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Haints Stay
Brooke and Sugar are killers. Bird is the boy who mysteriously woke beside them while between towns. For miles, there is only desert and wilderness, and along the fringes, people.
The story follows the middling bounty hunters after they’ve been chased from town, and Bird, each in pursuit of their own sense of belonging and justice. It features gunfights, cannibalism, barroom piano, a wagon train, a stampede, and the tenuous rise of the West's first one-armed gunslinger.
Haints Stay is a new Acid Western in the tradition of Rudolph Wurlitzer, Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff, and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man: meaning it is brutal, surreal, and possesses an unsettling humor.
The story follows the middling bounty hunters after they’ve been chased from town, and Bird, each in pursuit of their own sense of belonging and justice. It features gunfights, cannibalism, barroom piano, a wagon train, a stampede, and the tenuous rise of the West's first one-armed gunslinger.
Haints Stay is a new Acid Western in the tradition of Rudolph Wurlitzer, Kelly Reichardt’s Meek’s Cutoff, and Jim Jarmusch's Dead Man: meaning it is brutal, surreal, and possesses an unsettling humor.
220 pages, Paperback
First published May 11, 2015
19 people are currently reading
1212 people want to read
About the author
Colin Winnette
20 books151 followersColin Winnette is an American novelist, short story writer, and poet. He is the author of several works of fiction: Revelation (Mutable Sound 2011), Animal Collection (Spork Press 2012), Fondly (Atticus Books 2013), Coyote (Les Figues Press 2015), and Haints Stay (Two Dollar Radio 2015). His writing has appeared in numerous publications, including Playboy, Lucky Peach, The American Reader, The Believer, Gulf Coast Magazine, and 9th Letter. He was the winner of Les Figues Press's 2013 NOS Book Contest, for his novel Coyote.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 113 reviews
July 27, 2019
A hero would have charged through the front door, but she did not know any heroes. She knew dead men, and the men who'd killed them, and the boy.
this is one of those books that separates the hip from the unhip. i liked it, but i didn't LOVE it. and i feel the judgments!
doubtless true.
early on, i felt this book would be friends with Dark Property or A Choir of Ill Children. both of those books take a traditional subgenre - post-apoc and southern gothic, respectively, and then throw a bunch of weird all over it. this one uses the western as its base coat and there's all sorts of surreal splattering it, but i never had the feeling it was used as thoughtfully as the evenson or piccarilli. i'm generally fine with weird for weird's sake, but i had the feeling there was meant to be more than that here - some commentary or some larger theme i was missing. i kept feeling that i was so close to having that "AHA!" moment, but either i missed the point or the author was circling something without ever connecting the dots.
i'm just confused, i guess. this book is being held up as "the" indie book of the summer - as this bold revisionist western. but this isn't particularly "new" or "edgy," this subverting the expectations of the western genre by making it either really ultraviolent or really weird. it's not the first to borrow elements from noir and it's by no means the first nihilistic western. "weird west" already exists as a pulpy subgenre, and people like robert coover, ishmael reed, rudolph wurlitzer and even richard brautigan have written more literary versions of the weird west, so it's not like this is the first of its kind. and the heightened violence is definitely not new to the genre. there has always been an emphasis on violence in the western - it's one of its defining characteristics, but the classic stuff; the louie l'amour stuff, was always a little more tasteful in deploying it. and then along came cormac mccarthy, paving the way for the modern reader with a taste for more graphic violence, which led to things like The Winter Family, joe r. lansdale, and my favorite bloody/weird mashup, Smonk. SMONK! and i myself am one of those modern readers with a taste for more graphic violence - i read a lot of grit lit and there's frequently crossover into the western with grit lit, so i am fairly desensitized to violence, even when it is beautifully-written violence, so there's nothing here that is shockingly new to me.
the writing here is fantastic in places. he's great at the terse aphorism; a staple of the western:
*"It's a graveyard," said Bird.
"You'll find that's always the case," said Sugar, "if you pay attention."
*"Lots of things are going to come at you," said Mary. "It is only the world saying hello."
*"Left to their own devices, people will live out every possible variation of a human life."
and, like most westerns, life is cheap. but here, even the characters meant to be redemptive are at risk so you never really feel "safe" for anyone.
but i feel like winnette has less control over the surreal elements of the novel. the confusion starts early, and it never really lets up.
brooke and sugar are brothers and killers for hire. they arrive at a town where they are owed money for bloody services rendered to find it unrecognizable - burned to the ground, its citizens murdered, and under the new leadership of a tiny man with plenty of hired muscle. there is a tongueless old man, verbal sparring, unprovoked violence and then the page-nine reveal that sugar has a vagina.
so then you gotta go back and say "wait, what?"
i don't consider that part a spoiler because - page NINE, but this is a bit more potentially spoilery.
so we are forced to second-guess a lot of what's happening. and that makes the occasional sloppy writing even more frustrating, because we don't know if it is intentional or oversight. what are we to make of a character whose arm had been lopped off, just above where would have been an elbow who on the next page pushed from his wrists to set his weight upon his legs? or this sentence - He looked ill and miserable, like an old dog she and John had once put down together. It was only a puppy. is that careless or is it meant to give us pause, in a book where gender is uncertain and families and relationships are slippery - adopted children, pretend marriages, and where the supernatural will sit on a rock and have a conversation with a fella?
it's a muddy kind of storytelling - it's unclear what is real, what is imagined, what is supernatural. it occurs in a dreamspace but there's a difference between deliberate vagueness for the sake of a surreal tone, and leaving loose ends because you don't know how to wrap up the story or finish what you've started. too many times i had the feeling that i was reading the latter. too many times i thought something was being implied that wasn't. for a long time, i thought brooke had some kind of magical healing powers - there are two scenes in which he boldly and unnecessarily displays a willingness to be stabbed as though he knows it won't matter and: He looked as if he should be covered in scars, but all of the wounds he bore were fresh. so i thought there was something going on there, some ability he had, but nothing ever came of that. and i think that's down to the tone setting up expectations; the reader is forced to fill in the gaps with their own explanations because there are too many details included that don't solidify into anything meaningful.
Living was all winding around and doubling back.
that is a pretty good encapsulation of the shape of the novel - there are recurrences and mirroring, which give the reader pause, but again - to no thematic purpose.
my problems with the book were mostly in the details. the tone of the book was great, and the message that stood out most clearly to me in all the chaos was the way that the violence of this world leeches in and taints even the most innocent, and that this is what we call survival.
that most innocent character is bird - he's a tabula rasa that arrives into the narrative naked and amnesiac without even fingerprints and he becomes shaped by his experiences and his victimization - hardened by the violent necessities of this world from a sweet kid who can't even manage to kill a bird (in a really reader-squirmy scene) into a force for vengeance that will continue and contribute to this cycle of inevitable violence.
one of the novel's central images stands in well for my overall feelings towards the book - a charred spiral staircase, all that remains in the middle of a burned-down town - it's a beautiful and twisted thing in the center of chaos and destruction, but it ultimately goes nowhere.
come to my blog!
this is one of those books that separates the hip from the unhip. i liked it, but i didn't LOVE it. and i feel the judgments!
doubtless true.
early on, i felt this book would be friends with Dark Property or A Choir of Ill Children. both of those books take a traditional subgenre - post-apoc and southern gothic, respectively, and then throw a bunch of weird all over it. this one uses the western as its base coat and there's all sorts of surreal splattering it, but i never had the feeling it was used as thoughtfully as the evenson or piccarilli. i'm generally fine with weird for weird's sake, but i had the feeling there was meant to be more than that here - some commentary or some larger theme i was missing. i kept feeling that i was so close to having that "AHA!" moment, but either i missed the point or the author was circling something without ever connecting the dots.
i'm just confused, i guess. this book is being held up as "the" indie book of the summer - as this bold revisionist western. but this isn't particularly "new" or "edgy," this subverting the expectations of the western genre by making it either really ultraviolent or really weird. it's not the first to borrow elements from noir and it's by no means the first nihilistic western. "weird west" already exists as a pulpy subgenre, and people like robert coover, ishmael reed, rudolph wurlitzer and even richard brautigan have written more literary versions of the weird west, so it's not like this is the first of its kind. and the heightened violence is definitely not new to the genre. there has always been an emphasis on violence in the western - it's one of its defining characteristics, but the classic stuff; the louie l'amour stuff, was always a little more tasteful in deploying it. and then along came cormac mccarthy, paving the way for the modern reader with a taste for more graphic violence, which led to things like The Winter Family, joe r. lansdale, and my favorite bloody/weird mashup, Smonk. SMONK! and i myself am one of those modern readers with a taste for more graphic violence - i read a lot of grit lit and there's frequently crossover into the western with grit lit, so i am fairly desensitized to violence, even when it is beautifully-written violence, so there's nothing here that is shockingly new to me.
the writing here is fantastic in places. he's great at the terse aphorism; a staple of the western:
*"It's a graveyard," said Bird.
