Book: The Son by Philipp Meyer

Read this book! It's wonderful, covering 6 generations of Texans and their interactions (almost all disgraceful) with the Mexicans and Native Americans, especially the Comanches.

It is told in the alternating voices of Eli, born in 1836 and captured by the Comanches when he was about 12 and with whom he lived for 3 years; Peter, his son, who was born in 1870; and Jeanne Anne, Peter's granddaughter born in 1926.

It is truly a saga, full of adventure and the history of Texas from the eras of cattle to oil.

The family is the McCullough family. They become very rich. Eli and Peter especially are compelling characters:

At random:
 Peter: "Charlie and Glenn came to me [Peter's sons]. They have both decided to join the army. I told them it would be better to wait until the end of the year when it would be easier to find hands to replace them. They were unconvinced. 'We have plenty of money to hire people.' said Charlie…They could not have picked a worse war to join. Machine guns and half-ton shells. I had always thought the Europeans returned to the Stone Age when they landed in America, but apparently they never left it. Seven hundred thousand dead at Verdun alone. What we need is another great ice to come and sweep us all into the ocean. To give God a second chance."

Eli: "By the time I'd been with them a year, I was treated the same as any other Comanche, though they kept a bright eye on me, like some derelict uncle who'd taken the pledge. Dame Nature had made my eyes and hair naturally dark and in winter I kept my skin brown by lying out in the sun on a robe. Most nights I slept as a gentle as a dead calf and had no thought of going off with the whites. There was nothing back there but shame and if my father had come looking for me, I hadn't heard about it."

Jeanne: "Her father had been out in the far pastures. He did not return for supper but a few hours later his horse showed up at the gate, alone and still saddled. It was even darker now; she could barely see her own feet. There was no chance of going after him, but it was not cold, and he was resourceful, and she expected he would show up sometime in the morning, soaked and footsore but otherwise, intact….Four days later, one of the Midkiff vaqueros found him at a water gap, the white sole of a foot showing under the brush and flotsam…Because of her father's condition, the funeral was planned for the next day, and as she lay in her bed that afternoon, exhausted but unable to fall asleep, it occurred to her that the ranch still needed to be run, that there was no one left but her."

The book is 550 pages and I loved every sentence. This is a fine story.

It ends with a young man named Ulises Garcia:
"He had shaved and his hair was wet and neatly combed. He was wearing a fresh shirt and pants. The shirt was brand-new, as were the trousers; his boots were polished. He brought his leather bag with all the birth certificates, and his great-grandfather's old Colt revolver, which no longer works but was clearly engraved ________. He walked around the porch, looking for her, and saw a pair of open glass doors….."