The Winnowing Draw

"With one of the most assured voices I’ve read in recent times, Tichy brings us to the old west - and well past the edge of hell - in The Winnowing Draw. An outstanding piece of literary work, echoing McCarthy, Zane Grey, and prime King, it’s a harrowing, pitch-perfect amalgam of western and horror.”

— KEITH ROSSON, AUTHOR OF FEVER HOUSE AND FOLK SONGS FOR TRAUMA SURGEONS

“The Winnowing Draw invokes that queasy unsettling sensation I first felt after coming across the Tombstone Thunderbird vintage hoax photograph in a book of paranormal mysteries as a kid. While that photo hinted at a strange West, Tichy’s novel promises a similarly occult frontier, though one plagued by violent horrors and malefic forces in a region where inescapable brutality and savagery mingle. His prose is as polished as a sand-scoured skillet. Sentences snagged between my teeth like dried meat. The dialogue is witty and robust, the characters fully realized beings. While the demythologization of the American West has been written about extensively, Tichy manages to infuse fresh bright blood into those dark withered arteries. The Winnowing Draw is a bleak trek across an unforgiving planet shadowed by a cosmic pall, and those readers willing to traverse its Manifest Destiny infected geography are in for a nightmarish journey.”

— CHRISTOPHER SLATSKY, AUTHOR OF THE IMMEASURABLE CORPSE OF NATURE AND ALECTRYOMANCER AND OTHER WEIRD TALES

“The Winnowing Draw is a remarkable entry into the Weird Western genre by a remarkable voice in dark literature. An elegiac and masterfully written exploration into the heart of righteous depravity and squalid hope, The Winnowing Draw is populated with vibrantly flawed and nuanced characters, sharply created in Tichy's contemplative and rich prose. The Winnowing Draw reads like a bloodsoaked travelogue of the cosmic horrors created by American exceptionalism.”

— PAULA ASHE, AUTHOR OF WE ARE HERE TO HURT EACH OTHER

"With The Winnowing Draw, Michael Tichy has scared Zane Grey's skeleton from the grave and made it attack Larry McMurtry's skeleton. This novel is that skeleton abomination atop the arcane foundation that Cormac McCarthy has built for us all. It upends and simultaneously carries on a tradition. It is a Western both moving, brutal, and poetic. There is a behanding scene that I cannot unsee in my mind's eye. An organizing image of the novel that refuses to release you. If you're a horror fan, read it. If you're a Western fan, this will create new hungers you didn't know you possessed!”

— KYLE WINKLER, AUTHOR OF GRASSHANDS AND THE NOTHING THAT IS

"The Winnowing Draw is Lovecraft by way of McCarthy. A story of regret and mistakes told in blood, dust and the unknown that casts shadows on the hearts of settlers."

— O F CIERI, AUTHOR OF LOCKDOWN LAUREATE AND BACKMAS