"You'll find that's always the case," said Sugar, "if you pay attention."
*"Lots of things are going to come at you," said Mary. "It is only the world saying hello."
*"Left to their own devices, people will live out every possible variation of a human life."
and, like most westerns, life is cheap. but here, even the characters meant to be redemptive are at risk so you never really feel "safe" for anyone.
but i feel like winnette has less control over the surreal elements of the novel. the confusion starts early, and it never really lets up.
brooke and sugar are brothers and killers for hire. they arrive at a town where they are owed money for bloody services rendered to find it unrecognizable - burned to the ground, its citizens murdered, and under the new leadership of a tiny man with plenty of hired muscle. there is a tongueless old man, verbal sparring, unprovoked violence and then the page-nine reveal that sugar has a vagina.
so then you gotta go back and say "wait, what?"
i don't consider that part a spoiler because - page NINE, but this is a bit more potentially spoilery.
so we are forced to second-guess a lot of what's happening. and that makes the occasional sloppy writing even more frustrating, because we don't know if it is intentional or oversight. what are we to make of a character whose arm had been lopped off, just above where would have been an elbow who on the next page pushed from his wrists to set his weight upon his legs? or this sentence - He looked ill and miserable, like an old dog she and John had once put down together. It was only a puppy. is that careless or is it meant to give us pause, in a book where gender is uncertain and families and relationships are slippery - adopted children, pretend marriages, and where the supernatural will sit on a rock and have a conversation with a fella?
it's a muddy kind of storytelling - it's unclear what is real, what is imagined, what is supernatural. it occurs in a dreamspace but there's a difference between deliberate vagueness for the sake of a surreal tone, and leaving loose ends because you don't know how to wrap up the story or finish what you've started. too many times i had the feeling that i was reading the latter. too many times i thought something was being implied that wasn't. for a long time, i thought brooke had some kind of magical healing powers - there are two scenes in which he boldly and unnecessarily displays a willingness to be stabbed as though he knows it won't matter and: He looked as if he should be covered in scars, but all of the wounds he bore were fresh. so i thought there was something going on there, some ability he had, but nothing ever came of that. and i think that's down to the tone setting up expectations; the reader is forced to fill in the gaps with their own explanations because there are too many details included that don't solidify into anything meaningful.
Living was all winding around and doubling back.
that is a pretty good encapsulation of the shape of the novel - there are recurrences and mirroring, which give the reader pause, but again - to no thematic purpose.
my problems with the book were mostly in the details. the tone of the book was great, and the message that stood out most clearly to me in all the chaos was the way that the violence of this world leeches in and taints even the most innocent, and that this is what we call survival.
that most innocent character is bird - he's a tabula rasa that arrives into the narrative naked and amnesiac without even fingerprints and he becomes shaped by his experiences and his victimization - hardened by the violent necessities of this world from a sweet kid who can't even manage to kill a bird (in a really reader-squirmy scene) into a force for vengeance that will continue and contribute to this cycle of inevitable violence.
one of the novel's central images stands in well for my overall feelings towards the book - a charred spiral staircase, all that remains in the middle of a burned-down town - it's a beautiful and twisted thing in the center of chaos and destruction, but it ultimately goes nowhere.
come to my blog!
July 14, 2015
"Left to their own devices, people will live out every possible variation of a human life."
Haints Stay is the story of brothers Brooke and Sugar, the child they find in the woods, Bird and surviving the lawless wild west. That is as far as I dare go without giving out spoilers, because one of the pivotal points of the story is revealed in the first few pages of the book, then the story progresses from that revelation.
This is what I get for wanting to step out of my comfort zone - DISCOMFORT. This 220 pages long novel pinballed all of my ick zones - child and animal abuse, cannibalism and incest, but for the life of me, I can't put the book down.
Winnette's writing, stark and devoid of any sentimentality, compliments the violence and scrambling survival of the Wild West. The ending though, if you can call it that, was quite unsatisfactory. Or I just didn't get it, in any case I'd welcome explanations.
September 13, 2016
Note to self: stop looking for a repeat of the fun in The Sisters Brothers. Ain't gonna happen. Meanwhile, this one should win a top prize for Suckiest Novel Ever. I even liked The Fallen Land better than this one.
May 14, 2015
File under Books That Make You Question the Worthiness of the Human Project.
