How long does it take to read The Shootist?
Glendon Swarthout
The Shootist by Glendon Swarthout takes about 3 hours 53 minutes to read at 250 words a minute.
About 3 hours 53 minutes
A weekend read
First published 1975. 212 pages, about 58,300 words.
8 days at 30 minutes a day
Estimate based on 275 words per page.
At other speeds
| Slow, 150 words a minute | 6 hours 29 minutes |
| Average, 250 words a minute | 3 hours 53 minutes |
| Fast, 400 words a minute | 2 hours 26 minutes |
The page count is the median across 11 editions, so your copy may differ. How we calculate.
About the book
A shootist is what later came to be called a gunman, a killer, in the early days of the lawless Wild West. This is the story of one such gunman, who is dying of cancer in a rooming house in El Paso. When news gets around of his approaching death, everyone wants to be in at the end, and wheel around him like vultures, not quite hesitating to keep their distance. The book is a marvel of brevity, filled with unforgettable portraits of the shootist, his landlady and her son, as well of the lesser cameos. The ending is without parallel.
Subjects: Social life and customs, Criminals, Fiction, History, Criminals, fiction, Fiction, historical, general
