groundwork for his larger investigation of men living in the remote world. “Their minds combat the silence and isolation inherent in such spaces by supplying their own narrative.” He is actively working with the idea of self-imposed narratives shaping the lives of the people who tell them, and how those narratives can lead people to very different end results. Holbert refers to this world (early-ish 1900s timeframe) as “days of righteousness and ignorance,” which feels very accurate. Numerous instances occur where laws have been viciously broken, justice needs to be upheld, and judgment on the guilty precedes any sort of formal accusation or trial. Strawl himself is a man who believes he is the law, an enforcer of laws in ways that could not legally be enforced. He has killed numerous times in his career, and thinks nothing of firing first and asking questions never after. In short, he belongs in this time, and could not belong in another.

While Strawl’s character is compelling, Holbert does overstep narrative bounds at times by heavy-handedly trying to build up Strawl’s mythical persona through downright inhuman farce: “He could recognize a footstep two miles off, and likely what made it, and he could do it in a rainstorm.” And later, “Even the preacher had cited [Strawl’s] mettle in a sermon." Strawl is also presented as a man who knows his Shakespeare and Mallory, who knows the distinctions between various symphonies, and yet a man who cannot quote the Bible, though nearly everyone else around him can. It reads as a stretch for a man who has grown up in the rural reaches of the nation, with no higher education mentioned. In truth, Strawl performs enough pseudo-incredible acts to build his elevated persona on his own, without Holbert stepping in through exposition to reinforce it in a way that eventually undermines it. As the novel progresses, however, you can see Holbert getting out of the way of the story more and more, and the characters taking over. I’m pleased to say the story ends further in the realm of artistic endeavor than I had anticipated after the first fifty pages.

Of course, the first fifty pages have their own sort of draw. It’s hard to look away from the gruesome murders with which Strawl is presented, mutilations of biblical proportions, men turned into otherworldly abominations, and Strawl being the hardened lawmen can get right in there and grab their severed heads and look them in their lifeless eyes and not retch. And least not in the beginning. The draw in the beginning of the novel has very little to do with Strawl himself. To everyone in the area, Strawl is recognized as “a mean dog with nothing to guard, until, of course, another mean dog showed up.” This line led me to wonder about Strawl’s motivation as a catalyst for his actions in the novel. If he truly has “nothing to guard” then why bother coming out of retirement to track down a killer who has no impact on Strawl’s life? This plays out to some satisfaction by the end of the novel, but in the beginning it leaves Strawl looking like a pawn for Holbert to push around his sadistic chessboard of murder after murder.

Holbert’s world in this novel, however, is a truly beautiful realm, one worth the entirety of the novel in itself. This is country Holbert knows well, and one that comes alive in every scene. This novel happens because of the country, and not the other way around, as is the case in so much lesser fiction. The influence of McCarthy is particularly noticeable here.

McCarthly is also present in Strawl’s trajectory as a character, one that takes him from the lawman who knows everything, to the resigned-to-the-fate-of-the-world man who gives up killing near the end in favor of maiming, letting those that pursue him live at the least, even if their lives will be forever changed by the barrel of his gun. It’s not No Country for Old Men, but maybe something closer to No Country to Mess Around in When the Right Old Men Are Still Around. This novel moves on a lot of different levels, and is one that asks those subtextual questions that cannot be answered, and does the right thing by leaving them unanswered at the end. There is no riding off into the sunset. There is simply an acknowledgment that the sunset will happen whether you want it to or not.

[Laura Furness · Rating 4 out of 5]

I kept reading hoping for redemption but it never arrives. A hateful man to the end but he might serve a higher duty. Hard to say. The writing is startling and poetic. I enjoyed it but also felt soiled by it.

[Martha Straub · Rating 3 out of 5]

I wasn't crazy about this book. I know it was beautifully written. Holbert's prose is magnificent. But the characters were just all so damaged. I guess there is so much unhappiness in the world that I like to get a little uplift from a book, even if it contains tragedies.

[Lucy · Rating 2 out of 5]

Very strange & wordy tale…more one man’s philosophy on death & murder than the “western” mystery (set in north central Washington along the border of Canada) it’s touted to be. Is the serial killer justified, is he playing God, or is it his nature? Is this even a question to be answered?

[Amy · Rating 2 out of 5]

This is like a bit of a murder mystery that takes place in WA Indian territory, however, I just didn't find it particularly thrilling and I think the style of writing was a bit off-putting for me.

[Daniel Allen · Rating 3 out of 5]

(5/10/12)