The Shootist

“I won’t be wronged, I won’t be insulted, and I won’t be laid a hand on. I don’t do these things to other people and I expect the same from them."

What more can be said about a novel that every Western aficionado has surely read?

It is brief, elegiac, gorgeously written and would be iconic even if a fine film hadn't been made from it.

If one has not read it, the ending may surprise just a bit as it deviates from the film-in a realistic and worthy way. 

I am also struck by the clinical POV of the violence within, something that does not get transferred to the screen but it works quite well here.

A true classic of the genre.