"Heyday" by Kurt Andersen

"Heyday" may not be the ultimate novel of 19th century America, but it's certainly worthy of consideration. This is a sweeping, epic book; it takes up certain prominent personalities and events from the time. The Mexican War, the Gold Rush, the health and medical fads of the time, the sweep of revolution in Europe in 1848.

Although the surviving couple, Ben and Polly, absorb and merit the lion's share of our sympathy, perhaps the most intriguing character is the doomed Duff Lucking. A deserter during the Mexican War, he left the army for humanitarian purposes. He ends keeping to his ideals, but committing a long series of crimes, murder and arson, according to his reading of his principles. A devout Catholic, he understands the similarities between the Gospels and the teachings of the Maidu, the Indian tribe he joins at the end of the book.

Against the large canvas of pioneering across America, the sweeping events take place. We have cameos by Charles Darwin, Franklin Pierce, Abraham Lincoln, John C. Fremont - all at least tangentially involved in the unfolding story.

I enjoyed this book thoroughly. It's epic, and thought-provoking, personal in focus, and national in scale. Pick it up, take a deep breath, and plunge in!

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"Keep the Change" by Thomas McGuane

This is the story of Joe Starling, Jr., who inherits the ranch in Montana after a short and spotty career in art and illustration. He finds Astrid, a woman from Miami, dallies briefly with Ellen, a girl from his youth, and finally signs the ranch over to Billy, who is married to Ellen.

This story is spare, given over to Montana-speak (like Kent Haruf, only without the depth of emotion or impressive characterization or poetry). Our hero's mood swings are sudden and uneven and sometimes mysterious. I think McGuane wanted to place Joe's emotional state in a family context, but I began shortly to wonder what was the point. And concurrently I quit caring.

I saw this book reviewed as an "epic," and that's just mistaken. I often have a hard time with prose that poses as "spare in the service of a stark story," because so often it's mishandled just enough to make motivation completely mysterious. That, I'm afraid, afflicts this book.

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"Death Comes for the Archbishop" by Willa Cather

Willa Cather fictionalizes the lives a pair of French catholic priests who go to the newly-formed New Mexico territory to spread the faith in a harsh, half-pagan world. The plot is episodic and the descriptions of the landscape capture the stark loneliness of the desert Southwest.

Archbishop Latour endures numerous hardships just establishing his diocese, including the simple physical difficulties of operating in this emerging territory, and the intrasigence of the established Spanish clergy.

This book is held in reverence by many, as Cather's most-studied work, but I don't find it equal to "O Pioneers!" Its only uniting feature is the person of the archbishop. He conquers all, and lives to retire and tend his gardens. Honestly, I didn't find much of anything deeper than that.

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