Shakespeare, a former actor of gargantuan proportions, and his sidekick, Silk, a rail-thin teenager with all the brains that Shakespeare lacks, are two of the most improbable mountain men ever to explore the Rocky Mountains.
Together, they get into flabbergasting scrapes, from wrestling bears to falling in love with off-limits women in Santa Fe.
Silk and Shakespeare are fictional, but they ride alongside real historical figures such as Antelope Jim Beckwourth, the bi-racial son of a Virginia plantation owner who became a warrior chief of the Crow Indians, and his lover, Pine Leaf, a legendary woman warrior.
This unlikely foursome gets into jams with dreaded enemies of the Crow and the Blackfeet—but that’s to be expected of characters who, like the man of La Mancha, dream of “enchantments, quarrels, battles, challenges, wounds, wooings, loves, tempests, and other impossible follies.”
Reviews
“Win Blevins is the best writer in America.” —John Milius, screenwriter of ‘Apocalypse Now’’
“Blevins ‘Silk and Shakespeare’ brims with good-natured fun!” — Publisher’s Weekly
“Win Blevins displays an antic imagination, not only in mingling actual and invented characters, but in melding gritty action-adventure with metaphysical musings.” — Dale Wasserman, author of Man of La Mancha
“I haven’t had so much fun reading a book about the West in years. A true romp!” —George Roy Hill, director of Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid