~Post by Joe
“I can’t think about Philipp Meyer’s The Son without thinking in terms of film, of Hollywood, of legends and myths. Visions of Monument Valley in Utah (John Ford’s stand-in for West Texas in his epic film The Searchers, a movie that echoes throughout the novel) fill my mind’s eye as the wiry sparse tones of Ennio Morricone’s music support the majestic scenery with hints of distance and loss. Writing this review, this teaser, this trailer makes me we want to use that old stand-by voice over: “In a time of upheaval and war, in a world just being formed, one man shall rise…”
The Son is one of the best new books I’ve read in a long, long time. I’ve described it to people as “Cormac meets McMurtry” but even that is selling it short. A cross-generational tale that takes us from the mid 19th century up to the present day, it also has its hints of Giant and East of Eden. So much so that there’s a character that I couldn’t help but picture as performed by James Dean.
The center of the book (aside from the state of Texas) is Eli McCullough, the first male child born in the Republic of Texas. One of the most interesting characters created in the 21st century, he is proud, angry, sentimental, murderous, and humble. His story, one of of being kidnapped and raised by Comanches, returning to “civilization,” and rising to become one of the richest, most powerful men in Texas, anchors and informs the other narratives that interact and interject his own.
There are the diaries of his son Peter. Sensitive and solitary, he is everything his father Eli and his son Charles are not. Every brutal action made by his family during the Border Wars (1914-1919) further alienates him from everything around him until he is forced to make a decision that will forever haunt the family even as they try to erase him from memory.
And there are the memories of Jeannie, Eli’s great-granddaughter and now aged matriarch of the McCullough clan. From her childhood memories of her hero Eli and her weak father Charles to her battles in the male dominated oil industry in the 1950s and 60s to her lonely, final days in contemporary Texas, we see the decisions and mistakes made over the last 160 years culminate in one final act of desperation.
This is not a book for the faint of heart, brutal scenes of massacres involving scalping and rape fill the first third of the book. But, at the same time, scenes of beauty and fragile romance haunt the final third. It’s an epic tale for an epic state full of epic people. If I have any problems with the book, it’s that when I turned the final page the tale was over.
I’m not good at predictions so don’t put money on this but I’m calling Philipp Meyer’s The Son as the winner of this years Pulitzer Prize. I love this book.”
Join us Thursday, June 6 at 7PM when Philipp Meyer will be in store speaking and signing The Son.
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