Staff Pick
Combine the story telling of James Michener and the dark, dusty setting and characters of Cormac McCarthy and you get Philipp Meyer's The Son. This book is full of history, violence, and three generations of a Texas family's story. It was a runner-up for the Pulitzer Prize (The Goldfinch won instead), but this hidden gem deserves equal praise. Recommended By Jeffrey J., Powells.com
Synopses & Reviews
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power,
The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.
Spring, 1849. Eli McCullough is thirteen years old when a marauding band of Comanches takes him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to life among the Comanches, learning their ways and waging war against their enemies, including white men—which complicates his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is. But when disease, starvation, and overwhelming numbers of armed Americans decimate the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, civilized nor fully wild, he must carve a place for himself in a world in which he does not fully belong—a journey of adventure, tragedy, hardship, grit, and luck that reverberates in the lives of his progeny.
About the Author
Philipp Meyer is the author of the critically lauded novel
American Rust, winner of the 2009
Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was an
Economist Book of the Year, a
Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a
New York Times Notable Book. He is a graduate of Cornell University and has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a James Michener Fellow. A native of Baltimore, he now lives mostly in Texas.
Kate Mulgrew has performed on stage in Shaw, Shakespeare, and Tennessee Williams; she has starred in such films as A Stranger is Watching and Round Numbers; she has also done considerable work on television.