October 26, 2015
Brooke and Sugar are brothers and hired killers working an unspecified region of the American West. When they ride into town to collect on their most recent job, things go bad. They shoot the place up and light out for the wilderness. After their first night on the lam, they wake up to find a naked adolescent boy sleeping between them. He has no memory and his skin is smooth as an egg, without blemishes or fingerprints. They name him Bird. Sugar is pregnant with Brooke’s child. (You can work that one out for yourself.)
They kill everyone that tries to kill them. This means they kill essentially everyone they meet. This is a story of characters lost in the wilderness, a more savage than usual fairy tale.
“There was no logic to life and no road that could take you straight to elsewhere. Life was all winding round and doubling back.” That’s the author offering Brooke’s insights.
That seems to be Winnette’s vision and he presents it over and over again. You don’t care about these people. Bird may be an innocent but you can guess that time and circumstances will take care of that. At one point he is captured by a cannibal and rescued by a farmer who makes a habit of taking in strays. The man has already gained a wife and a daughter that way. But bad men gun him down, only to be killed in turn by the farmer’s wife. Bird is sobbing and the woman will have none of it.
They kill everyone that tries to kill them. This means they kill essentially everyone they meet. This is a story of characters lost in the wilderness, a more savage than usual fairy tale.
“There was no logic to life and no road that could take you straight to elsewhere. Life was all winding round and doubling back.” That’s the author offering Brooke’s insights.
Brooke’s head was filled with images of outfits, gangs, marauders, riding up to a ranch’s front door and taking everything they pleased then destroying the rest. That was just the way of things. They weren’t so different. Between each of the towns was pure wilderness, and what came bearing down on civilization was beyond imagination, for most.
That seems to be Winnette’s vision and he presents it over and over again. You don’t care about these people. Bird may be an innocent but you can guess that time and circumstances will take care of that. At one point he is captured by a cannibal and rescued by a farmer who makes a habit of taking in strays. The man has already gained a wife and a daughter that way. But bad men gun him down, only to be killed in turn by the farmer’s wife. Bird is sobbing and the woman will have none of it.
“That’s not how this works…we are always in the wilderness. Beneath everything is the wilderness and there is no end to it,”
“What do you mean?”
“You know exactly what I mean, and that is why you’re scared.”
January 16, 2016
What a strange and marvelous book this is. So weird in all the wondrous ways: setting, characters, contemporary and yet not, violent, but in that manner in which you can't stop devouring page after page. And also moments of poetic choices that took my breath away, slowed my breathing, made me wince, or chuckle. Winnette is a writer to watch, and read. Pick up this book from Two Dollar Radio. The strangeness will make you wonder what you've missed your entire life.
September 15, 2015
a fever dream of imagined western or 'frontier' 'america' which does a good job conjuring up what it 'could have really been like' with continent-wide death and displacement of indigenous, of unregulated or unrestricted "pioneers" looking for their pieceofpie, of townsfolk bringing their church and law and capitalism (and vindictiveness and hypocrisy and rapaciousness ) to 'virgin' territory, of ptsd with guns, knives, teeth, fist, dicks. so, well, perhaps not a novel for everybody, but for readers who like wurlitzer The Drop Edge of Yonder , jim thompson King Blood, tom franklin Smonk and this new, very similar, grit lit novel of the west by ireland Beyond the Horizon
August 5, 2015
Sort of a pisser of a thing to say about a book, but I sensed that Winnette could have blown me away with this book--that it's in his power--but did not. Disappointing in that sense, but still an enjoyable read.
June 6, 2015
What a strange mix of stoicism, violence, and humor wearing the clothes of a western this book it. I liked it quite a bit. The lines are great, and I love the slight odd rhythm to some of the voices that really makes the prose sing, but is so subtle that you almost can't see it if you try to look. I would read more westerns if more westerns were like this.
July 7, 2015
A transgressive Western for readers of The Sisters Brothers or The Winter Family hankering for something a might weirder. Unsettling and brilliant, albeit in a wholly disturbing way.
December 9, 2016
These characters will stick with me for a while. Particularly the young one-armed wannabe gunslinger Bird. Winnette does a skillful job weaving multiple plot-lines together. I loved this book.
March 20, 2018
I'm probably too demanding. When I see "Acid Western", I expect some delirious Brian Evenson meta-narrative, heavy on the "Acid", rather than The Sisters Brothers.
This is competent enough, and there are interesting elements. But I'm just not that interested in who shot whom, where, etc.
This is competent enough, and there are interesting elements. But I'm just not that interested in who shot whom, where, etc.
