Afbeelding auteur

Clifford Jackman

Auteur van The Winter Family: A Novel

3 Werken 126 Leden 7 Besprekingen

Werken van Clifford Jackman

The Winter Family: A Novel (2015) 113 exemplaren
The Braver Thing (2020) 12 exemplaren
California 1901 (2015) 1 exemplaar

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The Winter Family by Clifford Jackman

This book reminds me of Games of Thrones if it was set in a western setting. There's lots of death, and lots of interesting drama to keep you interested.

I'm not crazy into westerns, but I love reading in different genres so I don't get bored reading the same old, same old. So this read was refreshing, even if I'm not the typical "target audience".

The book's setting is around civil war time, which is not a setting I see often of (at least in the books I typically read). For me, this setting worked well within the story. I enjoyed reading all of the descriptions of the locations and people of the time and Clifford Jackman did well within this setting.

While this book is fictional, a lot of the scenarios that happen in the book (brutal, almost R rated scenarios I might add) were situations that happened to people. It was incredible to read, but it rips your heart out knowing some of this did happen to people back in this time. The history was on point despite being fiction. It's not totally Wild West fiction if my review makes you believe that, but it's a "western" style near the Civil War (not men on horses shooting everyone like those old movies).

I definitely want to see Clifford Jackman write more - I thought this book did well within it's genre and was a good read. He was skilled at writing blood and war without a hero or antihero. It was just a novel following someone's life in a dark western-esque era. It didn't knock my socks off and turn me to the western genre, but it was worthy read I'd recommend or suggest my local library pick up for other readers.

On point Clifford! Keep up the good work! I can't wait to see you grow as an author!

Three out of five stars.

I received this book for free through Goodreads First Reads.
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Briars_Reviews | 6 andere besprekingen | Aug 4, 2023 |
I veered away from my usual genres when I requested this book from Net Galley.

This is mostly a western with a side of Chicago. In a steady push westward from the burning of Atlanta, this story spans the years from 1864 through 1900. Even the so-called civilized city of Chicago is only 1 step away from life in the brutal wild west. In fact, it might be even more brutal where its politics are concerned.

The head of the Winter family, which isn't a family by birth, is Augustus Winter. Golden eyed. Inscrutable. Cruel and seemingly without conscience, Augustus leads his band of mad men across the country. This group isn't pleasant, but they're well drawn and make for fascinating reading. With breakneck speed the reader is pulled along with this group, even at times when the reader is reluctant to go.

The history of our country is brutal and this book does not shy away from the many crimes against humanity that were perpetrated back then. I like to think that America has grown and learned from her history, but sometimes I wonder. I also wonder what guise Augustus Winter would be employing, if he were alive today. Head of ISIS? Leader of the Taliban? He may be a fictional character, but what he stood for is alive and well, even today, and I find that to be sad.

This book is due to be published in April of 2015. I highly recommend it to those interested in the history of the United States, as well as to fans of horror and westerns.

*I received a free e-ARC of this book from Net Galley, in exchange for an honest review.*
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Charrlygirl | 6 andere besprekingen | Mar 22, 2020 |

Warning to all readers, this book is about the many forms of violence that one man can inflict upon another. There are no good guys in the novel, only characters that aren't quite as bad as some of the others. All are still killers, thieves and liars at some level. But while parts of this book can only be defined as brutal and violent, it's not gratuitous, like some Clive Barker film. It's instrumental to the plot and exploration of the characters.

This book traces the history of The Winter Family, more appropriately called the Winter Gang, led by Augustus Winter, a cold-blooded psychopath. Brought together during the Civil War, and the Union Army’s march through Georgia and the Carolinas, their objective was simply to submit the populous to fear and chaos, something they did extremely well. So well, that they continued to practice their craft past the end of the war.

If my first two short paragraphs of this review don't intrigue you, there is no sense at all for you to attempt to read this book. While unmistakably violent, it is well written, and in my humble opinion, achieves the level of literature. This is the only book that I've given a 5 star rating in the past two years, maybe longer. Using my "Sadness Meter" to determine how badly I felt after reading the last sentence of the last page of the last chapter of this book, I can only say that I was crushed. I wanted this book, this story to go on . . . and on.
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baggman | 6 andere besprekingen | Feb 11, 2016 |
Ever notice in western or gangster movies that one shot from a pistol will remove an insignificant character from a gun fight, but that it takes ten or twelve shots (and maybe two to the head) to finish off one of the major characters? And that the most malefic character of all seems invulnerable to dozens of bullets flying about while those around him are dying like flies? Those same phenomena occur in The Winter Family, a curious western of practically pointless violence, featuring a gang of psychopathic killers having virtually no socially redeeming characteristics, who follow their eponymous leader, Augustus Winter, through perilous scrapes with the confederate army, Apaches on the war path, various law men, the Pinkertons, and the U.S. Cavalry.



You might infer from the introductory paragraph that I did not enjoy the book, but that would be wrong. The book is full of action, and the writing is pretty good. You even get to sympathize with, if not like, one or two of the members of the gang as they begin as bummers for General Sherman in his “March to the Sea.” (Bummers was the nickname given to Sherman’s soldiers who were assigned to requisition food from Southern homes on the route of the march, and who became notorious for looting and vandalism.) They then sign on as political enforcers in a Chicago mayoral election, serve as bounty hunters chasing Geronimo, and meet their (not especially tragic) ends trying to help one of their own escape from prison.

If Quentin Tarentino had written a western, it would be The Winter Family, which resembles "Reservoir Dogs" in mood and structure. One difference is that Tarentino’s characters never try to justify their senseless sadism. Near the end of the book, Winter muses on his life and sees it as an epic protest against civilization, which he deems “meaner than me….And it’s never going to die.” Maybe Jackman should have stuck with gratuitous mayhem.

But in the end, it all comes down to a confrontation between two monstrously competent killers—one outlaw, one Pinkerton—neither particularly virtuous, but both preposterously lethal. I won’t ruin the ending other than to say it is quite artful.

Evaluation: If you don’t mind a story that is “brutal” and “extreme” as one reviewer described it, you will find the book keeps you turning the pages.

(JAB)
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Gemarkeerd
nbmars | 6 andere besprekingen | May 4, 2015 |

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Statistieken

Werken
3
Leden
126
Populariteit
#159,216
Waardering
½ 3.7
Besprekingen
7
ISBNs
20
Talen
2

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