The Savage Gun
"Described by fellow writer Loren D. Estleman as a
“national treasure,” Spur Award-winner and Pulitzer
Prize-nominee Jory Sherman is a unique author. His prose
approaches poetry and even when chronicling a violent and gory
revenge story in The Savage Gun, a reader cannot help but be
wondered at his command of the language and the ease with which
he evokes a given setting through a mixture of imaginative
metaphors and fast-paced action...The Savage Gun is an
old-fashioned Western with all the necessary elements of high
adventure and drama plus a writing style that, while contrasting
with contemporary genre writers’ penchant for barebones prose
and quick scenes, makes for an engaging read."
Gonzalo Baeza, Reviewer Saddlebums.com
See the full review at Saddlebums.com -
click here!
The Sadness of Autumn
"Jory Sherman's writing always reminds me that he was a
poet first. "The Sadness of Autumn" is certainly such a book.
More than "tales," it's a collection of musings and wistful
recollections, an artist's rendition of the time of year - and
time of life - when things mellow out and wind down to the
certainty of winter ahead.
There are stories, many of them sad, but the virtue of
this slim volume is in its treasures of language, word pictures
that linger past the stories themselves. Here's one, in the
opening to "Comes the Hunter":
He looked down into morning. Looked through a tunnel of
trees to see it. Heard it come. Saw it dawn over the bluffs like
the soft fire in the complexions of peaches, listened to it sing
in the quivering throats of birds, listened to it sigh like a
woman loved, like a wind rising from the creek...
This is the sort of book that may
stay on a shelf, to be pulled down again and again on those days
when you're feeling blue, or when you're somewhere else and need
to smell and feel the Ozarks one more time."
Lee Kirk,
Reviewer,
Ozarks
Monthly magazine.
The BaronHonor
"Jory Sherman is a wonderful writer, whose literary skills
are certainly evident in THE BARON HONOR. He doesn’t just tell a
story but brings it to life through his characters, places,
situations and obvious knowledge of history. When called for, he
can paint with a broad brush. At other times, he uses simple
touches that make his people real, such as when Martin Baron
walked toward his son “…his boot heels making him wobble
slightly . . . .” In so many Westerns the people are narrowly
defined, papier-mâché; good ones are good, bad ones bad. Period.
Jory gives them depth, reveals other sides to their character.
When I was reading THE BARON HONOR I felt I was there. When I
finished I wanted more."
Bob St. John,
Author, retired columnist the Dallas Morning News, author
of ON DOWN THE ROAD.
"Baron Honor is Sherman at the top of his Civil War/Texas
best. It has wonderful character-driven analogies and surprises
on a vast canvas of violence, love and dedication. Buy it. Read
it. Enjoy it."
Max Evans,
Author of The Rounders and Madam Millie
"Jory Sherman writes incomparably of early
Texas, where the land is bloody ground and so are the hearts of
his characters. He knows the soul and spirit and stubborn
passion of those who forged the Lone Star State. He knows its
feuds, its honor, its dreams, its triumphs, its bullheaded
genius. He may well be the finest writer of historical novels in
our times."
Richard S. Wheeler
"Jory Sherman continues his fast-moving Baron
Ranch series with a story of blood on the Texas border at the
time of the Civil War, when the family finds brutal hands turned
against them and fight fire with fire. The reader hardly has
time to catch his breath."
Elmer
Kelton
"Jory Sherman's description is at its
well-recognized best...gritty, sweaty, and bloody, yet when
appropriate, is sweet, gentle, and reassuring. In the historical
background of Civil War Texas, there live realistic characters,
dealing with every conceivable emotion, good, bad, vindictive,
or desperate. A good read!"
Don Coldsmith
The Medicine Horn
"Jory Sherman is nothing less than a
master storyteller of that time men flung themselves against the
unknown, alone. Few can tell this tale...with as much authority--none
with as much heart."
Terry C.
Johnston
Author of LONG WINTER GONE
"Among today's novelists of the Old
American West, Jory Sherman has no peer for poetic, powerful
storytelling. Read THE MEDICINE HORN and see a gifted writer at the top
of his craft."
Dale Walker
Rocky
Mountain News
"THE MEDICINE HORN provides the
perfect canvas for the broad, bold strokes of Jory Sherman's brush. To
read the poery of his prose is to be transported bodily to the
wind-lashed plains and the blue-iced peaks of Sherman country. He is a
national treasure."
Loren D.
Estleman
Author of WHISKEY RIVER
The Ballad Of Pinewood Lake
"A calm, beautifully written story
with increasingly dire hints of a heartbreaking tragedy to come, one
that, given the two major characters and their weaknesses, could not
have been avoided. This book may be read on several levels, each one
meaningful; the search of a husband and wife, held together by their
love for their small son, for their own lost love, and their mutual
battle with alcohol addiction."
Naomi Stokes
Author of THE TREE PEOPLE
"Sherman’s departure from his usual
fare proves that he is one of American’s hidden treasures. THE BALLAD OF
PINEWOOD LAKE is a touching, evocative story of the hidden soul of
modern America."
Randy Eickhoff
Author of THE RAID
"An abrupt departure from Jory
Sherman’s other work, THE BALLAD OF PINEWOOD LAKE follows a troubled
modern couple seeking paradise on a secluded mountaintop but finding
they have brought their own personal hell with them. Beautifully poetic,
yet disturbing."
Elmer Kelton
Author of THE GOOD OLD BOYS
"Maybe you’ll think a little of Keats
and a little of Lorca, but something else has come in, too. The song and
dance of Jory Sherman."
Charles Bukowski
From an introduction to Sherman’s book of poetry, MY FACE IN WAX
"I
am not an experienced reader of novels like
THE BALLAD OF PINEWOOD LAKE,
but I am grateful for the experience... As a writer, I was amazed at
your width and depth as author... As a complete novice about poetry, I
saw excellent lyrical prose and your poetic background emerge in this
poignant tale. "
Jim H. Ainsworth
Author of IN THE RIVERS' FLOW