September 17, 2015
If “Haints Stay” is a response to “Sisters Brothers”, it surpasses its predecessor handily. It is more serious, more profound, and far more satisfying at the end.
It’s as if Winnette challenged himself to build a book around a humorous reinterpretation of the previous book’s title. Both are about a pair of gunslinging assassins (“sisters brothers” indeed); both describe wild, painful journeys through the early American west; both use clear, elegant, descriptive prose—sparse yet poetic—and both upend the tradition of the western novel in more ways than one. (And one of Winnette’s brothers is even similar in spirit to one of deWitt’s).
But the arc of “Haints Stay” is more serious, its message more deep. Upon re-reading “Sisters Brothers”, I realized with disappointment that the book is quite shallow. It's an interesting story, filled with lightness, humor, colorful characters, and compelling anecdotes, but never took me any closer to a deeper understanding of the characters, the world they inhabit, or the world I do.
“Haints Stay”, on the other hand, forced me to confront a lot of unpleasant information; it forced me to think about what was meant by the devastating, concluding sentence of the book—the final, foreboding image of the novel. What did it explain about the past? What did it foretell of the future?
There's no answer. No interpretation of the book can demonstrate that any evidence leads to any definite conclusion. We're left in the middle of things, forced to consider what we think could (or should) happen, or more interestingly, to wish had never happened. We realize that the ending is the inevitable outcropping of all the events which came before—all those awful, painful, horrible things that happened before—all those things that left an imprint on the actors.
Some reviewers here have said that the story falls apart midway, when the brothers and their young friend split up, the three plot threads becoming independent of each other, but I disagree strongly. The threads are never completely unconnected. Beside those three main characters, other characters are shared between the strands, some overtly, and some in spirit. The threads become a rich fabric.
And the ending, while seemingly disjointed at first, is actually a marvel of recapitulation upon reflection. The specific fate of each character to come doesn’t matter as much as the idea of fate itself. Karma, if you like. Because that’s the point of this book. The final image delivers its message perfectly.
You set down the book understanding that the world is one of extremes: brutality and love; individualism and interconnection; exile and family; pragmatism and desire. I can't imagine a better, more effective way to portray this universal truth than the ending Winnette has crafted.
It’s as if Winnette challenged himself to build a book around a humorous reinterpretation of the previous book’s title. Both are about a pair of gunslinging assassins (“sisters brothers” indeed); both describe wild, painful journeys through the early American west; both use clear, elegant, descriptive prose—sparse yet poetic—and both upend the tradition of the western novel in more ways than one. (And one of Winnette’s brothers is even similar in spirit to one of deWitt’s).
But the arc of “Haints Stay” is more serious, its message more deep. Upon re-reading “Sisters Brothers”, I realized with disappointment that the book is quite shallow. It's an interesting story, filled with lightness, humor, colorful characters, and compelling anecdotes, but never took me any closer to a deeper understanding of the characters, the world they inhabit, or the world I do.
“Haints Stay”, on the other hand, forced me to confront a lot of unpleasant information; it forced me to think about what was meant by the devastating, concluding sentence of the book—the final, foreboding image of the novel. What did it explain about the past? What did it foretell of the future?
There's no answer. No interpretation of the book can demonstrate that any evidence leads to any definite conclusion. We're left in the middle of things, forced to consider what we think could (or should) happen, or more interestingly, to wish had never happened. We realize that the ending is the inevitable outcropping of all the events which came before—all those awful, painful, horrible things that happened before—all those things that left an imprint on the actors.
Some reviewers here have said that the story falls apart midway, when the brothers and their young friend split up, the three plot threads becoming independent of each other, but I disagree strongly. The threads are never completely unconnected. Beside those three main characters, other characters are shared between the strands, some overtly, and some in spirit. The threads become a rich fabric.
And the ending, while seemingly disjointed at first, is actually a marvel of recapitulation upon reflection. The specific fate of each character to come doesn’t matter as much as the idea of fate itself. Karma, if you like. Because that’s the point of this book. The final image delivers its message perfectly.
You set down the book understanding that the world is one of extremes: brutality and love; individualism and interconnection; exile and family; pragmatism and desire. I can't imagine a better, more effective way to portray this universal truth than the ending Winnette has crafted.
August 6, 2015
Haints Stay thoughts~ BooksIsTheLife!
|Giveaway Copy|
Things I liked
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haints Stay is one of the most unique books I have ever read, with one of it's main characters being a transgender. In the book community we never emerge many sexually diverse characters. While reading this book It felt like I was reading a storybook-following Bird's, Sugar, and Brooke's adventures with this came no sugar coating over the violence and grotesque in the "Wild, Wild, West" which I thought made the story even more beautiful then it already was.
