Book picks similar to
Barbed Wire by Elmer Kelton


western
westerns
elmer-kelton
fiction

All Things Left Wild


James Wade - 2020
    Caleb's moral compass and inner courage will be tested as they travel the harsh terrain and encounter those who have carved out a life there, for good or ill.Wealthy and bookish Randall Dawson, out of place in this rugged and violent country, is begrudgingly chasing after the Bentley brothers. With little sense of how to survive, much less how to take his revenge, Randall meets Charlotte, a woman experienced in the deadly ways of life in the West. Together they navigate the murky values of vigilante justice.Powerful and atmospheric, lyrical and fast-paced, All Things Left Wild is a coming-of-age for one man, a midlife odyssey for the other, and an illustration of the violence and corruption prevalent in our fast-expanding country. It artfully sketches the magnificence of the American West as mirrored in the human soul.

The Tattooist of Auschwitz


Heather Morris - 2018
    When his captors discover that he speaks several languages, he is put to work as a Tätowierer (the German word for tattooist), tasked with permanently marking his fellow prisoners.Imprisoned for more than two and a half years, Lale witnesses horrific atrocities and barbarism—but also incredible acts of bravery and compassion. Risking his own life, he uses his privileged position to exchange jewels and money from murdered Jews for food to keep his fellow prisoners alive.One day in July 1942, Lale, prisoner 32407, comforts a trembling young woman waiting in line to have the number 34902 tattooed onto her arm. Her name is Gita, and in that first encounter, Lale vows to somehow survive the camp and marry her.A vivid, harrowing, and ultimately hopeful re-creation of Lale Sokolov's experiences as the man who tattooed the arms of thousands of prisoners with what would become one of the most potent symbols of the Holocaust, The Tattooist of Auschwitz is also a testament to the endurance of love and humanity under the darkest possible conditions.

Days Without End


Sebastian Barry - 2016
    Army in the 1850s. With his brother in arms, John Cole, Thomas goes on to fight in the Indian Wars—against the Sioux and the Yurok—and, ultimately, the Civil War. Orphans of terrible hardships themselves, the men find these days to be vivid and alive, despite the horrors they see and are complicit in. Moving from the plains of Wyoming to Tennessee, Sebastian Barry’s latest work is a masterpiece of atmosphere and language. An intensely poignant story of two men and the makeshift family they create with a young Sioux girl, Winona, Days Without End is a fresh and haunting portrait of the most fateful years in American history and is a novel never to be forgotten.

Sweet Carolina


Stephen Bly - 1998
    In this Heroines of the Golden West title, Carolina Cantrell goes to Montana Territory to settle her late brother's estate only to face internal conflict fueled by an explosion of emotions centered around a particularly handsome drifter that walks into her life.

Yavapai Gold


R.O. Lane - 2018
    The two men are former Texas Rangers. Along with Sutton's daughter, the former Rangers ride into the Bradshaws with outlaws on their trail, who know that Sutton has a map to buried gold. Sutton's brother years before had buried the gold before being killed by Yavapai Indians, who considered the Bradshaws sacred territory. Kilcannon marries Sutton's daughter, who is then kidnapped by the outlaws, who kill her father. Kilcannon rescues his wife and the two of them find ways to get the gold back to Prescott, the capital of Arizona Territory. Outlaws kidnap Kilcannon's wife again, but she's armed and dangerous. She kills Buster Oldham, leader of the gang of outlaws, with her pocket pistol, and Kilcannon rescues her and kills the last of the outlaws. It's another classic western with a bit of romance by R. O. Lane.

The Heavenly Table


Donald Ray Pollock - 2016
    Dispossessed farmer Pearl Jewett ekes out a hardscrabble existence with his three young sons: Cane (the eldest; handsome; intelligent); Cob (short; heavy set; a bit slow); and Chimney (the youngest; thin; ill-tempered). Several hundred miles away in southern Ohio, a farmer by the name of Ellsworth Fiddler lives with his son, Eddie, and his wife, Eula. After Ellsworth is swindled out of his family’s entire fortune, his life is put on a surprising, unforgettable, and violent trajectory that will directly lead him to cross paths with the Jewetts. No good can come of it. Or can it?In the gothic tradition of Flannery O’Connor and Cormac McCarthy with a healthy dose of cinematic violence reminiscent of Sam Peckinpah, Quentin Tarantino and the Coen Brothers, the Jewetts and the Fiddlers will find their lives colliding in increasingly dark and horrific ways, placing Donald Ray Pollock firmly in the company of the genre’s literary masters.