Genre: Fiction—Novel
Completed: 18 September 2016
Summary & Review:
Eli McCullough and his family—father, mother, sister, and brother—live on the American frontier in Texas during the early nineteenth century. One night, while his father is away, a band of Comanche Indians come and rape and kill his mother and sister and kidnap him and his brother. After his brother dies in captivity, Eli learns to make a life with his captors and eventually is even accepted by them as a member of their tribe. After small pox wipes out the band, Eli returns to life with the White Texans and son builds a wealth that lasts for generations. The stories of three of his descendants are intertwined in the novel with Eli’s story.
My wife’s paternal grandfather recommended this book to me and I can see why. It is an epic novel covering almost 200 years of Texas history. It explores the changes and eventual disappearance of the frontier and how the land was won through battles between Mexicans, Indians, Americans, Spaniards, and more. But, I gotta give this book a fairly low rating because of the three main story lines, the only one I was excited to read when a new chapter came was The Colonel’s. The tale of him being abducted and then basically adopted by the Comanches was pretty fascinating. The stories of his son and great-granddaughter weren’t quite so compelling. Also, Meyer included way too much sex. Granted, the descriptions weren’t very graphic, but it was included an unnecessarily high amount of times.
Rating: 5.5
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