Whiskey When We're Dry

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. - David James Duncan, author of The River Why 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. - Kate Manning, author of My Notorious Life True Grit meets Yentl in Larison's evocative debut.... Larison has developed a pitch-perfect voice for his intrepid heroine.... [this] is a winning tale of sexual identity in the Old West.-Publishers Weekly Larison's neo-Western, about a young woman who heads West while disguised as a boy, is already generating plenty of buzz: film and TV rights have already been acquired by the team behind the Planet of the Apes reboot. -Entertainment Weekly Larison gifts Jess with a strong voice to narrate her own story.... his western epic has wide appeal - Booklist Told in -Jessilyn's hard-hitting voice, [WHISKEY WHEN WE'RE DRY] has the resonance of a high lonesome ballad. - Library Journal