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Title: As Good as Gone
Author: Larry Watson
Narrator: Richard Poe
Format: Unabridged
Length: 9 hrs and 40 mins
Language: English
Release date: 06-21-16
Publisher: Recorded Books
Ratings: 4 of 5 out of 30 votes
Genres: Fiction, Historical
Publisher's Summary:
The American West is best-selling author Larry Watson's forte, and in this, his tenth novel, he has created his most vivid, genuine antihero yet in Calvin Sidey, a man stuck in a myth.
Calvin Sidey - steely, hardened, with his own personal code - is one of the last cowboys. It's the 1960s, and he's living off the grid in a trailer on the prairie when his adult son, Bill, seeks his help. A mostly absentee father and grandfather, Calvin nevertheless agrees to stay with his grandchildren for a week. He decamps for his son's house in the small town where he once was a mythic figure, and soon enough problems arise: A boy's attentions to 17-year-old Ann are increasingly aggressive, and a group of reckless kids portend danger for 11-year-old Will.
Calvin knows only one way to solve a problem: the Old West way, in which ultimatums are issued and your gun is always loaded. In the changing culture of the 1960s, Calvin isn't just a relic; he's a wild card. At the same time, his old-school ways exert a powerful effect on those around him, from widowed neighbor Beverly Lodge, who feels herself falling for him and wants to be part of his life, to his grandchildren. Ann and Will see in their grandfather a man who brings a sudden, if shocking, order to their lives, as Calvin terrorizes those who have often terrorized them.
With the crisp, restrained prose for which Larry Watson is revered, As Good as Gone is a story of a man increasingly at odds with the world. This is Larry Watson at his best.
Members Reviews:
Tops in My Book!
Larry Watson is my favorite author so perhaps I'm not looking at this from a fair point of view. That being said, this book is fantastic. The story keeps you interested and wanting more. The thing that amazes me the most about his writing is that he is very descriptive, but he manages to do this in a way that is enjoyable and not just something you have to wade through. I just wish it wasn't such a long time between his book releases, but perhaps to attain his quality, this is necessary.
A great read. Michael Tidemann Adjunct instructor
Deep characters
Ernest Hemingway spoke of characters as being the tip of the iceberg. In Larry Watson, we see the entire iceberg. His characters are deeply complex, and brimming with emotion. However, Watson's characters are by no means maudlin, something that could happen to this story if it were in the hands of a far less-skilled writer.
I had actually expected a darker ending to the story which, to me at least, ended on a somewhat higher note. And the character that seems a villain at first ends up being the hero in a roundabout way.
Watson reminds me of the late Larry Brown's Joe or David Rhodes' Driftless in that a shiftless character of questionable morals rises to the occasion when his personal values are challenged. A great read.
Michael Tidemann
Adjunct instructor, Buena Vista University
Author, Doomsday: A tale of cyber terror
Classic Watson. Very highly recommended
I've been a Larry Watson fan for close to twenty years now. Regrettably, I haven't read all of his books, but have read five - MONTANA 1948, JUSTICE, WHITE CROSSES, ORCHARD, and AMERICAN BOY. Every one was simply terrific. And AS GOOD AS GONE, his latest, has not changed my opinion of Watson in the least.
