Coming in 2012:

- LAST OF THE COWBOYS -
A touching short story to be included in a collection of the
best new short stories by some of America's great
Western authors. Due: TBD

- A BLOOD RED MOON -
There is some evil in the best of us and some good in the worst. Preacher's son, Levi Jennings, stakes his life on that being true. Due: October 2012

Copyright 2011 DB Jackson Literary

Review Of UNBROKE HORSES by Miles Swarthout, screenwriter for the John Wayne movie, THE SHOOTIST:

Unbroke Horses by D. B. Jackson
Goldminds Publishing, $27.99 publication date: July 24, 2012
Also available as an ebook

D. B. Jackson is a working cattle rancher in California and that expertise shows in the story details of his fine second Western. Set in 1864 just before the end of the Civil War, this is a tough tale of two degenerate Confederate soldier brothers who quit a losing cause and then lay waste to an unspecified countryside as they ride away from war. Along their bloody trail they pick up a mute mulatto to join their rampage, until they wound the wrong farmer and soon after that kidnap a preacher’s son after they murder his dad.

The middle-aged farmer, J.D. Elder, and young Matthew Stanford prove the deranged trio’s undoing in several violent shootouts after a long chase. Most Western writers would wrap their stories up after such an action climax, but author Jackson really wants to make UNBROKE HORSES a coming-of-age tale, how a fourteen-year-old country boy copes with depression before finally coming to terms with his sinful, violent revenge upon these Confederates and their black cohort. Matthew eventually emerges from the bloodbath whole with the help of some friendly young cowboys teaching him how to work cattle and an older Indian who initiates this damaged kid into the mysteries of breaking colts. Jackson’s metaphor of breaking horses while civilizing a badly disturbed young man echoes that same theme with a broken teenaged girl in Nicholas Evans’ fine novel and Robert Redford’s movie from it, THE HORSE WHISPERER, a few years back.

The author’s fairly simple writing style and short chapters make UNBROKE HORSES an easy read. But the violence and brutality of this harsh tale reminds one of Cormac McCarthy’s wandering masterpiece, BLOOD MERIDIAN. D. B. Jackson’s excellent second Western brands him as a coming talent in this classic old genre. Unbroke Horses shines with award-winning potential. I’d enjoy this surefire movie, too.

Miles Swarthout Screenwriter of John Wayne’s The Shootist