Customer Reviews

Strange Angels

5 star:		(2)
4 star:		(2)
3 star:		(1)
2 star:		(1)
1 star:		(1)

 

 

People who come to Nebraska seldom describe the landscape as "lush." Most tourists don't have the vision for it. Agee does have it, and she writes the landscape into being so that the reader sees the vision, too...the blue open bowl of sky, the land that really isn't as flat as it looks driving through on I-80. Agee has it right--in Nebraska, especially for those who live from the land, it and the weather are other characters, living, breathing, gentle or stormy. The real people who live here are just as complicated as people living anywhere, and their motivations just as intriguing. This book offers a powerful vision because it is a vision which is so whole. The people and their weaknesses or desires aren't the only things which drive it. How do we know who we are apart from family, from place, from our own sense of ourselves in time, from our spirit? Agee has so much, so right; she has interwoven so many threads, and most of the time, it all holds. Most importantly, she doesn't seem to me to imitate anyone. Agee writes literature from the heart of the heartland that most people haven't seen flying over, driving through. This literature is worth staying a while

Jonis Agee's "Strange Angels" is a nobel attempt to modernize a Western. Set in contemporary Nebraska(Cherry county to be precise), the story follows the contempestous relationship between three siblings(Cody, Arthur and Kya). They all have a different mother, but the same father: recently deceased rancher Haywood Bennett. The novels follows their changing lives as Arthur tries to steal an attractive widow away from Cody, Kya tries to be less selfish(and man hungry), and their Indian friend Joseph tries to steer them along(he's the best character in the novel easily). Too slow for my tastes, and overly melodramatic with a hero that drinks A LOT. Only merits 2 stars.

Animal and land descriptions and relationships are the strongest part of this novel. Many of the horses were portrayed so realistically they became real and I felt as if I was riding some of them. I did not feel the same way about the humans. Will was hardly mentioned after the early segment. Love scenes between Latta and Cody were flat. I stayed with the book until the end because I am a Nebraskan. It left me disappointed that the story remained flat through out.

At first glance, this books seemed a bit over-written, as if it spent too much time trying to be explicitly sensual, but it grew into a very compelling story about three beautifully flawed characters, Cody, Arthur and Kya. Its description of life in Nebraska's sandhills is engaging. Its ability to transport me, a lifelong city dweller, to an understanding of my father and grandfather's country life is quite an accomplishment. Mozart it isn't. But it is a good read for a good weekend or two, and its words endure.

Heywood Bennett, a cattle rancher with extensive tracts of land and livestock died a month ago leaving his son Arthur the appointed true heir to deal with the family business. He also left him to deal with his two bastard children. Cody is a macho cowboy right out of the Clint Eastwood tradition but is crippled by a murder he committed as a young boy and his subsequent raising by his seemingly psychotic mother. Kya is the other lovechild, and due to her half-Indian blood, she struggles to find a place in the world, using her beauty to gain fast sex and freedom from the small town of Babylon. She lives life to the hilt and it sometimes seems as if the only thing that keeps her from falling into the abyss is the love of Arthur and Cody. The three siblings love each other but always seem to make each other's lives more difficult, sometimes with tragic results. If it isn't Arthurs jealousy of the relationship between Cody and Kya, it's Cody's belief that Arthur sees him as a threat to his father's legacy. Add into the mix their ranching neighbor, the 40 year old widow Latta Jaboy, who throws a wrench into Arthur's ambitions and also falls into a passionate romance with the man-boy Cody and comes between him and his sister. Strange Angels basically tells about Arthur, Cody, and Kya's quest to come to terms with each other and their father's shadow and being able to start their own lives.

Strange Angels is beautifully written and Jonis Agee really conveys the feel of an old western in a modern setting. The toughness of the characters sometimes comes close to stagnating their lives instead of giving them the courage to forget the past. While not much plotwise goes on in this character study, you'll find yourself hooked to the narrative. One complaint I had about the novel is that Agee at times tells too much instead of showing and vice versa. She never seems comfortable in moderation of either style and fails to strike a balance. While the characters stubbornness and lack of honesty at times makes this work a little too melodramatic, it is still a book worth reading.

I really enjoyed reading "Strange Angels" because we live next to the sandhills and the setting is close to "home". I've always thought the sandhills in NE had an exciting history to them. This book is about the coming together of three siblings who all have different mothers but the same father. They've never been close and always felt lost. In this book they find their purposes and goals in life and find understanding for each other. There is a lot of action in the book that keeps you reading. The characters are very strong and make you want to know them more. I don't really like watching Westerns with my husband but I really enjoyed this book!

So boring I couldn't get past the first 20 pages.