Training horses is dangerous--a head-to-head confrontation with a 1,000 pounds of muscle and little sense takes courage, but more importantly patie...
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reviews
Jan 23, 2008
Mike
rated it: 
Everett is one of my favorite writers: consistently challenging, engaging in a range of diverse styles and storylines. He almost always seems to be writing about characters with contrary desires for isolation and also for connection, about the way we're forced to take action and make ethical choices -- and, with a tough-minded rigor, he reveals unsettling and complicated ambiguities every step of the way.
This is, in a way, one of his "Westerns"--novels set in some version More...
This is, in a way, one of his "Westerns"--novels set in some version More...
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Nov 08, 2007
Pete
rated it:
Percival Everett returns marvelously to form after his mis-step with _American Desert_. Incredibly spare prose and dialogue matches both the western feel of the plot's locale and lends the novel its essential pacing. That efficiency also places Everett's usual (and almost always wonderful) satirical voice aside in favor of a more humane humour that then itself steps aside before the novel's touching climax and skewed, tragic ending.
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(2 people liked it)
Nov 19, 2007
Jack
rated it:
this is not (thank god)some kind of hate-crime detective novel. the prose is lovely and spare, but i feel like the dialogue is a bit clever, or a lot clever, in places where it should just let go.
that said, my experience with this book has been pleasurable, in large part just because i love to read prose about horses and land and mules and sky and fences and caves and small town folks with bad habits and nice children. all that, too, where the focus is not solely on white, hertero More...
that said, my experience with this book has been pleasurable, in large part just because i love to read prose about horses and land and mules and sky and fences and caves and small town folks with bad habits and nice children. all that, too, where the focus is not solely on white, hertero More...
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 14, 2012
Ray
rated it: 
I really liked "Erasure" and I was excited to pick up this, another of Percival Everett's. Ostensibly this is the story of a Black rancher getting and his reaction to an LGBT hate crime in his small Wyoming town.
But really it's a story about someone who doesn't really understand his own feelings or how to relate to other people. This conflict motivates all of the characters in the novel and I think we're meant to understand that this same tension motivates all humans.
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But really it's a story about someone who doesn't really understand his own feelings or how to relate to other people. This conflict motivates all of the characters in the novel and I think we're meant to understand that this same tension motivates all humans.
More...
Jan 04, 2008
Megan
rated it:
Percival Everett is a god.I keep saying this, but this man knows how to write characters you can actually get behind. He writes real, flawed, loveable characters, and when they fuck up you know why, and it makes them even better. This is a great short book about a black cowboy, and horses, and love, and you should totally read it.
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(3 people liked it)
Jul 04, 2009
Brianna
rated it:
I am really not sure what to think of this book.
It's about a rancher who trains horses, his small town, and the way he and other townsfolk react to homosexual outsiders. (But he's black, see, so he's had his own bigotry to face)
It's an unusual book -- I guess it's a modern Western? On the one hand, it felt like a Louis L'Amour at times. On the other, I had a hard time believing any small town (or anyone in it) holding a gay/lesbian rally, no matter what the incident (I More...
It's about a rancher who trains horses, his small town, and the way he and other townsfolk react to homosexual outsiders. (But he's black, see, so he's had his own bigotry to face)
It's an unusual book -- I guess it's a modern Western? On the one hand, it felt like a Louis L'Amour at times. On the other, I had a hard time believing any small town (or anyone in it) holding a gay/lesbian rally, no matter what the incident (I More...
Dec 14, 2007
Brent
rated it: 
I read this whole book in one day even though I didn't like it.
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(1 person liked it)
Jan 29, 2012
Paola
rated it: 
Splendido, splendente, luce pura, come un diamante.
La seconda magnifica lettura dell’anno.
Dritto nella mente e nel cuore.
La scrittura di Everett ha la musica di un torrente di acqua limpida che scorre fra i sassi levigati dalla corrente.
E come staresti seduta accanto a questa acqua per un tempo infinito, così vorresti continuare a leggere e leggere quanto quest’uomo scrive.
Perché il protagonista di questa storia io lo vorrei come amico, come vicino di casa, lo vorrei vicino e basta, anzi ne v More...
La seconda magnifica lettura dell’anno.
Dritto nella mente e nel cuore.
La scrittura di Everett ha la musica di un torrente di acqua limpida che scorre fra i sassi levigati dalla corrente.
E come staresti seduta accanto a questa acqua per un tempo infinito, così vorresti continuare a leggere e leggere quanto quest’uomo scrive.
