Movies are in a wierd place.
It looks as if each week we’re seeing one other heavily-promoted star automobile fall flat. Even the digital wizardry behind the “Supermans” and “Incredible Fours” of the world are dropping inventory with audiences. They’re rising uninterested in sanitized tales and cartoon graphics with embarrassing worth tags.
Merely put: Hollywood simply ain’t lighting up a room prefer it used to.
Should you love a very good yarn, you’ve obtained to search out it someplace. Regardless of a world the place most studying is completed on social media, the ebook world is strong with content material much more thrilling than what Hollywood studios are dumping on us.
Working example: “The Gun Man Jackson Swagger” by Stephen Hunter.
The Gun Man Jackson Swagger is the very best Sam Peckinpah-directed Clint Eastwood western by no means filmed. All pink meat with a killer third act. Stephen Hunter stays the GOAT pic.twitter.com/mXo7sRJ9UD
— Zachary Leeman (@WritingLeeman) October 21, 2025
The ebook is Hunter’s newest within the Swagger household saga that extends all the best way again to 1993’s “Level of Influence” (tailored into the 2007 Mark Wahlberg actioner “Shooter”).
Our protagonist on this chapter is Jackson Swagger, an ancestor of Marine sniper Bob Lee Swagger (Wahlberg’s “Shooter” character), who comes outfitted with an Eastwood-style poncho and freeway of a face. He additionally has the identical fast proficiency with firearms that Hunter readers have seen handed from era to era of Swaggers.
Jackson Swagger is a determine within the Eighteen Nineties who lands on the affluent Callahan Ranch following the mysterious dying of a younger rancher. The ranch is led by the colourful Col. Callahan, one among a variety of males whose ambitions are tied to the youthfulness of the nation and the growth of railroads and different measures making the land extra “civilized.”
It’s a world Jackson Swagger appears extra comfy avoiding, preferring solitude and the celebs. Swagger introduces himself as a easy gun hand whereas he peels again the layers of this new world he’s entered. He rapidly earns the belief of fellow struggle veterans and the ire of younger, untested males.
Giving an excessive amount of of the plot away feels unfair as this actually is a top-shelf dime novel that may very well be learn in a few sittings. The best way the plot builds and twists is a part of the appeal (keep in mind when Hollywood was once good at shocking you?).
Hunter names 1962’s “Harakiri,” directed by Masaki Kobayashi, as a direct inspiration for the ebook, so for these within the know on that cinematic masterpiece, take from that what you’ll. Let’s simply say the ranch is only a piece of the sport we see Jackson Swagger enjoying, as his motivations change into clearer by his interactions and manipulations of varied characters in his investigation of the rancher’s dying.
“As I’ve all the time stated, whenever you steal, steal from the perfect,” Hunter writes in regards to the connection to the movie.
“The Gun Man Jackson Swagger” is a good 300-page yarn that wastes little time. It’s all pink meat that culminates in a twist that can have longtime Hunter readers grinning. Really, the complete third act ought to have any Western fan cackling.
Hunter and the Western is a wedding that feels prefer it ought to have occurred a very long time in the past. Yours actually was launched to classics like “The Searchers,” “Excessive Midday” and “The Wild Bunch” in my youthful years by the writing of Hunter for The Washington Publish (the place he would take dwelling the Pulitzer Prize in 2003).
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Talking of “The Wild Bunch” and director Sam Peckinpah’s love for carnage and chaos, Hunter introduces an early model of the Maxim machine gun into the story and it turns into maybe the very best character subsequent to Jackson Swagger.
Hunter has all the time had a knack for writing about weapons with out getting too slowed down in impenetrable textbook boredom (ahem, Tom Clancy). Right here there’s a particular type of poetry as a result of these are weapons of a unique time and place.
Swagger at one level takes on mastering the Maxim himself after which is actually instructing entitled Ivy League children easy methods to use it and prep it and funky it. It’s the type of writing not being executed wherever else.
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For followers of Hunter’s work, “The Gun Man Jackson Swagger” is one among his most enjoyable novels and it builds on the Swagger household lore in some intelligent and important methods (how a streamer or studio has not picked up on Hunter’s gold mine of franchise materials is one among life’s mysteries, like easy methods to evenly prepare dinner a Scorching Pocket or taxes).
For these simply searching for an incredible yarn that’s not mired in right now’s beige storytelling tradition, then get a duplicate of this ebook.
“The Gun Man Jackson Swagger” is sort of a lengthy misplaced script for a Clint Eastwood western that was speculated to be directed by madman Peckinpah, however it one way or the other obtained misplaced over time and has now been dusted off and polished by an knowledgeable craftsman.
What pink, white and blue-blooded American wouldn’t be able to nuke the complete MCU for that?
“The Gun Man Jackson Swagger” is obtainable now.
Zachary Leeman is the creator of the novel “Nigh” from writer Gilded Masque and has coated politics and tradition for LifeZette, Mediaite and others.