Named a Best Book by Entertainment Weekly, O Magazine, Goodreads, Southern Living, Outside Magazine, Oprah.com, HelloGiggles, Parade, Fodor’s Travel, Sioux City Journal, Read it Forward, Medium.com, and NPR’s All Things Considered. “A thunderclap of originality, here is a fresh voice and fresh take on one of the oldest stories we tell about ourselves as Americans and Westerners. It’s riveting … tell about ourselves as Americans and Westerners. It’s riveting in all the right ways — a damn good read that stayed with me long after closing the covers.” – Timothy Egan, New York Times bestselling author of The Worst Hard Time
From a blazing new voice in fiction, a gritty and lyrical American epic about a young woman who disguises herself as a boy and heads west
In the spring of 1885, seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney finds herself orphaned and alone on her family’s homestead. Desperate to fend off starvation and predatory neighbors, she cuts off her hair, binds her chest, saddles her beloved mare, and sets off across the mountains to find her outlaw brother Noah and bring him home. A talented sharpshooter herself, Jess’s quest lands her in the employ of the territory’s violent, capricious Governor, whose militia is also hunting Noah–dead or alive.
Wrestling with her brother’s outlaw identity, and haunted by questions about her own, Jess must outmaneuver those who underestimate her, ultimately rising to become a hero in her own right.
Told in Jess’s wholly original and unforgettable voice, Whiskey When We’re Dry is a stunning achievement, an epic as expansive as America itself–and a reckoning with the myths that are entwined with our history.
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An orphan girl straight out of a Gillian Welch song, betrayed in every way imaginable by the brutality that ‘won the West,’ is left no way to hew a family or honor but to become a virtuoso cross-dressed killer of Manifest Destiny’s men. As Jessilyn Harney takes on the great lies and liars with lyrical violence, her voice takes flight, becoming a sustained, forlornly beautiful, mind-bending aria for our age.
Whiskey When We’re Dry is the story of a surprising heroine. In her search for home and family, orphaned Jessilyn Harney rides out on a lonely quest, and invents herself anew. Narrated in a voice cobbled out of slang and sagebrush, Larison’s novel is a vivid and fast-paced frontier saga.
One of those rare books I will read again. And probably again!
At the age of seventeen, Jessilyn Harney dresses like a man and sets out to find her brother, Noah, a train robber and outlaw. A sharpshooter herself, she’s all alone in the world with nowhere else to go. Her search takes her to the very men hunting Noah. But family is family and she’ll do what she has to in order to find her brother again.
I’m not a huge fan of Westerns but this book caught my eye when a friend of a friend mentioned it on Facebook. I really enjoyed it. There’s no denying the Western background but the themes of family, love, and loss are universal.
I would actually recommend this for a book club. Jess’s mother died in childbirth and Jess has always felt there’s a hole in her life. That loss drives a lot of her decisions. There are themes of “good guys” and “bad guys” and is anyone truly one or the other? Who makes that distinction? There are race/slavery issues, men’s honor, women’s rights…. There’s really a lot to unpack and discuss here.
The characters are remarkably well drawn. Jess practically steps off the page. The book is written in first person so we know all her thoughts and regrets. Even while she was making some really poor decisions, my heart ached for her in her complete and utter loneliness. Her father and brother are complex, as are many of the other characters.
I listened to this on audio and while Sophie Amoss did do a remarkable job, her narration was so slow, I didn’t think I was ever going to finish! For the first time ever, I tried increasing the playback speed to 1.2 but that was just a bit too fast for my Southern ears; I really had to pay close attention. I’m usually cleaning or driving when I listen to audiobooks so I had to slow it back down to normal speed. And every character in the book spits every couple of sentences. I can’t express how much I hope to never hear the word spat again after listening to this book for over fifteen hours. I probably would have noticed that even in print but it really drove me crazy on audio.
