The Lutheran

By Jack Britton Sullivan

Book Overview

No Synopsis Available.

• Format: Paperback
• Language: English
• ISBN: 0897542045
• ISBN13: 9780897542043
• Release Date: January 2004
• Publisher: Conservator of Amer Letters
• Length: 140 Pages
• Weight: 0.50 lbs.
• Dimensions: 8.8" x 0.5" x 6.3"

Customer Reviews

The Lutheran is an outstanding read

Jack Britton Sullivan has created an outstanding and deep first novel, that requires the full mental focus of the reader and rewards them for the effort. I say it in that way because it does require some real effort to read. This is not a pop culture bubble gum airplane book like John Grisham or Danielle Steel -- Sullivan aims a LOT higher than that -- it is a short but intense experience that requires your full mental focus. If you do commit to reading it, you will be rewarded in kind. The book is well researched in the details of life in the west when our country was just being settled. Sullivan pushes his characters through these rough landscapes and keeps them constantly on the edge of survival. Throughout the story Threadbare the Lutheran, one of the most vicious villians in American literature, haunts the characters from the edges of the narrative. Not content to simply murder his victims, Threadbare prefers to draw their torture out over a lifetime, and once his victim is in his sights he is not content to ever let them be free. The book slowly develops a strong and binding connection between the reader and the protagonists, so when the characters arrive at Mims Nickel, a place that reminds one of the final destination of Conrad`s Heart of Darkness, the reader is drawn in not only to the momentous struggles of Billy and Dampier, but also those of the more minor characters. The most rewarding parts of the book, in my opinion, are the small nuggets of beautiful writing that the reader discovers along the way. For instance, when Billy (a girl) shoots a bounty hunter seeking the reward placed on her and her partner Dampier Mox: "Dampier Mox said something before she fired but it came out in the blast, the words making themselves into ghosts and then disappearing. The tracker lay with his head open to the world, all his evil thoughts and proud moments in those Virginia hills and on the western plains up for review and his deeds the same." ...and when describing the epic fight between Manson of Mims Nickel and the Lutheran: "The war club he carried was half the length of Manson`s body and he swung it with two hands while walking, raising it slowly with all his rage as Manson fired the smoothbore and took out part of a shoulder that twitched with red tincture tissue but wasn`t deep enough to slow him. The Lutheran came forward even faster." ...and when the Lutheran is slaughtering the men of the plague-ridden fort of Mims Nickel. Proof that the only sure way to escape the Lutheran was when your life would be more painful than your death: "The Lutheran raised the pistol four times but did not fire, Joe Potts knowing he could be dropped without reason as the laws of brutality called for. On the fourth stay he turned a hundred yards away and held his arms out, pausing, delaying the hardship of life as if begging for termination but was rejected by the inhumane, the Lutheran refusing to kill the dying man whose course we cannot venture becaus

Brit...you're a genius

The Lutheran was a great read. One of the best books i have read in a long time. I have my English degree and have read countless boring dull books and i would have to say that this is far from one of those. This kept me on the edge of my seat. I couldn't put it down. I look forward to seeing what else he produces. You are a master craftsman when it comes to the literary style. Many thanks for the great book. (christian cater of the Ft worth Rugby Club)

GREAT WRITING!!! My favorite passages from THE LUTHERAN.

"Billy bouncing, face over the edge of the clapboard and eyes into the sand. From the Oregon Territory they'd come in twilight through a shapeless nation and that was in the year eighteen twenty six before speculation created west washing tides and changed the contours of the land forever. Easterly they ventured to prospects more treacherous and unto them things treacherous would be delivered."(p. 5, paragraph 1) "Their color yellow in that light, those chilling eyes absorbing the frame of Dampier Mox where he stood half in the saddle, the snow beginning to fall again and the clouds coming to obscure the attack where it started on the upper leg of Dampier as he steadied the horse enough for it to bolt, sitting him directly in the path of a wolf glowing with such thirst for the ecstasy of a red meat kill that he could see its very hate of hunger. Three others had Billy and the foal pinned against a bank of snow, the young horses' eyes rolling with such fear on its entry into the world that it quaked as if existence was dependent on terrible consequence." (p. 13, paragraph 5) "Nothing, flat white plains still with a vein of river just strong enough to cut them, talk of a canyon to the south where they could find higher ground but just such talk is fruitless. Likely Dampier thought them more apt to catch fire while Billy thought of beauty above the earth and things that stir in women which men cannot understand. The man is bone, the woman tissue." (P.16, bottom paragraph) "In the little boy shapes he drew with his own liquid stepped the Lutheran. The boy's stream fell on his boot but the Lutheran didn't look down, beads of night sweat forming on the filthy forehead of the child and then Threadbare was gone. In the going the child called out like the monster should be a friend and then something in his malnourished brain said don't. He thought it was God so he obeyed." (p. 118, bottom paragraph) "Look back saint, something worse is closing and all the odious expands." (from the Epilogue) AN EXCELLENT READ!!! There's not enough room for all my favorites!!!

Ah, The Lutheran

In "The Lutheran" Jack Britt Sullivan serves up a delicious mix suspense, courage, joy, and hardship. Sullivan captures the human spirit, while convincing you that these were inhumane times. How can anyone stop Threadbare, the Lutheran? How can anyone simply survive the harsh conditions of the West? Will Billy and Dampier ever find peace? Sullivan kept me guessing right up until the last page!

Myth and Mayhem

The Lutheran sits somewhere between myth and reality. Sullivan portrays a West that is vast and grand. His West seduces his characters across plains and mountains only to find the promise of that landscape erode against harsh seasons and hard, unforgiving men. I followed eagerly the adventures of Billy and Dampier as they treked through this world never fully skirting a malevolent character, the Lutheran of the title. The Lutheran leaves his mark on every character in the book. Sullivan has created an epic character whose every exploit is more outrageous than the last. I dreaded and eagerly waited each time the Lutheran emerged in the story. I took him as symbol of the unstoppable forces surging westward. But he is not the trapper, pioneer, cowboy or settler, builder of cities and railroads that we have come to recognize. The Lutheran is possibly the dark, violent, singleminded precursor that made the West possible. Sullivan has twisted one of our country's greatest myths, the West, into a whole new vision. I can't wait to see what he will do with other "myths."