I said it in July 2016 when I wrote the review shown below: News of the World is a beautiful novel, and it deserves to find a huge audience. I re-read the book a few weeks ago, and I feel more strongly than ever about that...but let Paulette herself make the case that this is a very special novel.
What could possibly be more intriguing a main character in a
book about Reconstruction Era Texas than a seventy-year-old retired Army
captain who makes his living as a traveling “professional reader”? Perhaps a ten-year-old little girl who has
spent the last four years of her life as a captive of the band of Kiowa who
butchered her parents and little sister in front of her might just do it. And then if you have these two characters
cross paths, as Paulette Jiles does in News
of the World, you have the makings of what is certain to be one of the most
memorable novels of 2016.
People in north Texas are hungry for news, and they will pay
to hear it. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd
is only too happy to bring it to them as he travels from town to town reading
articles aloud from the latest East Coast newspapers he can get hold of – all
for the price of one thin dime per listener.
It is, in fact, the kind of solitary existence that Captain Kidd much
prefers at this stage of his life. But
that all changes one trip through Wichita Falls when Kidd reluctantly agrees to
transport a little girl back to the aunt and uncle she has not seen since being
captured by the Kiowa. The 400-mile trip
from Wichita Falls to near San Antonio will prove to be a dangerous one, one
that will forever bind the old man and the little girl together.
 |
| Paulette Jiles |
There is plenty of old fashioned western action in News of the World: threatening Indians,
shootouts with bad guys who want to steal the little girl for their own
purposes, rising waters and dangerous river crossings, big-hearted women of the
evening, etc., and all of it is well handled by Jiles. But what makes the novel special is the
relationship that develops between Captain Kidd and young Johanna as they
steadily make their way southward. Johanna
has forgotten everything about her life before the Kiowa took her. No longer does she speak English or German;
she has forgotten how to use a knife and a fork; and she considers the idea of
wearing a cloth dress to be a ludicrous one.
She is now, and in her mind forever will be, a Kiowa Indian. White men – and women – terrify her, and she
wants nothing to do with them.
But Johanna senses something in Captain Kidd that calms her,
a level of trust that moves her to call him “grandfather” in her own language. Soon, though, their relationship has gone way
beyond merely honoring the Captain with a title, and Johanna begins thinking of
Kidd as her grandfather in the truest sense of the word. And perhaps surprising even himself, Kidd
grows so fond of the little girl that he would willingly give his own life to
save hers.
News of the World is
a beautiful novel, and it deserves to find a huge audience.
(Review Copy provided by Publisher)
I loved this book! And you're right, it deserves a large audience.
ReplyDeleteI don't re-read a whole lot of novels, but this is one I can see myself eventually reading even for a third and fourth time.
DeleteI've heard great things about this one, but I've yet to read it. Thanks for the reminder!
ReplyDeleteI think you'll enjoy it. If you do, you might want to give "The Homesman" a try, too. That's a 1988 book by Glendon Swarthout but it was made into a movie fairly recently that gave the novel new life. It's really good.
Delete