Whiskey When We're Dry

A haunting and remarkable debut, John Larison’s Whiskey When We’re Dry stays true to the western genre while subverting many common themes of the American West, producing a wholly original narrative that will linger in your mind for days. I have never encountered a protagonist quite like Jess; she embodies the incredible strength and resolve required to survive in the West, but also the vulnerability necessary to retain humanity in the face of so much violence and brutality. Larison’s prose goes down as smooth as a glass of whiskey, and I didn’t want to stop reading until I’d finished every last drop.

In Whiskey When We’re Dry, an intrepid heroine in the post-Civil War West disguises herself as a boy and rides with both a militia and an outlaw gang to find her brother. Comparisons to True Grit are apt, but John Larison has woven into his fast-paced plot contemporary themes of sexual identity, morality, and the difficulty young women face in navigating a male world. Reading his debut novel is a very entertaining but also memorable and deep experience.