Improving on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout the book I couldn't picture the towns in which the brothers traveled to, I was always going back to how I see the Wild west in the movies, how the characters and setting of the book could've been described more. At times the actions of the two brothers seemed very brutal towards others and they barely held any remorse, we can't read what the brothers are thinking so their emotions seem a bit inhuman.
For example when Sugar shot the young girl with scars on her face (Alice) who helped deliver his baby he showed no remorse and he went off to kill the rest of the town! Of course this could be because of all the times they had to kill to survive or because they were being paid but he didn't feel bad about killing everyone (that he could've just left alone)!
Overall Review
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACTUAL RATING~ 3.85
I highly recommend this book it brought in something so beautifully unique into the book world! There are a few things I did mind while reading but overall all my critique is overshadowed by how much of an enjoyment it is to read this book.
EDIT- DR. TOOK THE SHOT
|Giveaway Copy|
Things I liked
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Haints Stay is one of the most unique books I have ever read, with one of it's main characters being a transgender. In the book community we never emerge many sexually diverse characters. While reading this book It felt like I was reading a storybook-following Bird's, Sugar, and Brooke's adventures with this came no sugar coating over the violence and grotesque in the "Wild, Wild, West" which I thought made the story even more beautiful then it already was.
Improving on
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
Throughout the book I couldn't picture the towns in which the brothers traveled to, I was always going back to how I see the Wild west in the movies, how the characters and setting of the book could've been described more. At times the actions of the two brothers seemed very brutal towards others and they barely held any remorse, we can't read what the brothers are thinking so their emotions seem a bit inhuman.
For example when Sugar shot the young girl with scars on her face (Alice) who helped deliver his baby he showed no remorse and he went off to kill the rest of the town! Of course this could be because of all the times they had to kill to survive or because they were being paid but he didn't feel bad about killing everyone (that he could've just left alone)!
Overall Review
~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~~
ACTUAL RATING~ 3.85
I highly recommend this book it brought in something so beautifully unique into the book world! There are a few things I did mind while reading but overall all my critique is overshadowed by how much of an enjoyment it is to read this book.
EDIT- DR. TOOK THE SHOT
This entire review has been hidden because of spoilers.
July 9, 2015
No hay más que ver algunas de las opiniones sobre el libro para ver que este joven autor está decidido a forjarse un lugar entre los grandes. Tampoco hay que creerse todo lo que se lee, mucho menos las comparaciones, entre McCarthy y Winnette hay un océano de tinta de distancia que salvar.
No obstante, este western indie, podría ser una nueva denominación de género aprueba con creces. No por el lenguaje que usa, a mi parecer a veces suena descontextualizado leer palabras o expresiones como "clebrities" o " not to be a fan of" en este tipo de novela, esperaba más en el aspecto literario sabiendo que Winnette es además poeta.
Destaca sin embargo la trama y es difícil hacer apuntes sin desvelar nada. Trata de dos hermanos, asesinos a sueldo que se encuentran con un oven del que sospechan y que, tras maltratar, dan por muerto. Por diversos avatares literarios, cada uno de los tres sigue su propio camino. Lo mejor de la novela es sin duda lo inesperado del fin de cada uno.
Hay muerte. disparos, peleas, altercados... todo lo que encontraríamos en un Western al uso a lo que habría que añadir temas como la transexualidad, el incesto y la redención inmerecida del que más que arrepentirse cambia de vida.
Quizás quien haya pensado en McCarthy a la hora de escribir una crítica haya mezclado el Gótico Sureño de "La Oscuridad Exterior" con las novelas Western del autor... hay ápices de esto aquí pero tan tenues que la comparación no es merecida.
Por otro lado, la novela se sostiene en pie, es sólida, adictiva y una muy buena lectura. Bastante recomendable.
No obstante, este western indie, podría ser una nueva denominación de género aprueba con creces. No por el lenguaje que usa, a mi parecer a veces suena descontextualizado leer palabras o expresiones como "clebrities" o " not to be a fan of" en este tipo de novela, esperaba más en el aspecto literario sabiendo que Winnette es además poeta.
Destaca sin embargo la trama y es difícil hacer apuntes sin desvelar nada. Trata de dos hermanos, asesinos a sueldo que se encuentran con un oven del que sospechan y que, tras maltratar, dan por muerto. Por diversos avatares literarios, cada uno de los tres sigue su propio camino. Lo mejor de la novela es sin duda lo inesperado del fin de cada uno.
