A rare example of a literary western in the now hallowed traditions of Cormac McCarthy and The Sisters Brothers, Winnette's sly adventures are a genuine delight, and at the antipode of the familiar heroics of the movies, Louis L'Amour or Zane Grey. When Brooke and Sugar, two killers on the run stumble across Bird, a naked, mute boy who is unable to explain his presence or past, the road is set for an orgy of violence and over the top incidents of a bloody nature as they come to confront their own instincts and thirst for excess. Both fast-reading and meditative, the encounters each character makes once they are eventually separated in the wilderness of the West, make for a wry, picaresque philosophical tale of blood, ties that bind, and the permanence of evil. Quite unique and fascinating, even if you're not intrinsically a fan of westerns.
'Haints Stay turns the Western on its ear' - Washington Post Featured in: Slate Underrated Books of the Year 2015, Flavorwire Best Independent Press Books of 2015, Vice Magazine's '2015 Was the Year the Literary Versus Genre War Ended' best book list. 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.In Haints Stay, Colin Winnette breaks down the classic Western and builds a bloody lean-to from the scraps. Brutal, surreal, and darkly funny, this bold new novel follows an ever-expanding cast of characters - each in the pursuit of their own brand of justice and belonging.
