Paradise Sky

Starred review from April 6, 2015
Edgar-winner Lansdale’s folksy, cinematic fictional memoir tells the story of a man who was born a slave before the Civil War but grew up to become the
legendary Deadwood Dick. Willie Jackson is just running an errand in a nameless East Texas town when
he happens to glimpse the back end of Sam Ruggert’s wife while she’s bending over a clothes basket in her yard. Sam sees Willie looking at her, and in short order, Willie gets “invited to a lynching” and chooses, as an alternative, to flee. He’s taken in by Tate Loving, who teaches him much about life, including the proficient use of firearms. When forced to flee again, Willie changes his name to Nat Love and heads west to join the Army at Fort McKavett. He and another former slave, Cullen, are the only survivors of an Apache ambush on their unit, after which the two decide to leave soldiering behind. Eventually, he and Collen make their way north to Deadwood, S.D.
In Deadwood, Nat meets a beautiful young woman, saves the life of Wild Bill Hickok, and reencounters Sam Ruggert, who still has it in for him. Lansdale
(The Thicket) fills his pages with true-hearted heroes, dastardly scoundrels, and rollicking adventures. Author tour. Agent: Danny Baror, Baror International.

Starred review from March 1, 2015

The latest novel from Lansdale (The Thicket) revolves around an unfortunate misunderstanding that leads Ruggert, a local landowner, to seek vengeance against a young African American man, Willie. Ruggert and his men kill Willie's father, and Willie flees his Texas home. Loving, a Civil War veteran, takes Willie under his wing and teaches him how to shoot and ride a horse. When Loving dies, Willie renames himself Nat Love in honor of his mentor and heads to the town of Deadwood in South Dakota Territory, where he befriends Wild Bill Hickock, among other colorful characters. When Ruggert hears that Nat is living in Deadwood, he sets out after the young man again. VERDICT Loosely based on the true story of African American cowboy Nat Love (1854-1921), this fast-paced Western with its multicultural cast of characters is a winner. Readers of Patrick deWitt's The Sisters Brothers will welcome Love's sense of humor and resilience in the midst of the rough-and-tumble American West. [See Prepub Alert, 12/15/14.]--Emily Hamstra, Univ. of Michigan Libs., Ann Arbor

Copyright 2015 Library Journal, LLC Used with permission.

April 15, 2015
How did Deadwood Dick get his name? Readers can learn this, and a whole lot more, in this picaresque Western from a master of the form (The Thicket, 2013, etc.). Willie Jackson's origins didn't prophesy a future any brighter than that of most black Americans born in East Texas so soon after the War Between the States that he can still remember his years as an infant slave. What seals his fate, however, is looking the wrong way at the rear end of Sam Ruggert's hatchet-faced third wife. Ruggert, not one to take this slur on his manhood lying down, organizes a lynching party. Although Willie escapes, his father doesn't, nor does the family farm. Taking to his heels, Willie lucks into kind neighbor Tate Loving, who shelters him for several years. But when he's recognized one day by a chance visitor, his real adventures begin. In short order he lights out again, changes his name to Nat Love, enlists in the U.S. Cavalry, deserts his post, crosses paths with four Chinese women, loses his heart to a ratter named Win Finn, lands in Deadwood, where he's befriended by James Butler Hickok-Wild Bill to you-and wins the shooting competition that earns him his enduring sobriquet. Soon thereafter, Ruggert and two hirelings catch up with Ruggert's long-sought quarry and exact a terrible vengeance. The tables now turned, Willie, or Nat, or Dick, plots his own revenge on the man who stole his happiness. Noting that he's starred in many a dime novel penned by his old friend Bronco Bob Brennen, the narrator maintains in closing: "Here is the straight record." That assurance is a lot harder to swallow than the rest of this tall tale, which goes down smooth and easy as a vintage sarsaparilla.

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Starred review from March 1, 2015
In eastern Texas, shortly after the Civil War, 20-year-old African American Willie Jackson inadvertently views the backside of a white woman. Her husband, Sam Ruggert, takes offense, and Willie lights out on a stolen horse. Sam is a tortured piece of work, a white supremacist known for his obsession over every slight, and he gathers a posse and burns Willie's father alive. Willie escapes and comes under the protection of a kindly white misanthrope named Loving, who schools Willie in literary classics, farming, and how to wield a gun. With Sam on his trail again, young Willie journeys west to become a buffalo soldier and is nearly done in by Apaches. He rides north and changes his name to Nat Love, hoping to be finished with Willie Jackson, Sam Ruggert, and the army. Lansdale never allows the reader to forget that Nat is a black man who is always paid less and has trouble even putting his horse in a livery; but in Deadwood, he finds contentment. Wild Bill Hickok becomes his friend, and he falls in love with a laundress named Win Finn. The idyll, sadly, collapses in savagery and sends Nat on the trail again, looking for revenge. Meanwhile, with great humor, Lansdale turns Nat into the dime-novel sensation Deadwood Dick, through the agency of a charming half-scoundrel named Bronco Bob. Lansdale covers familiar territory indeed, but he does it very well, bringing to mind Larry McMurtry and Thomas Berger in their prime. Paradise Sky is a rowdy, funny, suspenseful, and often quite moving yarn.(Reprinted with permission of Booklist, copyright 2015, American Library Association.)