Synopses & Reviews
Sherman Alexie meets William Gibson. Louise Erdrich meets Franz Kafka. Leslie Marmon Silko meets Philip K. Dick. However you might want to put it, this is Native American fiction in a whole new world. A surrealistic revisiting of the Cherokee Removal,
Riding the Trail of Tears takes us to north Georgia in the near future, into a virtual-reality tourist compound where customers ride the Trail of Tears, and into the world of Tallulah Wilson, a Cherokee woman who works there. When several tourists lose consciousness inside the ride, employees and customers at the compound come to believe, naturally, that a terrorist attack is imminent.
Little does Tallulah know that Cherokee Little People have taken up residence in the virtual world and fully intend to change the rides programming to suit their own point of view. Told by a narrator who knows all but can hardly be trusted, in a story reflecting generations of experience while recalling the events in a single day of Tallulahs life, this funny and poignant tale revises American history even as it offers a new way of thinking, both virtual and very real, about the past for both Native Americans and their Anglo counterparts.
Review
"Character development and a good story team up with technology in Hausman's innovative debut novel set in the world of virtual reality."—Publishers Weekly
Review
"Hausman's ironic tale of revising this shameful and horrific historic moment so that Anglos experience in virtual time what the Cherokee suffered 175 years ago is humorous and uniquely moving."—Deborah Donovan, Booklist
Review
"[Riding the Trail of Tears] offers much that can't be found elsewhere in today's fiction."—David Keymer, Library Journal
Review
"Riding the Trail of Tears is an engaging and entertaining read. . . . It has a narrative and a main character that keeps a reader wanting to keep going all the way through."—Matthew Long, Big Muddy
Review
“A dazzling futurist novel about a traumatic episode in U.S. history. Reader, when you accept Blake Hausmans invitation to ride the Trail of Tears in a theme park, be warned that you will become a participant in the Cherokee Removal, and not simply a witness.”—Bharati Mukherjee, winner of the National Book Critics Circle Award and author of The Tree Bride
Review
“There are few authors who take this kind of narrative risk in Native literatures. Histories of the Trail of Tears have been published, but Blake Hausmans telling of it is unique.”—John Purdy, coeditor of Nothing but the Truth: An Anthology of Native American Literature
Review
"Interconnected lives in the small western Nebraska town of McDermot navigate the rocky transition from rustic old ways to new money opportunities and opportunists in the slow-burning latest from O'Brien."—Publishers Weekly
Review
"[Dan O'Brien] gives a fairly large number of characters individual attention, making them, with their good traits and bad, all quite memorable."—NPR's All Things Considered
Review
"Some books take you beyond reading. They take you inside, into your feelings and emotions. I "felt" this book. I believe that anyone with any land ownership in their lineage will also feel Stolen Horses."—Nancy Simpson, Book Vault Bookstore
Review
"Like a runaway team of Clydesdales, O'Brien's writing grabs the reader and pulls them along page by page. Grab the covers tightly, and ride along with Stolen Horses."—Alan J. Bartels, Nebraska Life
Review
and#8220;This scholarly edition does justice to Catherand#8217;s notoriously particular production requirements. The material and editorial quality of the book meets very high standards, with the paper, the visual presentation of the words on the page, the rigor of the editing and proofreading, the thoroughness of the notes, and the detailed explanation of editorial decisions all illustrating impeccable scholarship. The historical essay and the illustrations provide useful information. . . . This volume stands as a model of scrupulous, indeed loving, scholarship. It offers a fully elaborated, beautiful text that even Cather, despite her effort to bury the book, might be proud to acknowledge.and#8221;and#8212;
Great Plains QuarterlySynopsis
Hailed by reviewers and readers for its originality, vitality, and truth, this novel secured Willa Cather a place in the first rank of American writers. Cather called
My Ántonia “the best thing Ive done.” For Oliver Wendell Holmes,
My Ántonia had “unfailing charm, perhaps not to be defined; a beautiful tenderness, a vivifying imagination that transforms but does not distort or exaggerate.” H. L. Mencken declared it “one of the best [novels] any American has ever done.”
Cather drew deeply on her childhood days in frontier Nebraska for her fourth novel, published in 1918. Old immigrant neighbors inspired many of the characters, particularly the heroine. Ántonia Shimerda is memorable as the warmhearted daughter of Bohemians who must adapt to a hard life on the desolate prairie. She survives and matures, a pioneer woman made radiant by spirit.
W. T. Bendas illustrations further illuminate the fiction of a writer who drew so extensively on actual experience.
Synopsis
McDermot, Nebraska, is a pleasant, scenic western cattle town situated in the Pawnee River valley—just the place for people seeking refuge from their hectic city lives. It is also just the place for those who have made their homes on this haunting prairie since the late nineteenth century. Ideal for both, McDermot means everything to those native inhabitants and something very different to those who are looking for a new life. As the native residents wrestle with the arrival of outsiders, a local journalist uncovers a medical scandal epitomizing the problems facing the divided community. After the death of two men, it falls to the ancient but powerful district attorney to mediate a resolution between the clashing interests of the new and the old West. And the Thurston family, descended from the towns first citizen, sets out in its own way to fight the forces threatening to destroy it. This is the story of new and old interests colliding, of small western plains towns confronting the forces of “progress.”
Synopsis
Willa Cather said that
O Pioneers! was her first authentic novel, and#8220;the first time I walked off on my own feetand#8212;everything before was half real and half an imitation of writers whom I admired.and#8221; Catherand#8217;s novel of life on the Nebraska frontier established her reputation as a writer of great note and marked a significant turningand#160;point in her artistic development. No longer would she let literary convention guide the form of her writing; the materials themselves would dictate the structure.
The paperback edition contains all the text and scholarly apparatus found in the original Willa Cather Scholarly Edition. Edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association, this volume presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information on the novel.
Synopsis
Engineer Bartley Alexander appears to have a happy life in Boston with a successful career and a beautiful wife. He has been commissioned to design the Moorlock Bridge in Canada, the most important project of his career. With the onset of middle age, however, he grows increasingly restless and discontented, so much so that while in London he recklessly reignites a love affair with the sweetheart of his youth, the Irish actress Hilda Borgoyne. Although the tryst allows Alexander to recapture an element that has been missing from his pedestrian life, the relationship torments his sense of morality and eventually proves disastrous. Alexanderand#8217;s Bridge explores the demands of Gilded Age society on the individual, as well as the capacity of the individual to violate his own standards of integrity.and#160;This Willa Cather Scholarly Edition provides an illuminating new framework for Catherand#8217;s debut novel. The novel is edited according to standards set by the Committee for Scholarly Editions of the Modern Language Association and presents the full range of biographical, historical, and textual information now available, complete with illustrations and maps.
About the Author
Willa Cather (1873-1947) was born in Virginia; her family moved to Nebraska in 1883 and eventually settled in Red Cloud. After graduating from the University of Nebraska-Lincoln in 1895, she returned to Red Cloud briefly before moving east to work on Home Monthly and eventually McClures. Her first published books were the poetry collection
April Twilights and the short-story collection
The Troll Garden.
My Ántonia is part of Cathers Prairie Trilogy, which includes
O Pioneers! and
The Song of the Lark, all available in Bison Books editions. In 1923 Cather received the Pulitzer Prize for her novel
One of Ours.
W. T. Benda (1873-1948) was an illustrator and painter whose work appeared in numerous formats, including books, magazines, and advertisements.