From Publishers Weekly
An 89-year-old codger's reminiscences make for a zestfully youthful saga in this blend of Western, picaresque adventure and historical novel. Kiefer ( The Lingala Code ) charts the transformation of narrator Lee Garland from cattle smuggler and desperado to deputy sheriff, oil millionaire, banker, soldier with Theodore Roosevelt's Rough Riders, ambassador to Mexico, and last of the old-time robber barons. Betrayed by his business partner Charlie Bruce, who prevents Garland from marrying his sister Caroline, Lee marries a second choice, takes Caroline as his mistress, suffers tragic losses, but never loses his shrewd frontiersman's spirit. With hindsight our hero, whose story climaxes in 1968 in a symbolic act of protest, implicitly urges common sense, decency and hardy individualism as the best hope for survival in a nuclear world. His crusty, ironic narrative voice, as blunt as a sawed-off shotgun, adds a certain introspective dimension to this long, extroverted yarn of heartbreak, love, murder, Pancho Villa, Mormons, wars, scams and schemes.
Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
From Library Journal
Lee Garland is the stuff of which legends are made, and Kiefer boldly weaves fact with fiction in the creation of this larger-than-life character. From the death of his parents at the hands of renegade Apaches to his own death at the age of 89 in a stand-off with U.S. marshalls over an eviction notice, Garland remains a law unto himself. Twice accused of murder, he avoids jail by his own wits and the help of friends. He serves with the Rough Riders in Cuba during the Spanish-American War, fights Pancho Villa on the Texas border, and sees action in France during World War I. He makes several fortunes. Romance with a woman, also larger than life, runs throughout the whole book. In a style reminiscent of Larry McMurtry and Thomas Berger, Kiefer presents a fast-paced panorama of American life from 1890 to 1970, as seen by one of the last legendary (fictional) heroes of the Old West.
- Thomas L. Kilpatrick, Southern Illinois Univ. at Carbondale Lib.Copyright 1989 Reed Business Information, Inc.
by Elmer Kelton
by Elmer Kelton
DVD ~ Tom Selleck
