The Son

2013, Harper Collins Publishers, Read by Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, Clifton Collins Jr.

"By 1846 we had moved past the line of settlement, to my father’s headright on the Pedernales … Grass up to the chest, the soil deep and black in the bottoms, and even the steepest hillsides

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overrun with wildflowers. It was not the dry rocky place it is today. Wild Spanish cattle were easily acquired with a rope – within a year we had a hundred head. Hogs and mustang horses were also for the taking … the country was rich with life the way it is rotten with people today. The only problem was keeping your scalp attached.” (Ch 1)

The Son is an epic multi-generational saga of the McCullough family and a fabulous account of the settling of Texas over a period of roughly one hundred fifty years, beginning in 1849. MuCullough patriarch, Eli, the ruthless, driving force of the novel, opens the narrative. Kidnapped as a young teen, he spent several years as a member of the Comanche tribe, returning home later to join first the Texas Rangers and later the Confederate Army. Eli makes his fortune in cattle ranching and forges the way to the McCullough dynasty which will subsequently include enormous wealth from oil. A generation later, his son, Peter, will accept the burden for the cruelty with which his father mastered the land; and will pay for the sins the family accumulated along with its riches. Speaking to readers through diaries he wrote pre-WWI, Peter is the voice of human decency: he despises the racism he witnesses towards those of Mexican and Native American descent. Unlike his father in every imaginable way, Peter is as weak as Eli is ruthless. Finally, we hear from Peter’s granddaughter, Jeanne, who has much in common with Eli in terms of personal grit. Jeanne is made to feel out of place running an oil company as well as several other business interests in the Texas boys' club. Eighty-six years old at the point of her narration, she is enormously wealthy and powerful, and has achieved monumental success as an "oil woman" but the path was fraught with difficulty: deceit, arrogance, snobbery, cruelty.

Meyer’s tale swept me up immediately, and I remained fascinated with the characters and the Texas frontier throughout its substantial length. Lyrical, brutal, and raw, The Son is an American story for the ages. The narration of this audiobook by Patton, Mulgrew, Shepherd, and Collins is magnificent. Most highly recommended.

“It occurred to me, as I watched the oil flow down the hill, that soon there will be nothing left to subdue the pride of men. There is nothing we will not have mastered. Except, of course, ourselves.” (Ch 39)

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This was one of the most captivating historical sagas I have read. Through the sweeping history of Texas and the McCullough family the reader becomes engrossed in this often brutal but honest history of greed, progress, and the motto theme of the book – conquer or be conquered, and what this

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means across different times with changing issues.
But it is the voice of the narrators that makes this story soar – as the three different narrators each are not only a product of their times but are haunted by being who they want to be because of these times.
While I enjoyed all of the narrators – the most intriguing voice is Eli’s as Meyer’s has penned one of the most entrancing Indian captive storyline that will surely mark this book as a classic. I also enjoyed that that while each narrator tells their story in a linear manner, the narrators do alternate throughout the book so you see the past, present, and future and how each affects the actions of the narrators.
I recommend this book to readers of American history/culture and historical fiction.

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A multi-generational historical novel replete with land barons, oil tycoons, cowboys, bluecoats, Indian scalpings, shootouts, border raids… you name it. The author takes us on a romp through Texas history that should be everything you want in a novel, right?

Well…. No, not really. The jumps

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back in forth in time were clunky. OK to be brutally honest most of the narrative was. There was almost no differentiation between the voices of Eli, Peter and Jeannie. The book was so painstakingly researched the only thing missing from my 7th grade Texas history book was the battle of The Alamo. That’s my whole problem with the book in a nutshell. I’m from Texas. I grew up hearing these stories. I took a mandatory year of Texas history. The author didn’t present the information in a way that was more interesting or offered a different perspective. On the very first page I said “Oh, it’s Charles Goodnight. About time someone wrote a book about him. Wait. Someone did. Larry McMurtry.”

