This is a sweeping saga of the rise and ebbing fortunes of a Texas family who through sheer grit and ruthless tenacity create an empire but seem to lose their souls in the process.

In 1849 Eli McCullough is captured along with his brother in a brutal Comanche raid and is forced to watch his mother and sister raped and killed.  But he is determined to survive and lives at first as a slave but quickly learns to assimilate within the Comanche society and by the age of 16 has become a fierce warrior. But the Comanche are slowly dying as their lands are taken away and they are exposed to diseases from white settlers. Eventually, Eli must return to white society and ends up as a Colonel in the Rangers and settles in Texas with his wife and  family determined to create a dynasty.

The story is narrated by three different members of the family: Eli who is now 100 and is known simply as “the Colonel”; Eli’s son Peter, who calls himself the “the great disappointment” because he can’t seem to meet the expectation’s of the family’s vision of itself; and Eli’s great-granddaughter Jeanne Anne, who struggles to maintain the McCullough empire in the face of modern economic challenges.

As each narrator faces moral and economic challenges to their family’s wealth and position, the choices they make become more morally ambiguous and they in turn have to become more ruthless. At each juncture when they must make these decisions, it is clear that they each must also come up with a way to deal with the consequences of these ruthless choices and the toll on each one is the same: alienation and loneliness.

Meyer has written a big book (863 p.) with larger than life characters, especially the Colonel who dominates the family even long after his death. Each character is developed with care and we see them grow and change through the vagaries of economic change, the loves they choose and their ongoing interactions with this land that is their home. And yet there seems to be something missing in each one-a brokenness that seems to never be healed. Meyer seems strangely detached from his characters as he chronicles their lives and we never seem to sense any mercy or grace in his enumeration of who they were or what they did.

Meyer is eloquent in talking about the loss of the Comanche’s lifestyle and the destruction of the the Texas ecosystem by the introduction of cattle or even the shifting economic tides of oil production. There is much to mourn in this saga and very little to be proud of; a message that not many Texans let alone Americans will be happy to hear.

Brenda”s Rating: ****(4 out of 5 Stars) 

Recommend this Book to: Ken, Keith and Sharon

Book Study Worthy: Yes

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