Tracing a group of ruthless outlaws from its genesis during the American Civil War all the way to a final bloody stand in the Oklahoma territories, The Winter Family is a hyperkinetic Western noir that reads like a full-on assault to the senses.
Spanning the better part of three decades, The Winter Family traverses America's harsh, untamed terrain, both serving and opposing the fierce advance of civilization. Among its twisted specimens, the Winter Family includes the psychopathic killer Quentin Ross, the mean and moronic Empire brothers, the impassive ex-slave Fred Johnson, and the dangerous child prodigy Lukas Shakespeare. But at the malevolent center of this ultra-violent storm is their cold, hardened leader, Augustus Winter—a man with an almost pathological resistance to the rules of society and a preternatural gift for butchery.
From their service as political thugs in a brutal Chicago election to their work as bounty hunters in the deserts of Arizona, there's a hypnotic logic to Winter's grim borderland morality that plays out, time and again, in ruthless carnage.
With its haunting, hard-edged style, The Winter Family is a feverishly paced meditation on human nature and the dark contradictions of progress.
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“Clifford Jackman uses the adventures of a gleefully nihilistic group of outlaws to tell the story of ‘civilization’s’ implacable march westward. The members of the Winter Family are the advanced guard—the thugs that more refined and powerful men send out to batter the world into submission. They burn Georgia for Sherman; they fix an election in Chicago for the young Republican Party; they clear Oklahoma of inconvenient natives for rapacious land barons. If Sam Peckinpah had been a novelist rather than a filmmaker, this is the book he would’ve written: brutal, at times darkly funny, and utterly gripping from the first page to the last.”
— Scott Smith, New York Times bestselling author of A Simple Plan
“The Winter Family is both calculating and poetic and holds you with a compelling brutality from which it is impossible to turn away.”
— Craig Johnson, New York Times bestselling author of the Walt Longmire mysteries“This noir Western is a violent rampage through the American West. Canadian author Jackman is a deft hand when describing the world, both physical and social, that the gang moves through…Fans of Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian and James Carlos Blake’s In the Rogue Blood will appreciate this latest entry in the gritty Western genre.”
— Library JournalBe the first to write a review about this audiobook!
Clifford Jackman received a bachelor of arts from York University, a master of arts from Queen’s University, and a bachelor of laws from Osgoode Hall Law School. He practices law in Richmond Hill.
Patrick Lawlor, an award-winning narrator, is also an accomplished stage actor, director, and combat choreographer. He has worked extensively off Broadway and has been an actor and stuntman in both film and television. He has been an Audie Award finalist multiple times and has garnered several AudioFile Earphones Awards, a Publishers Weekly Listen-Up Award, and many starred audio reviews from Library Journal and Kirkus Reviews.