In an almost true story of Captain Hendrick Nellis, the captain's son becomes a reluctant hero for King George, and a German girl becomes an Indian, against the backdrop of the secret war between the new Americans, the Torys, and their Iroquois allies.
| ||||||||||||||||||||||||
Book Description
Editorial Reviews
From Publishers Weekly
In this historical novel set in the Mohawk Valley of New York State during the Revolutionary War, Native Americans side with the British against the rebel colonists in skirmishes that ebb and flow across the rugged countryside. Glover ( The South Will Rise at Noon ) attempts to tell the story of Capt. Hendrick Ellis, a Tory, and his recalcitrant son Oskar, who takes a blood oath against his father for fighting on the wrong side. Oskar, who is eventually kidnapped and pressed into service for King George, maintains a precocious correspondence with "Gen'l Washington" and fancies himself a writer. Though this may sound like an adventure tale out of Fenimore Cooper, Glover's rash of postmodernist technique yields something closer to the violent pastiches of William Burroughs. Texts from "Oskar's book on Indians" mix with the dreams and observations of two mysterious white women (one of whom lives with Indians) to produce a disorienting and shattered world. Glover has certainly written a book true to his take on the era--"The war is like a whirlwind . . ."; but anachronisms and academy-addled prose ("I could see the worry in their faces, as if the grammar of their resolve and the structure of the world they were about to meet in battle were different") betray an inadequate control of the material.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
$20. F This is not only the life and times of Captain Hendrick Nellis, a British soldier in New York during the American Revolution, but also the tale of his son, Oscar, a patriot who yearns to be a hero in the new republic, and Mary Hunsacker, a German immigrant adopted and named One Who Remembers by the Indians who massacred her family. From these three viewpoints, Glover ( The South Will Rise at Noon , Viking, 1989) captures the cruelty of frontier war and the ambivalence of identity as whites become Indians, patriots become Tories--and vice versa. Nellis paints his face and fights like an Indian yet is called the Redeemer for ransoming whites from Indians. Oscar's letters to General Washington demonstrate the gap between revolutionary ideal and reality. And Mary adopts her new life with the practicality of a survivor, providing us with a window into the world of the Iroquois. The narrative is by turns funny, erotic, appalling, and haunting. The language is as dreamlike and brooding as the forest that dominates human action. This vividly imagined novel portrays the American Revolution unforgettably as regional nightmare rather than national epic. Highly recommended.
- David B. Mattern, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
- David B. Mattern, Univ. of Virginia, Charlottesville
Copyright 1993 Reed Business Information, Inc.
Product Details
Would you like to update product info or give feedback on images?
|
More About the Author
Discover books, learn about writers, read author blogs, and more.
Customer Reviews
|
There are no customer reviews yet.
|
|||
|
Video reviews
|
Tag this product(What's this?)Think of a tag as a keyword or label you consider is strongly related to this product.
Tags will help all customers organize and find favorite items. |
Sell a Digital Version of This Book in the Kindle Store
If you are a publisher or author and hold the digital rights to a book, you can sell a digital version of it in our Kindle Store.
Learn more
Customer Discussions
|
This product's forum
Active discussions in related forums
Search Customer Discussions
|
Related forums
|
