It’s a great thing, reading something and knowing, before you finish it, that your list of favourite books is probably changing. I wasn’t halfway through The Son before I knew it would be a favourite, as long as the novel’s conclusion is worthy of the buildup (spoiler alert: it is). By the end, I was thinking bigger: that the Great American Novel is alive and well – and this novel is an instant classic. And no, that is not a phrase I throw around lightly.
The Son follows a Texas family from the early 1800’s to March of 2011, focusing on three members of the McCullough family – starting with the patriarch and following subsequent generations. The novel opens with a prologue narrated by a 100-year-old Eli McCullough, born in 1836, the year that Texas was declared an independent state. From there, the novel shifts perspective, narrated in third person, to his great-granddaughter Jeanne Anne McCullough – this section opens with her in the family house, injured and possibly on the verge of death. Meyer reveals through flashbacks how Jeannie's life unfolded while overseeing the transition of family business from vast cattle ranch to oil empire – and how she reached this very moment in her life. The next chapter introduces Eli’s son Peter, and is told through his diary entries, as he deals with the human cost paid by the McCullough family to gain wealth and power.
From there, we meet the novel’s primary narrator: thirteen-year-old Eli McCullough, recounting his abduction by Comanches after his family is slaughtered in spring of 1849. As Eli’s story progresses, his abduction becomes more of an adoption, until his time with the Comanches comes to an end (no spoilers from me) – eventually returning to white society and becoming a Civil War veteran and a cattle baron.
Once all three characters are introduced, the chapters alternate in terms of perspective – and this is the structure assumed for much of the remainder of the novel, with the exception of one or two surprises. Any of the three intertwined storylines are strong enough be a lesser novel on their own, but the fact that there are three of them, woven together, with very precise decisions behind when perspective switches, is just one of the many factors that makes this a great novel.
It's not a short novel, yet its pull is relentless. It's a story of bloodlines and bloodletting, hard to read in spots; there's no sugar coating on the violence, and Meyer doesn't shy away from it. It quickly becomes obvious that Meyer spent considerable time and energy on his research, as well as on his rewrites. That said, I am also here to tell you that lazy book reviewers worldwide are going to do the easy thing, and compare this novel to the work of Cormac McCarthy. After all, The Son has horses, cowboys, violence, and a Texas setting; therefore a lot of reviewers are going to compare The Son to Blood Meridian and The Border Trilogy. This is not painting the full picture; though it's entirely true that if you like McCarthy's western novels, you're going to love this. For one thing, McCarthy has never done anything with a structure this ambitious, and secondly, Meyer is actually interested in, and can write, women.
The other work this will be compared to is Lonesome Dove – and again, any fans of that novel will be enthralled by this one, but The Son distinguishes itself sharply from the Larry McMurtry series. The genius of this novel is that it hits the sweet spot between those aforementioned two works – it’s eminently readable, yet it’s also literary, with none of the density or pretension that comes with some ‘literary’ novels. Very few novels succeed on both levels. And that’s a book’s primary job, isn’t it? To be an engaging story, above all.
The style is fantastic, the plotting, pacing and the structure is pretty much perfect, the characters are rich, distinct, and well defined – but again: most of all, it’s just a pleasure to read. You know you’re reading something special when you are considering calling in sick to stay home with your book (note to my bosses: I didn’t).
Meyer is walking in the footsteps of writers like Hemingway, Steinbeck, arguably integrating some sly tips of the hat to Twain in a section or two. I don’t think I’d be going too far out on a limb betting on it having a Pulitzer or a National Book Award nomination in its future – if not a win.
The Son deserves every American prize nomination that it’s eligible for, and also serves as a virtual announcement of what could be an incredible career – if Meyer’s second novel is this good, what’s in his future? It’s a novel we’re thoroughly proud to present as an Indigo Spotlight title.
***
For further reading, here are two earlier installments of the Indigo Blog discussing literary westerns: Top 5 Literary Westerns and Top 5 Literary Westerns (Part 2).