Lucky Red
A Novel
(Sprache: Englisch)
A vibrant and cinematic debut set in the 19th-century American West about a scrappy orphan who finds friendship, romance, and her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger. A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre.
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A vibrant and cinematic debut set in the 19th-century American West about a scrappy orphan who finds friendship, romance, and her true calling as a revenge-seeking gunslinger. A thoroughly modern reimagining of the Western genre.Lese-Probe zu „Lucky Red “
Chapter 1Some years ago, in Dodge, I was a sporting woman. This was before I took up my current trade, back when the prairie ran with cattle like a river runs with fish. It s different now, of course, but then, so am I. I didn t mind whoring it can be good work in the right house but it demands a great deal of keeping still, and I m one of those itchy, fidgety sorts who s always looking out the window or glancing toward the door, so it was only a matter of time until I had to move on. Most rambling types like to act as if they just woke up one morning and lit out, turning their backs to all and sundry, but this is just good storytelling. The truth is that making your own way happens piecemeal, like a baby who scoots, then crawls, then eventually toddles her way right out the cabin door where she s as likely to be snatched up by coyotes as she is to seek her fortune; either way, once she gets loose, there ll be no getting her back. All of which is to say that though I ended up a pretty girl in boy s clothes, mounted like a woman and armed like a man, I started much smaller and simpler, and mostly alone.
Before I was a whore in Kansas, I was a poor drunkard s daughter in Arkansas. My pa wasn t a bad man, but it was far too easy for circumstances to get the upper hand on him. He called himself unlucky, but the losing hands dealt him were too frequent and too numerous to be mere turns of fate. I will admit that at times, events truly were beyond his control: first Ma died having me, then came the Brothers War, then he was on the losing side, and then he lost what was left of the farm to nursing his broken heart. But there were other misadventures that showed me, if not him, that there s more to this life than luck, even bad luck.
First there were the mustangs, which he bought cheap and wild but lacked the will to break and was forced to sell off cheaper and wilder. Then the sheep flock, whose feed he let rot so they all went mad when they ate it. When
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we finally had to slaughter them, the screaming clatter of blood and terror seemed to thrust him back to some Virginian hellscape, for halfway through he threw aside his knife and shot the rest as fast as he could. In between, there were crates of plow-blades that wouldn t hold an edge, barrels of discarded horseshoes, bales of kinked wire, all manner of flotsam that somehow always cost more than it made. He told himself he was getting by on his wits, when most of the time it was my willingness to scrub linens, tote water, and muck out horse barns that kept our souls inside of our bodies.
When I wasn t hiring myself out on odd jobs, I was usually standing in the doorway of our small cabin on the edge of Fort Smith, from whence I watched the sunsets and periodically wondered if my pa had finally gone off for good. He was a restless soul, and his absences always mixed me up bad. There was the fear that comes from being alone I was just sixteen and getting a little too ripe to be left unguarded the snapping awake at every shift in the wind outside only to stare into the blue-black darkness and wait with bated breath for nothing to happen. There was the righteous fury at having been forgotten, as though I, his child and only living kin, was no more memorable than a cracked jug or a harness with a broken strap. This fury would surge up unannounced: suddenly I d find myself slamming down buckets only to slosh water over my feet, wringing wet linens like turkey necks, shoveling horse shit like I was digging one grave to hold all of my enemies. And then there was relief, the sole proprietorship over my supper, the break from caring for the one person left on this earth who should have cared for me.
We always scraped together just enough to keep us in that little house at the far reaches of the town. I would watch for Pa
When I wasn t hiring myself out on odd jobs, I was usually standing in the doorway of our small cabin on the edge of Fort Smith, from whence I watched the sunsets and periodically wondered if my pa had finally gone off for good. He was a restless soul, and his absences always mixed me up bad. There was the fear that comes from being alone I was just sixteen and getting a little too ripe to be left unguarded the snapping awake at every shift in the wind outside only to stare into the blue-black darkness and wait with bated breath for nothing to happen. There was the righteous fury at having been forgotten, as though I, his child and only living kin, was no more memorable than a cracked jug or a harness with a broken strap. This fury would surge up unannounced: suddenly I d find myself slamming down buckets only to slosh water over my feet, wringing wet linens like turkey necks, shoveling horse shit like I was digging one grave to hold all of my enemies. And then there was relief, the sole proprietorship over my supper, the break from caring for the one person left on this earth who should have cared for me.
