“Oh, them’s just words.” She twirled her finger at the stars. “Men is all the time hiding behind words.”
Lonesome Dove meets Calamity Jane in John Larison’s gunslinging spark of a western, and I couldn’t be more smitten. Whiskey When We’re Dry (Viking 2018) shimmers with an unexpected brilliance, the echoes of McMurtry kissing the pages but never once drowning out Larison’s quick-witted Jessilyn. It’s Jessilyn that makes this novel, make no mistake, and her voice will hold you captive.
After Jessilyn’s Pa dies and she’s left on the homestead alone, she decides to set off after her brother, Noah Harney – a wanted gunslinger. She cuts her hair, puts on some britches, and becomes Jesse. She remains a bit skeptical of the stories of Noah’s exploits; she was always the better shot, after all.
The novel takes place primarily in and around the fictional Pearlsville. The Governor is gathering his men to find and stop Harney, and Jesse intends to be among those numbers. Things take a bit of a turn when Jesse is enlisted not as a member of the militia, but as the Governor’s shooter – a hired gun for protection but more for entertainment. ( I told you, Jesse was always the better shot.) Jesse bids her time, working for the Governor and hiding the money she brings in. No one has guessed her secret. No one doubts she is a man, not even the Governor’s daughter. Jesse waits for the day she’ll join her brother and his Wild Bunch.
I don’t want to spoil the novel by telling you who Jessilyn is telling her story to or what happened with the Governor, but I will tell you that Noah isn’t the only Harney that the Wild Bunch turns to. There’s also a part that kicked me in the throat and stole a tear or two – it involves a horse and probably the purest relationship Jessilyn turned Jesse turned Jess ever had. (Don’t fret – the horse doesn’t die.) While I would have liked to have seen more of Jess’s relationship with Annette, a member of the Wild Bunch, what we do see somehow manages to be painfully sweet and fitting.
Whiskey When We’re Dry is two fingers that burns so good going down, you just have to pour another.
Read this book.
A Girl Named Tommi 