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Most Helpful Customer Reviews
12 of 13 people found the following review helpful:
4.0 out of 5 stars
A Very Good Read but Could Be Better,
By Rick (Hong Kong, China) - See all my reviews
This review is from: The Last Apache Girl (Paperback)
I wanted so much to like this book. Reading it on the heels of McMurtry's classic western, however, might have been asking too much of any book from this genre.
This is a reprint with a new publisher of "The Wild Girl." Evidently, the editors didn't agree with some of the reviewers of the first printing, who criticized all the "claptrap" prefacing the narrative and afterward. The author repeatedly reminds the reader that this is a work of fiction, but then proceeds to labor to make it appear to be a work of non-fiction. The blurb on the back cover only furthers this misperception. The quotes of historians of the Apaches are superfluous and the author seems bent on pleasing those whose politically-correct mindset would expect him to valorize American Indians to the point of rationalizing even the Apaches' brutal excesses. This is quite off-putting but if you can look past all the extraneous material, the narrative will seize your interest and sustain it. In fairness, the book appears to be well-researched and just to alleviate your doubts the author includes a bibliography of sources cited. Still, this book could have been better with proper editing. While you will no doubt enjoy the plot development, you'll find its shifting narration annoying and unnecessary. The entire book should be told 3rd POV but instead tries to let us see events from the POV of different characters. It's not very convincing when we consider that the main protagonist, a 17 year-old named Ned Giles, could hardly have engaged in some of the historically reflective commentary attributed to him. How can one be so dispassionate when writing in the midst of so much turmoil, suspense, and outright terror? I thoroughly enjoyed the way the author attended to detailed descriptions of the terrain, providing much local color. He well develops the relationship between Giles and one of the Indians. The dialogue, or banter, is at times forced and sounds more like something contemporary amateur historians might say rather than historical figures. This novel does, however, in the end provide more than a glimpse into the bronco Apaches, as they were called, and their race relations with both the Americans and Mexicans. On that basis, and the strength of the narrative flow, I recommend it.
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