Perché il protagonista di questa storia io lo vorrei come amico, come vicino di casa, lo vorrei vicino e basta, anzi ne v More...
Mar 02, 2008
Jennifer
rated it:
Percival Everett is one of my favorite authors and this book was just as good as I had hoped it would be. I fell in love with the characters and I thought that most of the story had a wonderful ambling pace.
A few days ago I got off at my subway stop and kept reading 'Wounded' while I was walking up the stairs and out of the subway. I heard this guy next to me gasp and I stopped just before I walked face-first into big metal beam. So I was nearly wounded while reading Wounded - ha.
More...
A few days ago I got off at my subway stop and kept reading 'Wounded' while I was walking up the stairs and out of the subway. I heard this guy next to me gasp and I stopped just before I walked face-first into big metal beam. So I was nearly wounded while reading Wounded - ha.
More...
Sep 29, 2008
Billy
rated it:
The African American cowboy experience is an interesting twist that Everett utilizes with consistancy. Whether purely stylistic ice cream, you can see this is an intelligence of a "wild" to coin a western phrase animale-author.
American Desert still has the West, but without the landscape becoming a character and antagonist, as so often is the case in typical Westerns.
Thus the balance between landscapes of vast eternity, (the desert being made for film with its h More...
American Desert still has the West, but without the landscape becoming a character and antagonist, as so often is the case in typical Westerns.
Thus the balance between landscapes of vast eternity, (the desert being made for film with its h More...
Feb 03, 2011
Kae
rated it:
Lack of editing dulled the effect of this potentially-powerful look at racism. Set in Wyoming, with John Hunt telling the story first person. John is a black rancher/horse trainer. Hate crimes begin in the community, including the death of a homosexual. It spills into Hunt’s life.
Nov 24, 2011
your favourite half-light
rated it:
A haunting, gut-wrenching read. I would never have expected a Western to provide such a nuanced portrait of the many degrees, origins, and manifestations of intolerance and hate, and yet here it is. Don't pass this one by.
Apr 02, 2009
Erik
rated it: 
As much as I liked SUDER, I disliked this novel. It seemed to touch upon every politically-correct cliche it could muster in a story about a black rancher in a Wyoming town where a homosexual is brutally murdered.
Jan 29, 2012
Franco
rated it:
Un romanzo sul West; non il mitico, ed inesistente, West della colonizzazione bianca dell'America del nord, ma il West di oggi, del XX secolo.
Un West dove i Cowboys sono gli Afroamericani, come John Hunt - il protagonista del romanzo - e suo zio Gus; o donne, come Morgan; o gli indigeni, i cosiddetti "indiani".
I bianchi no; al massimo sono razzisti neonazisti, o controfigure di second'ordine, anche etico e morale.
Un West a -20°, immerso nella neve.
In questo romanzo, More...
Un West dove i Cowboys sono gli Afroamericani, come John Hunt - il protagonista del romanzo - e suo zio Gus; o donne, come Morgan; o gli indigeni, i cosiddetti "indiani".
I bianchi no; al massimo sono razzisti neonazisti, o controfigure di second'ordine, anche etico e morale.
Un West a -20°, immerso nella neve.
In questo romanzo, More...
Apr 15, 2011
Scott
rated it:
The premise of two main characters as being "minorities" in a possibly bigoted climate can be intriguing, however; I found this story a bit far fetched and predictable. The ending was a bit too unrealistic and "vigilante" for my taste. I did love the settings and dialogues throughout the book but it painted a picture of a scenario that I just couldn't fathom as real.
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Nov 03, 2009
Jean
rated it:
Totally not my type of book and totally loved it. Everett's style and point of view remind me so much of Coetzee. I really recommend this.
Jul 05, 2011
Dre
rated it:
On the wake of NY'S legalization of same sex marriage, this book will without a doubt leave you in favor.
Oct 29, 2010
MJ
rated it:
A warm but gritty book about a reluctant horse trainer saving lives and kicking ass.
Jan 29, 2012
Lent démarrage, le temps de poser le décor (et l'Ouest américain, c'est vaste) et les personnages, et brusque accélération pour le drame final. Pas mal du tout.
Apr 02, 2008
Urbanfactor2000
rated it:
Amazing! Would recommend to anyone! Won't spoil it, you just have to read...
Mar 04, 2011
Ford
rated it:
I don't know all his characters are so easy to identify with. He just does it so naturally.
Feb 21, 2012
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