REVIEW: ‘Haints Stay’ by Colin Winnette

Haints Stay by Colin Winnette takes place in a badlands that nobody would like to ride their horse through. The story follows two brothers, Brooke and Sugar, in a dystopian world that we are neither distant nor familiar with – though one observation is that it is never post-apocalyptic, or if it is it is so far past the apocalypse that nobody can remember the old days. Instead there is death, cannibalism, incest, bath houses and cattle.

Brooke and Sugar are killers for hire past their glory days, and hated by those that hire them, and disliked by all the fringe towns that exist across the densely populated plane. The only encounter they have with someone who resembles some sort of affection is Bird, a boy who appears from nowhere in the middle of the night, his memory as clean and clear as his perfectly smooth hands, no traces of a past life exist in Bird and everything that he forms his judgement on is taught to him in his brief time with Brooke and Sugar before he makes his own journey.

Haints Stay is noir to the flesh-picked bones. The novel acts as some sort of halfway point between Cormac McCarthy’s No Country For Old Men and The Road. Though, never achieving the literary greatness of either of those novels, but it does feel somewhat as if characters from No Country For Old Men entered the distorted universe of The Road, not containing much typical traits of humanity, but the small pieces that survive, particularly ones of love, survival and brotherhood make its way into the harsh world where kindness doesn’t equal a happy ending and those who are ruthless and merciless are the best at surviving.

This short novel is packed with action. Despite being just 222 pages, there are deaths and fights almost all the time. This fits the setting of the novel well, and perfectly encapsulates the need to survive that is a running theme in the novel. Characters are rarely fed, always pushed to the breaking point and never learn about a safe event as long as they progress. This means that when it comes to dialogue or encounters with other characters, these already on edge killers are pushed towards breaking point; this, contrasted with the fact that no-one actually wants Brooke and Sugar alive, means that more blood is spilled across this page than if you were to hold up a sheet of parchment in the crusades.

While the novel always slightly treads into interesting territory, it never truly sets up camp there. The novel touches on so many interesting possibilities, particularly the lifetime and strange relationship of Brooke and Sugar, the differences between them, their troubled past. Bird as well is interesting once he enters the possibility of becoming a gunslinger, even though he is young and naïve – this is an extremely fascinating possibility of a child acting as a hero in a fallen apart world, but ultimately not being tough enough for it – but it all happens too late.

Haints Stay is a quick and enjoyable read close to being great with its exploration into the genres it pays homages to, but not close enough.