Don’t let that Western genre throw you off; you can really get lost in this book. I highly recommend it if you’re looking for something with rich characters and a plot that’s enjoyable while having some depth.
Exceptional word pictures.
Excellent interplay between character and fate to determine the course of the protagonist’s life.
Too depressing and slow moving for my tastes.
Having a female lead puts an interesting twist on western stories!
I was expecting a better read actually. Not all that interesting.
A little long but great characters. Lots of action, Kept my attention. The main character, a young girl did so much while living with her father and brother but after her brother leaves because he can not get along with his father. She is left to help take care of him and the farm. Later in the story after her father dies and she is on her own. she tries to take care of herself but could not leading her to other adventures. She became one tough woman and rode with men and could shoot like they could. Later on she meets up with her brother and joins him. It does have violence in it for them to survive. I won’t say how it ends but the story was worth the reading of it.
unique style of writing with blunt no holds barred approach.
My first 5 star review. Read it any way you like. An action western. A departure from the classic genre dealing with family relationships. A study of the complexities of gender identity during the time. A view of the unacceptable in race relations in the era. A review of good vs evil.or is it evil vs evil? Good vs good? Very well researched and well written. The old west similarities to hole in the wall served only to remind us that this story is not at all unrealistic and otherwise reflects no references to that other wild bunch. The guys in white hats and the guys in black hats all turned them in for gray hats. And they weren’t all guys.
Different, graphic, a little gory. Good descriptions of people, horses, country.
It featured a likeable heroine trying to survive in the untamed West after the Civil War. Story was told in gritty, realistic details, full of action and adventure. It became more exaggerated, and sadly tragic in its final third, a direction that I didn’t enjoy. It’s nice for the characters to win in the end.
This is truly a great book. The characters are so realistic and the ending will blow your mind.
stunning, a very well written story which really impressed me.
An absorbing and fast-paced western, Whiskey When We’re Dry begins in the spring 1885 when seventeen-year-old Jessilyn Harney leaves her homestead and sets out across the mountains in search of her outlaw brother Noah.
Alone after her father’s death, Jessilyn decides that the only way to keep starvation and rapacious neighbors at bay is to shut up the family cattle farm and head west to bring Noah home. However, in order to be able travel by herself, she must dress as a man. Secretly, she had been practicing with her father’s pistols for years, and she’s a very good sharpshooter. Still, the journey is full of danger, from outlaws to hunger to lack of money.
When she reaches the provincial town of Pearlsville, her talent with guns wins her several lucrative bets and employment as a guardsman with the governor. The latter, as it happens, is also searching for Noah Harney, though for reasons motivated by a personal vendetta.
For Jesse, that is only a temporary situation until she can get a lead on her brother’s whereabouts. For a while it seems that her search is going nowhere. Then an unexpected event on the eve of the governor’s daughter’s wedding upends Jesse’s plans and leads her to reunite with her brother. But while finding family and home again, she becomes an outlaw herself with a price of her own on her head.
Whiskey When We’re Dry revisits a time and place in American history that’s imbued with numerous myths and legends. But while it pays tribute to the raw beauty of the landscape and the determination and grit of those who rebuilt the nation after the Civil War, it also lays bare the unsavory aspects of that era, including poverty, racism, and misogyny.
What the novel does in an effective and thought-provoking way is to suggest that there were many women like Jesse. It leaves us with the tantalizing question–how many of the feats we remember from the Wild West were actually accomplished by those who wore pants only as a disguise?
I enjoyed this novel. The concept of a young woman teaching herself how to be a gunfighter, and a “boy” at the same time of her life. Hmmm, I enjoyed how the story unfolded as she sought out her outlaw brother.
A bold first person tale of life in the post-Civil War west from the unique view of a woman masquerading as a man. Strong in family issues, strong in friendship bonds and a rollicking good but tragic story.
A really evocative book with an amazing sense of time and place. Characters to fall in love with, and beautiful writing. Lost myself in this. Highly recommended.