Torturous Trek

by Max Brand, Traber Burns (Narrator)

On a cold, gusty night in Circle City, Alaska, Sammy Day walks into Nagle s Bar. He is only twenty-two, but he has been on his own for ten years. He has worked cattle from Montana to Chihuahua, but a little accident at a poker table in Montana sent him on a forced march to Alaska to avoid a posse. He is down to his last 50"

Genres: Westerns, Audiobook

Audible Audio

Published November 1, 2018

About the author

Frederick Schiller Faust (see also Frederick Faust), aka Frank Austin, George Owen Baxter, Walter C. Butler, George Challis, Evin Evan, Evan Evans, Frederick Faust, John Frederick, Frederick Frost, David Manning, Peter Henry Morland, Lee Bolt, Peter Dawson, Martin Dexter, Dennis Lawson, M.B., Hugh Owen, Nicholas Silver

Max Brand, one of America's most popular and prolific novelists and author of such enduring works as Destry Rides Again and the Doctor Kildare stories, died on the Italian front in 1944.

Reviews

[Malachi Cyr]

Well written and interesting, but the characters were rough, bad men who held no fear of God or thought much of murder and the like, giving the whole story an overall darker feel.

[Steven]

Okay, okay. Like all the other Westerns I've read lately, this one was predictable from the beginning. However, I'm a sucker for a dog story, and this one kinda turned into that about a third of the way in. Sammy Day, aka Joker, goes to Alaska to escape his past and for reasons I don't quite understand, almost everyone in Circle City comes to love him despite him not being a very likeable character from beginning to end. He decides he's going to marry the prettiest girl in town, who doesn't show any interest in him ... and there's more description given to what a perfect specimen her brother is than her. To win her, Joker has to work for the disgusting and cruel Bill the Dog Man for a year and a day. That's when Joker's adventure really begins. It's action pretty much from beginning to end and the audio book was nice escapism while I drove back and forth to work.

[Tim]

Imagine my surprise when I find a hardcover book (released Nov.2016) by Max Brand on the new release shelf at my local library! So far I've never read a hardcover copy of a Max Brand book, they've all been used paperbacks I've picked up at garage sales, used book stores, etc.

TORTUROUS TREK is the story of a young man named Sammy Day (AKA "The Joker") who has recently arrived in Alaska from the "cow range"(Montana to Chihuahua), and has lost a large sum of money in a poker game the night before, only to walk into Nagle's Bar with 50 cents in his pocket.
Sammy enters a high stakes poker game with his half dollar and goes up several thousand-only to lose it all in one hand. Angrily, he challenges the most popular guy in town named Rush Mahon, who also happens to be the biggest and toughest, as well as being touted as the finest musher ever with his lead dog Klondike. Sammy beats the bigger man in a fist fight, and has his eye on Mahon's sister, Goldie, who doesn't want to give him the time of day. Goldie challenges Sammy to take a job with "Bill the Dogman" who is a mysterious recluse that has hired several men in the past, but none of them last for very long. Sammy gets Goldie to agree that if he lasts on the job for a year she'll have to marry him, but immediately odds are placed on whether he'll last days, weeks, or a month.

I don't want to give out too many other details of the story and spoil it, but I can recommend it to fans of THE CALL OF THE WILD or WHITE FANG as well as Max Brand fans. Some people seem to be put off by the characters & creatures of Max Brand stories having somewhat supernatural abilities making the storyline at times seemingly impossible to be true to life, but I love that aspect of them, and when taken into consideration that most of his books were originally serials that were featured in magazines over several issues, they definitely have a vintage-western-pulp feel, if you're into that.
Max Brand is the most popular of several pen names used by author Frederick Faust, and for anyone wishing to learn more about him I can recommend The Max Brand Companion by Jon Tuska and Vickie Pickasrski.
4 stars.

[Scott Satterwhite]

I have known about Max Brand for a long time, ever since his westerns were recommended to me when I worked at this independent bookstore name Subterranean Books. A customer, who is almost certainly dead now, told me I should read this book. I finally did, 20-something years later. I thought the book was interesting with strong and compelling dialogue. I hadn't really thought about the frontiers of Alaska as part of the western genre, but certainly this book was a fast-paced drama with a dog named Satan at the heart of the story. That was cool. That said, I had a hard time getting over the anti-Native American racism in the book. I know that you could say this about people of that time, and maybe that's what people wanted to read when they read westerns. If that is the case, I feel like that condemns a a large group of society, in the same way that the same Native American stereotypes also literally condemned a large section of the population to degradation, brutality, violence, and death. I am sure these characters were accurately portrayed, and they were accurate for their time, but it is still hard to read. Nonetheless, I'm glad I finally read Max Brand.

[RJ]

Sammy Day aka “Joker” was a fast-talking, overconfident, overbearing cowpuncher staying ahead of a Montana posse. Arriving at Nagle s Bar in Circle City, Alaska, not learning anything from Montana, he sat in on another poker game. He was quickly exchanging stares and words with the BMIT Rush Mahon. After a questionable fistfight Joker sets his sight on Goldie Mahon, Rush’s sister. She wants nothing to do with Joker but makes a bet with him. If he can finish a year-long job with "Bill the Dogman" she’ll marry him. That’s all Joker needed to hear. The story goes on to chronicle the torturous ordeal Joker endured via Bill the Dogman. In addition, the relations with the sled dogs were also recounted, which was much more interesting. The conclusion brings us to the Nome Alaska sled dog race. Did Joker survive a year and win Goldie’s hand?

[Marty Solotki]

Traber Burns is one of my favourite narrators, and he does a great job for Audible with this rough tale of a man on the run from the law in Arizona, trying to carve out a hard new existence in bitter Alaska. This one is a mostly dreary tale, as life is hard, our characters are mean, and the language is dated; but it’s a good tale and one worth enjoying.

[Ronald]

A man offers to work for another for a year in Alaska for $5000 and the hand of a woman in marriage. Some of the things he is called on to do are pretty incredible, including winning a dog sled contest.

[John]

It was an ok western but wanted more

[Alice]

I could have given this book five stars because the story was really good. However, there were certain animal welfare considerations that put me off.