Customer Reviews

Gun Man

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The novel traces the life of one Eugene Morner from his 1842 birth in Iowa through a short but eventful career as a guerilla and gunfighter ,ending in 1880 .We learn of his hardscrabble existence on a family farm ;of the death of his father and his first venture into the outside world when he accompanies an trading expedition through Indian country .It is there he kills his first man -a bullyig driver of a wagon in the convoy.forced to flee to avoid the vengeance of the deceased's relatives
he takes the alias of Miller ,by which name he comes to be known professionally .It is not long before other deaths are chalked up to his name -often coldly calculated deaths althouigh often rationalised as self -defence .He falls in with a mixed race drifter Isham Eagle and they form part of a pro-Southern guerilla gang in Kansas-Missouri before and during the Civil War lead by the deranged Fouche.We are taken through various legend creating episodes -from a shootout in a small town to his participation in a range war in Colorado.There is a poignant reunion with his stricken mother and a glimpse of the poverty and grind he has avoided by leaving home .
This is not afraid to look at the West in an anti-romantic way;Isham ends his days as a washed up drunk on the minor theatre circuit ;the life is hard and unyielding and even the staunhest friendships often end in death and recrimination .The West is shown to be a grinding land of danger and the role of the press and dime novelists in creating the illusion of glamour and adventure is highlighted as crucial .Indeed ,even the cowboys themselves come to need the image rather than the reality as an antidote to their hard and laborious work .
The book is very male dominated -such females as there are are marginalised -and the ending did not persuade me of its effectiveness .These caveats apart Gun Man is a lean and taut novel showing a deglamourised West ,one where economic privation is commonplace and where the innocent die more often than do the guilty

Gritty ,powerful and propulsive ,it should be read by more than sagebrush saga mavens

I am not a reader of Western fiction. I'm afraid that Loren Estleman is turning me into one, at least a burgening fan of HIS Western fiction. Estlemen is one of the best writers of historical fiction creating just the right balance of historical facts and storytelling.

John Miller, formerly Gene Morner, is an intreguing personality. He's a killer during a time and place in American history when law and order were in the hands of common folk with noone to protect them but themselves. Yet John Miller comes across as an individual who do the enforcement that others secretly desire. Estleman skillfully depicts the complexity of John Miller who straddles both sides of the law through his life. The the other characters gets us closer to Miller as we see a mix of his vulnerabilities, sense of fairness, cruelty, and cold-blooded survival.

The promotional material says that John Miller died tragically. I did not expect to sympathized with him at all given the life he embraced. Yet Loren Estleman made me feel sadness and sympathy as he skillfully portrays the ending in simple terms that a news commentator could only envy.

Read this compelling story of one man's journey during a period of dramatic change, civil war and reconstruction. Fans of historical fiction will find this novel a worthwhile read, and grand introduction to Estleman storytelling.

The title of "Gun Man" makes it sound like a generic Western, but it ain't. Loren Estleman, a fine writer, created a very convincing hero (or anti-hero) in Gene Morner, a youth who becomes an outlaw through no real fault of his own. Having strayed from the path of strict virtue, Morner proceeds to Go Wrong in the grand style, becomes a gunfighter, gets involved in the Kansas-Missouri border wars, and has many colorful adventures before catching a bellyfull of lead. Estleman has a very good ear for dialogue, and does a nice treatment of the historical background. Four stars.