The cowboy is the American knight, so it would follow that tales of knighthood can provide the inspiration for stories about cowboys and the basis for this grand and dazzlingly innovative epic of the old American West by the celebrated author and screenwriter of Urban Cowboy.
Inspired by Sir Percival's great quest for the Holy Grail, Aaron Latham has crafted a classic adventure story set among the tumbleweeds of the American West at the twilight of the nineteenth century. It is first and foremost the coming-of-age story of an innocent -- a fledgling cowboy, that singularly American update on the archetypal knight of old. Featuring characters from Latham's acclaimed Code of the West, The Cowboy with the Tiffany Gun is his most exhilarating performance yet.
Our young hero is Percy -- but he prefers his nickname, Pyg, short for Percy York Goodnight. When he learns that the man called Loving has been shot and is near death, Percy and his mother, Revelie, rush away to be by Loving's side in Texas. Long ago, Revelie shared with Loving a bond of great passion.
Mother and son arrive to find Loving gravely ill -- and to discover that an heirloom ax has disappeared from the ranch. According to Western lore, this was the very ax that Jimmy Goodnight, Percy's presumed father, once pulled out of an anvil. The ax was stolen from the cemetery, where it had been imbedded in Goodnight's tombstone. The stone is gone, too.
Latham's historically authentic narrative takes off on a rousing gallop here as Pyg vows to find the ax and must face trials and calamities of a Biblical scale -- flood, fire, gunfights, and the devastating pestilence that changed the course of frontier history. Of Code of the West, James M. McPherson wrote that "Latham has pulled off the seemingly impossible."
With The Cowboy with the Tiffany Gun, he has done it again.
James M. McPherson author of Battle Cry of Freedom Aaron Latham has done it again. Continuing his allegory that transplants King Arthur and his knights to the cowboy culture of the Old West, he tells a gripping and often funny tale of a quest for the modern version of the Holy Grail in Texas of the 1890s. Those who enjoyed Latham's Code of the West will find here a worthy successor.
Patricia Cornwell Beautifully written and seductive, The Cowboy with the Tiffany Gun again proves that no one writes American Westerns the way Aaron Latham does. His storytelling carries you into a mythical, menacing, old world you can see, smell, taste, and touch, and when Latham's novel ends, you will beg for more.
Linda Fairstein Aaron Latham has staked his claim on Texas -- and branded the territory with his original mark of brilliant storytelling and characters unique to the American West. The Cowboy with the Tiffany Gun is a stunning epic. Put on your spurs, saddle up, and prepare to ride off into the sunset -- it's a riveting tale.
Jim Lehrer This is an extraordinary piece of work. Novels are supposed to work on many levels and here, now, is the rare one that actually does. It's a page-turner story from beginning to end. The characters leap out as real, believable -- the kind that stay with you long after their stories end. The Texas settings and the wild times are captured with the vividness of a fine painting. And, if all of this weren't enough, the book reeks with meaning and purpose.
