A History of Violence

The greatest hero of pop culture, from The Last of the Mohicans to American Sniper, is the gunfighter. Whether he is an outlaw, a town marshal, a private eye, a gangster, a soldier or a James Bond secret agent—or even if the character is a Charlie’s Angels–style woman—he is a hawkeye gunhand.

Clifford Jackman’s enormously enjoyable debut novel tells the story of the Winter family, a travelling brotherhood of nihilist gunfighters, working both sides of every conflict, from the Civil War era to the closing of the American frontier. Augustus Winter is an amber-eyed, platinum-haired killer brutalized by war, a Clint Eastwood role if there ever was one. Quentin Ross is an ex-Union officer, the black sheep of a good Illinois family, a childhood bedwetter and compulsive liar given to quoting William Blake. Fred Jackson is a brutal ex-slave, Bill Bread an alcoholic...