Jack Sheridan’s four powerful, acclaimed novels, set in the American west of the mid-20th Century, back in print for the first time in over 60 years, collected in one volume.
THUNDERCLAP
“Texas consists of dozens of subregions, many of which have prompted a novel or two. I am partial, for example, to Jack Sheridan’s Thunderclap, largely because it happens to be set in the much neglected Wichita Falls area.” Larry McMurtry
The first time Britt saw Marcy, the girl in the tight, thin dress, he knew damn well that he was going to have her, or go to hell trying. But he hadn’t reckoned on Rigger, the girl’s husband, a sadistic runt of a guy who’d smash in a man’s skull as happily as blink at him. And he hadn’t reckoned on Newt, the lecherous, broken man who lusted after his brother’s wife. As the three men fight for Marcy, human emotions are swept up, tossed in the harsh, bitter winds of the Texas panhandle, and shattered into dust.
“Thunderclap is a great novel..that could rank among the modern classics. First, it’s a powerful story with plenty of naturalistic talk on the rawest, physical level, but kept authentic, moving and revealing. Sheridan seems to be aiming at, and achieving, something higher and more powerful than just an entertaining story.” New York World-Telegram
PARADISE MOTEL
“This book describes life on the fringe of American society. The writing style is straightforward and realistic.” Reading California Fiction
It’s 1953. The dreary smattering of one-room, brick buildings called the Paradise Motel on the outskirts of Tehachapi is a symbol of Teresa “Trace” Conklin’s marriage to her drunken husband Walt, who owns the place… and who haunts cheap bars and cheaper women. But then a quiet stranger breezes into their dead-end California town, a man who sees in Trace’s thin, tired face her lost beauty, her broken dreams, and maybe even a spark of hope. And then everything changes for them all in an earthquake of emotion, violence, and destruction.
GIRL FROM TOWN
At night, Garnie Harper cried for San Francisco, for the hot music, the bright lights, the great restaurants, and crowded, energetic streets while Jay, worn from farm work, slept heavily beside her. She knows that she’s the object of ridicule, the city girl married to the dirt farmer…and an object of lust for Jay’s strapping brother Bo. It’s her love of Jay that holds her there, in that Montana back country hell, but her yearning, and Bo’s hungry stares, are driving her away. Something has to give…or she has to dramatically change…before it all ends in heartbreak and violence.
MAMIE BRANDON
Young, sexy Mamie works at a diner on a desolate highway outside of Sacramento….where she has a hot, satisfying physical relationship with a rouastabout without any real financial prospects. So when Karl Brandon, a local rancher nearly twice her age, proposes marriage, she accepts, trading money and security over passion and love. But she soon realizes that the comforts of a fine home and the life of a homemaker aren’t enough to make her happy…or to satisfy her aching needs, which grow more insistent with each passing day. A chance meeting with a former lover ignites Mamie’s desperate hunger again, sweeping them both up in a torment of lust and looming tragedy.
A slightly longer version of this book was originally published in England in 1949.
“This piece of working-class realism offers a familiar story in an unfamiliar setting. From the first few pages readers will know that Mamie’s marital aspirations are going to have tragic consequences. What they won’t know is what’s going to happen along the way and exactly what the consequences will be. Sheridan keeps the story moving logically and cooks up a surprising ending. His writing style is clear and controlled.” Reading California Fiction
Jack Sheridan /
Anthologies, Historical, Literary Fiction
