This time I'm giving you a review, not a recommendation:
"The Son" by Philipp Meyer is not for everyone, and though it's written
from three points of view (actually four, if we count the very late entry of
Ulises Garcia) it does not succeed, in my opinion, in being any one person's
story. Of course it is purported to be a
family saga, but the book follows no chronological pattern, and the constant
back and forth from one time and character to another, largely in short
chapters, doesn't build the book toward a feeling of forward movement.
The McCullough story begins (though it does not in the
novel!) in 1849 on a South Texas ranch where two young boys are kidnapped by
Comanches after horrific scenes of murder and other assorted violence to their
family. One brother dies, the other
lives to tell the story not only of his survival, but his eventual rise to the
status of a cattle and oil baron. Eli
McCullough, the patriarch, continues to dominate the family until his death,
leaving numerous heirs, including a rebellious son, Peter, and a feisty
great-granddaughter, Jeanne Anne, whose stories the reader is periodically
privy to.
Of these the woman is the most interesting, but so much
of the book is not from her point of view that I'm not sure women would find it
that compelling. Much of the book is
devoted to "he-man" stuff, though Peter's affair with Maria Garcia is
one of the few romantic elements. Of
particular interest to me were the Mexican-American relations, where issues and
overt hostility run deep.
"The Son" is almost 600 pages, neither a long
nor short book, with very accessible prose. But it's hard at times to keep the
characters straight--fortunately there is a printed page of them, but you will
have to do a lot if flipping back and forth to remember who is who. I'm not
exactly sure what reading audience it's aimed for--perhaps it's you.
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