Hay muerte. disparos, peleas, altercados... todo lo que encontraríamos en un Western al uso a lo que habría que añadir temas como la transexualidad, el incesto y la redención inmerecida del que más que arrepentirse cambia de vida.
Quizás quien haya pensado en McCarthy a la hora de escribir una crítica haya mezclado el Gótico Sureño de "La Oscuridad Exterior" con las novelas Western del autor... hay ápices de esto aquí pero tan tenues que la comparación no es merecida.
Por otro lado, la novela se sostiene en pie, es sólida, adictiva y una muy buena lectura. Bastante recomendable.
January 23, 2016
Haints Stay is the violent tale of Brooke and Sugar, two bounty hunters/general serial killers that leave bloodshed in their wake. The "men" (If you read the book you will understand why I put men in quotes) don't really have a home. They roam around living off the land and whatever they can scavenge while pillaging. One night they wake up with a young boy in their camp. The eventually name the boy Bird but when they can't figure out where he came from they decide to dispose of him. They do not successfully kill Bird and the story begins to dissect at this point. The story goes on with the ruination of Brooke and Sugar's lives while telling the story of Bird's rehabilitation. The story becomes one of revenge and redemption. It is very much a story of how violence can destroy someone both mentally and physically. Since it is set in the old west, the environment they live in is unforgiving as are the people. Much of the dialog is minimal and Mccarthyesque. I would recommend it for any fans of other hardcore westerns. I really enjoyed it and will definitely read more Winnette in the future.
November 21, 2015
Haints Stay, a novel by Colin Winnette. Good book, three stars. The characters are well-drawn and unique, the plot is engaging. And the gender-bending that some reviewers found confusing or off-putting was anything but. My guess is that the author intended the latter as an homage to Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brother. If so, the author is successful in this regard, though I preferred DeWitt's novel. What somewhat disappointed me about Haints Stay was the prose. Not often, but sometimes, the word choices are imprecise, the verbs vague, and the action scenes overly sketchy. This goes beyond minimalism versus maximalism. To me, even the opening paragraphs, which the author must have read and reread a thousand times, are ill-served by imprecise verbs that can mean a hundred things. Maybe I'm being a little harsh on this point, because it could be that few will be as distracted as I sometimes was, by fuzzy scenes and generic word choices. I do look forward to future works by this highly imaginative, promising author. But comparisons, by other reviewers, to Cormac McCarthy, Robert Coover, and Thomas McGuane, are as yet unearned.
April 14, 2016
Review: Haints Stay by Colin Winnette Publisher: No Exit Press (24 March 2016)
ISBN-13: 978-1843448341
Source: Real Readers
Rating: 3*
Synopsis:
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. Driven from town after a bathhouse brawl, it's only a matter of time before the sheriffs will find them. Before the cannibals and stampedes and marauders will find them. Before the past will clamber up from where they buried it, covered in animal skins and teeth.
Review:
At the beginning of this book, I found Brooke and Sugar quite intriguing, as there was a lot of mystery surrounding the characters themselves as well as what they were up to, and the story started off strong. I found the story got rather sidetracked and my attention wandered off with it as I found my mind wandering on to other things.
Haints Stay is a novel in the 'acid western' genre, which I'm not familiar with, so perhaps this is the reason I found it so very difficult to get into. Disappointing.
ISBN-13: 978-1843448341
Source: Real Readers
Rating: 3*
Synopsis:
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. Driven from town after a bathhouse brawl, it's only a matter of time before the sheriffs will find them. Before the cannibals and stampedes and marauders will find them. Before the past will clamber up from where they buried it, covered in animal skins and teeth.
Review:
At the beginning of this book, I found Brooke and Sugar quite intriguing, as there was a lot of mystery surrounding the characters themselves as well as what they were up to, and the story started off strong. I found the story got rather sidetracked and my attention wandered off with it as I found my mind wandering on to other things.
Haints Stay is a novel in the 'acid western' genre, which I'm not familiar with, so perhaps this is the reason I found it so very difficult to get into. Disappointing.
May 19, 2018
was really looking forward to this after seeing some had compared it to the sisters brothers -- i mean, there were a set of killer brothers in each, but beyond that, i was kinda disappointed -- i f'ing loved the sisters brothers -- i felt like i never really got to know the characters here, any of them -- which is a shame because i was interested -- always missing a crucial reveal or more backstory or just . . . something -- i enjoyed the dialogue the most, and the setting is right up my alley, but i felt disconnected to any particular plot -- at times, especially early on, it felt very strongly like i was reading some sort of allegorical tale, but i could never quite just figure out what i was supposed to be experiencing, or maybe what i was supposed to "get" -- there was one particularly cool aspect to the book that i had never read before, so major creative props for that -- and the whole thing actually was kinda cool -- just wish i woulda liked it more -- too much missing --
December 28, 2015
I read this excellent novel in about three hours. If you love McCarthy, sure, and DeWitt's Sisters Brothers, yes, but it read more like a western film than a traditional genre novel. A transgender hero called Sugar who is called "son" by his abusive father and so seems to aim to earn that gender by unparalleled violence. And his brother, Brooke, lost to the world. A pair of hired killers finally caught by some version of the law. And a child, Bird, who shows up with no memory of how he got there. It's so many damn good things at once. Highly recommended.
Also it's one of those books where you can't figure the title and you don't think to google it (Don't!) and then it comes up near the end and you still can't figure it but you're pretty sure and then you figure it and it's perfect.
Also it's one of those books where you can't figure the title and you don't think to google it (Don't!) and then it comes up near the end and you still can't figure it but you're pretty sure and then you figure it and it's perfect.
June 1, 2020
Somewhat conflicted in my reaction to this story, which was fairly well delivered and interesting, similar on the order of the western novels of Cormac McCarthy (in which just about everybody dies), but not quite as good. Certainly it portrays a much harder and dangerous life for those trying to eke out an existence in the developing West, existence as brutal and arbitrary. We follow the paths of two murderous psychopath siblings, and the young boy that teams up with them for a bit, and the different paths they end up taking, though there are connections unseen. I think many people will like it, but it left me a bit cold.
September 12, 2015
This rambling prose purports to give a view on life on the fringes, but instead merely gives glimpses of how things could be, without ever really giving a personality or purpose to anyone. It showcases a transsexual who does not even realize that truth, while giving a view of potential horror without cause, violence outside the rules of probability, and touches on what happens when violence runs unchecked. If it had been well written this would have been a great tool to caution people, but as it is, it felt pointless and plotless. Definitely not worth the time spent reading it.
May 29, 2015
I'm not sure what to say about this one yet ... anxious to attend the online chat with the author tonight. I feel like I would need to read it again to know exactly what all happened. And usually if books don't make sense, I don't like them. But I can't hate this one because there was something enjoyably weird about it. I think it would actually make more sense as a Quentin Tarantino or Coen brothers movie.
June 24, 2017
Wish I hadn't heard and read so much about this book before I read it. I will give it another go down the road a piece but really did not think it lived up to the hype. Reminded me of The Sisters Brothers, which I liked better. Writing is great in places, but also stilted in places, especially the dialog. Definitely gets the neo into the western, however.
August 13, 2015
A (surprisingly) workable hybrid, sitting somewhere between the oddness of the Coen Brothers shot through with the brutality and starkness of Cormac McCarthy.
The book's climax has an air of inevitability to it that still feels earned and just.
Violence begets violence, the players roles shift, and the whole cycle starts again.
The book's climax has an air of inevitability to it that still feels earned and just.
Violence begets violence, the players roles shift, and the whole cycle starts again.
May 26, 2016
An epic thing. A western on drugs, with bits and pieces of stunning imagination and shards of deep dark nightmare. I loved this novel, and consider it very much a novel that I had to work with along the way as if I was hopping along like some rookie on a random horse some dead dude 'gave me'.
July 3, 2018
Cormac McCarthy writes westerns that are bleak, and unforgiving. Take whatever joy is to be found in those novels, wring it out like a bloody rag, and what's left is this book. Unrelenting nihilistic hardship.
And, incidentally, a fascinating take on gender dysphoria. So there's that.
And, incidentally, a fascinating take on gender dysphoria. So there's that.
May 29, 2015
What a wonderful book. Spare, but lush. I felt like I was walking alongside Winnette's characters across the brutal western landscape. He is an author I will read again and again.
January 4, 2016
Like Patrick deWitt and Jim Jarmusch got together to write something with the feel of Cormac McCarthy's Outer Dark. Very strange, mythic, quite disturbing. The Weirdest West.
April 13, 2025
Oh wow! This absolutely was not for me! I️ could not follow a single character or the plot. I️ did finish it but I️ am more confused than I️ was before I️ started this.
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