It is also the best writing I have ever encountered. Despite the discomfort I felt reading of the brutality of the time, this is one of the best novels I have read this year. This story, the way it was presented, and the way it flows on the page are an ultimate gift. High up in mountain country though we were, every little river became a huge muscled snake, and the water wanted to find out everything, the meaning of our sad roofs for instance, the meaning of our bunk beds beginning to take on the character of little barks, the sure calculation that if it fell day and night no human man was going to get his uniform dry.
Then the rain began to fall in an extravagant tantrum. There may have been five sentences in the entire book that weren’t quote-worthy. They didn’t put themselves in jeopardy if they could help it, but they also did what they could - whenever they could - to right the wrongs they encountered. This was also a time when some people started questioning this life and lifestyle, and Thomas and John were two of those people. There was always someone meaner, more filled with hatred, and/or more desperate who was willing to put their own life on the line to take the life and possessions of another.įor the narrator Thomas McNulty and his partner John Cole, this was their way of life and they learned to take care of themselves – and each other – because that was part of their way of life as well. Persecution of different races was everywhere immigrants of all kinds were at risk no matter where they found themselves. The time frame of this story has to have been one of the most brutal in the history of the United States. There is far more in this story to discover as their adventures also include a ferocious stint in the Union army during the Civil War – until they are captured. They grow in love with each other and they adopt as their own a little orphaned Sioux girl to love and take care of.
They follow what small opportunities knock - right into the army out west. They experience hardship together where hunger and lack of decent clothing and no shelter is hard to bear, but they do survive and find ways to ensure their basic needs are taken care of. This novel tells the story of two young orphaned boys who happen to take shelter beneath the same shrub in a rainstorm and become fast friends. And a vein of optimistic and wide-eyed wonder runs through the gold like silver. He is an alchemist who turns what is base and depressing and disastrous into gold that sparkles with exuberance, a sense of adventure, and hope.
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