Description
In Paul Hunter’s important new book, Desert Crossing, there is a timber to the sound of his words on the page that from the first instant says “Let’s get right with it.” Doubt me? Listen. “Had to head out…” Hardly enough time to tighten the cinch and throw a leg over before the windstorm hits. A desert, lacking as it is in moisture, wants to surround everything, including itself. When you deign to travel through it, over it, at the pace of a beating heart, from the outset you belong to the desert. Paul Hunter’s western novels are slow transports which allow the reader complete absorbtion, you know right from the beginning you are making this trip with this man and his horse.
Hunter writes for keeps. You feel him setting each carefully chosen letter of each owned word in each crafted sentence. This suggested evidence of his writing, each letter placed, matches the pace of this trek. There are writers for readers and there are readers for writers. Paul is a sculptor of stories built of the record of sounds as much as the plot. Paul is both author and reader. Read these sentences aloud to yourself and feel them carry you.”Little lives” live in this book. It’s a wonderful underlayment to best truths.
