Black Hills Adventure

Set in the decade following the Civil War, Joe R. Lansdale’s latest novel, Paradise Sky, recounts the story of infamous African-American cowboy and adventurer Nat Love, whose extraordinary skills as a marksman earned him the nickname “Deadwood Dick.” As a young man, Love is forced to run after his father is murdered, and after a brief stint as a buffalo soldier, Love heads up to Deadwood, where he befriends Wild Bill Hickok. Rollicking, raunchy and irresistible, Lansdale’s artful tale adopts the tone and feel of the era’s dime novels (in which “Deadwood Dick” was always represented as a white man), and gives overdue attention to the misunderstood role of African-American cowboys in the West.