Cold West

De: Clayton Snyder

Narrado por: Jarrod Taylor

Bastard. Killer. Husband. Father.

With his wife cold in the ground and two young boys to feed, Wil Cutter turns to what he knows: violence. But a bounty is never just a bounty, and blood is never spilled in drops. Forced to ever more violent acts, he’ll have to ask himself: Is Hell too far to ride?

©2020, 2023 Clayton Snyder (P)2023 Clayton Snyder

A bleak, violent, beautifully rendered experience

In many respects, i am close to (if not precisely) the ideal reader for this book, and as a result, i feel like a review cannot do justice to my time with this little fever dream of a book. Suffice to say, i Loved it (with a capital L), and if you like grimdark fantasy or atmospheric weird westerns, you will too.

Starting grim and only growing more so (but never straying into nihilistic wallowing), this book is wonderfully anchored in both character and setting. The narrative turns to violence in sudden, fitful spurts that read true to both the world and characters. And speaking of, I found our main character, Will, engaging from the the very first sentence. He is a wonderful exploration of the character tropes common to the western genre, damaged by the world and experiences in all the right ways. As the story progresses, we slip between the present and flashbacks with a semi-surrealist subtlety that i found utterly enthralling from start to finish.

Snyder's prose is striking throughout. It felt as if no words were wasted, and i found myself envious of how well rendered the characters became in so few words. The world is atmospheric, with sparseness in all the right places as experienced from our point-of-view character. No needless exposition, no hand-holding here. You are given just enough to understand and infer, and the perfect amount of room to let your imagination color in details and draw connections.

I read Cold West earlier this year, saw it had an audiobook, and gave it a listen shortly thereafter. The audiobook's narration is (in my opinion) the perfect match for the book. I believe audiobooks are at their best when the narrator's performance is additive to the experience, and Jarrod Taylor's narration is certainly that. This book, and this performance have lingered in my mind perhaps more than any other book I've read this year (and I've read some bangers).

This book is certainly not for everyone. It is short, but demands your full attention, and some readers/listeners may find it too much of a fever dream. It will leave you wanting in some places, which i believe has to be intentional on Snyder's part, as it is a big reason why certain scenes an events of the narrative have lingered in my mind.

For me, this is one of the best books I've read all year.

Just kept surprising me.

Starts out in one very personal place and just keeps unfolding. I never stopped wanting to know what was going to happen to the broken man on his quest for both survival and vengeance. The western backdrop was the perfect setting to bring it all close to home. Definitely want more.