We always scraped together just enough to keep us in that little house at the far reaches of the town. I would watch for Pa
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Autoren-Porträt von Claudia Cravens
Claudia Cravens has a BA in literature from Bard College and participated in Catapult’s yearlong novel generator. Lucky Red is her first novel.
Bibliographische Angaben
- Autor: Claudia Cravens
- 2023, Internationale Ausgabe, 304 Seiten, Masse: 15,5 x 23,2 cm, Kartoniert (TB), Englisch
- Verlag: The Dial Press
- ISBN-10: 0593729692
- ISBN-13: 9780593729694
- Erscheinungsdatum: 21.07.2023
Sprache:
Englisch
Pressezitat
A Western like you ve never seen before: a story of reinvention, sex work, found family, and queer self-discovery. Harper s Bazaar, Best Queer Reads of 2023 Lucky Red is a brilliant queer feminist reimagining of the western genre complete with an ingenious narrative twist and stellar prose. Set in Dodge City in 1877, the story takes the setting of a brothel from its usual place as a backdrop in the genre to its deserved place in center stage, filling the novel with nuanced and fascinating sex worker characters. Watching the protagonist Bridget evolve from a disillusioned sixteen-year-old orphan to a powerful woman with a thirst for vengeance is wonderful to witness. Autostraddle
Lucky Red is the Western I never knew I needed where all the most fascinating misfit characters usually pushed to the fringes take their rightful places center stage. Claudia Cravens strikes the perfect balance here queer, feminist, subversive, and a good old-fashioned freight train of an adventure story. Sara Novi , author of True Biz
I dare anyone not to thrill to this book! Lucky Red takes the Western genre and shakes the life back into it. Explosive and intimate, dense with human connection, and above all seized with the need for freedom of the queer self: This is storytelling that grinds its characters in its grip, then throws them into the air to take wondrous flight. I loved it to bits. Shelley Parker-Chan, author of She Who Became the Sun
A subversive take on Western fiction: a deftly told, absorbing coming-of-age story about a young woman s life in a Dodge City brothel, and one of the most heartfelt and thrilling books I ve read in ages. Lauren Wilkinson, author of American Spy
A thrilling and surprising story of deep human hunger and desire, the ache that lives in all of us, and the sometimes violent lengths that we will go to feel seen and loved and understood. Lynn Steger Strong, author of Flight
A renegade
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Western alternating between lonely darkness, feverish desire, and thrilling action, Lucky Red made for such cinematic reading that I forgot it was a book! Frances Cha, author of If I Had Your Face
Cravens debuts with an exceptional historical tale of sex work and queer desire on the American frontier. . . . Cravens peppers the thrilling plot with delicious language (Bridget s clients are a series of hats and mustaches ; Jim s marriage offer feels wedged in [her] chest, like a piece of furniture that can t be got through a doorway ), and her sensitive portrayal of Bridget s uncertainty over her sexuality resonates. This is a knockout. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Let s reexamine the lives of women in the Wild West, shall we? . . . The world of the Buffalo Queen and its employees is vividly drawn, and there s a cinematic quality all the way through. . . . Cravens shakes the dust off tired tropes and delivers a shining example of what an old-fashioned page-turner can accomplish. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Cravens smacks the reader in the face with a genderqueer coming-of-age story that culminates in three sex workers tracking down a posse for romantic and financial revenge. Booklist (starred review)
Cravens debuts with an exceptional historical tale of sex work and queer desire on the American frontier. . . . Cravens peppers the thrilling plot with delicious language (Bridget s clients are a series of hats and mustaches ; Jim s marriage offer feels wedged in [her] chest, like a piece of furniture that can t be got through a doorway ), and her sensitive portrayal of Bridget s uncertainty over her sexuality resonates. This is a knockout. Publishers Weekly (starred review)
Let s reexamine the lives of women in the Wild West, shall we? . . . The world of the Buffalo Queen and its employees is vividly drawn, and there s a cinematic quality all the way through. . . . Cravens shakes the dust off tired tropes and delivers a shining example of what an old-fashioned page-turner can accomplish. Kirkus Reviews (starred review)
Cravens smacks the reader in the face with a genderqueer coming-of-age story that culminates in three sex workers tracking down a posse for romantic and financial revenge. Booklist (starred review)
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