Come Winter

This sixth and concluding volume in Jones's long-running Hasford-Pay family saga is, again, a marvelous read. Utilizing an array of memorable characters and the sure and graceful touch that has twice won him the Golden Spur Award for Best Western Historical Novel, Jones spins a tale of small-town America in the decades following the Civil War. The story has all the elements of classic tragedy, leavened with a bittersweet humor and wit that is quintessentially American. Roman Hasford returns to the small Arkansas town of his childhood and quickly establishes himself as a financial and political power in the surrounding county. The forces of progress Hasford represents are simultaneously acclaimed and feared on the fading frontier, however, and social and economic animosities within the town lead inevitably to violence. Hasford's tragically failed marriage is another source of pain and alienation to a man whose coming home sets off ``The Trouble'' to which the fate of Gourdsville and many of its citizens is inexorably tied. A master storyteller is at work here, offering a singular and knowledgeable vision of the nation's final frontier days. (Oct.)