Helpful Score: 2
From Library Journal
McMurty and Ossana employ a technique they used successfully in Pretty Boy Floyd (LJ 9/1/94), in which a historical character of legendary proportions become the hero of a modern work of fiction. This work focuses on Zeke Proctor and Ned Christic, Cherokee Indians who became folk heroes in the Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s. Unforgiven wrongs that festered since the removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia in the 1830s become a moving force in the story of a casual love affair gone awry and the bloody feud and even bloodier legal actions that transpire when federal judges intervene. McMurty paints Zeke's courtship, murder trial, and marriage debacle with broad humor, and Ossana takes the story home with Ned's four-year standoff of armed federal marshals dispatched to take him dead or alive. A wonderfully readable historical novel that furthers the understanding of the Native-white disputes of the last century. Recommended for most collections.
This cover shows wear but is still intact just well read.
McMurty and Ossana employ a technique they used successfully in Pretty Boy Floyd (LJ 9/1/94), in which a historical character of legendary proportions become the hero of a modern work of fiction. This work focuses on Zeke Proctor and Ned Christic, Cherokee Indians who became folk heroes in the Oklahoma Territory during the 1890s. Unforgiven wrongs that festered since the removal of the Cherokee Nation from Georgia in the 1830s become a moving force in the story of a casual love affair gone awry and the bloody feud and even bloodier legal actions that transpire when federal judges intervene. McMurty paints Zeke's courtship, murder trial, and marriage debacle with broad humor, and Ossana takes the story home with Ned's four-year standoff of armed federal marshals dispatched to take him dead or alive. A wonderfully readable historical novel that furthers the understanding of the Native-white disputes of the last century. Recommended for most collections.
This cover shows wear but is still intact just well read.
Helpful Score: 1
Story of Ezekiel Proctor and ned Christie, the last Cherokee warriors-after the civil war, not only history, but legend. Part folksong, part tall tale...Couldn't put it down, heart-in-the-throat storytelling, very bittersweet..
Helpful Score: 1
I haven't read any westerns or anything else by McMurtry, but this may be my starting point. The novel seems epic but the main plot is the trouble between two Cherokee friends and the white settlers nearby. The tone throughout the novel is very satiric, even during some pretty horribly violent episodes. I found the middle to be a bit sluggish though, the writing taking a little too long to describe things. But the last third takes a more dramatic and operatic tone and while told in a straight-forward manner, left me reeling in its' profound summation of Cherokee / White relations, without any sap. This novel proves that you can tell a very small tale about very big things.
Helpful Score: 1
I have read nearly all of McMurtry's books, and this is one of the really good ones. No one can bring out the characters in a story like L.M.