That being said, Meyer gets major points for portraying Jeannie McCullough’s difficulty trying to break through the glass ceiling in the oil business. The best parts of the book in my opinion. I was surprised they were written by a man. I have met very few men who understand the conflict and guilt women experience trying to have it all, how they are always “bossy” but never “the boss”.

I’m sure someone new to the Border War or the history of the Comanches will find this book excellent.

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This is a bit of an odd book, unless you like books told by multiple narrators each of whom is in a different time. My biggest complaint is that it is predictable that the family will end tragically, and of course you know they amass huge fortunes in whatever industry is driving Texas growth that

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decade... land cows or oil. The characters are interesting but lack gravitas in most cases. Eli the abducted progenitor gives up life suddenly with his Comanche kidnappers, but I wasn't sure this was a realistic decision for a 18 YO... For some reason all the Indians speak perfect english and say things like "How does that make you feel?" while still torturing captives. In the end of course the families sins against Native Americans and Mexicans come back to haunt them... Save $20 and read "Empire of the Summer Moon" and "lone Star" by Fehrenback In the case of Texas Truth is stranger ( and better written) than fiction

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I enjoy multi-generational sagas - and this one, with its laser focus on native Americans, Mexicans, and women, is one of the best ever.

It's the McCullough family in three eras: Eli, who is taken hostage by Comanches as a young child when his family is murdered; Peter, who joins in a massacre of

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Mexican ranch neighbors for reasons that are stunningly revealed almost at the novel's end; and J.A., the woman who was brought up to be a cattle and oil baron by her background but not in her gender.

Each McCullough burns and gets burned in horrific ways. The most vivid passages are Eli's time with the Comanches, Peter's longing for a daughter of the Garcias whom he and his kin drove off their land, and J.A.'s business acumen and dissatisfaction with her entire life and the family's accumulated wealth.

My interest and pleasure was sustained over the course of more than a year on my Kindle. That's rare.

For me, the novel stands on the shoulders of its McMurtry - Edna Ferber predecessors and makes it into my Texas top three, with Lonesome Dove and Giant.

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An extraordinary epic. Brilliantly crafted with alternating voices and visions of a multigenerational family coming to terms with its destiny. If possible, I'd recommend reading Empire of the Summer Moon by S.C. Gwynne prior to The Son for a perfect introduction to and history of Comancheria.

This epic novel spans several generations of a Texas family. As the story opens, 100 year old Eli McCullough is telling the story of his life to a reporter. In 1836, he was the first male child born in the newly established Republic of Texas. He is 13 years old when a band of Comanche storm his

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family's homestead and kidnap Eli and his brother.

Eli is brave and clever, and quickly adapts to the Comanche life, and earns acceptance into the tribe. But a few years later, when disease begins killing off the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, he must carve a place for himself in a world he doesn't fully belong to. Love, honor, and even children are sacrificed in the name of ambition as the family becomes one of the wealthiest in Texas.

The story of the family is told in turns by Eli, Eli's son Peter, who has to bear the emotional cost of his father's drive for power, and Jeannie, Eli's great granddaughter, who had to fight hard to succeed in the oil business, at a time when business of any kind was considered a "man's world".

Eventually, the McCoulloughs must face the consequences of their choices, starting with those that Eli made which affect the generations to come.

There is a lot of violence in this novel, quite detailed at times, (especially the things done to the whites by the Comanche), but it doesn't feel gratuitous, it's a reflection of how brutal things were in that time and place. While Eli's chapters of the story deal with Indians vs. whites, Peter's story deals with the racism of the whites against the Hispanics, which led a lot of senseless violent acts committed against the people of Spanish descent.

This is a long novel, 572 pages, but the story never feels slowed down or lagging. At first, I wasn't sure I was going to like it, mainly because of the violence, but as I got further into the story, I really appreciated how well written the characters were, and the plots twists all throughout the story really drew me in. The author has a real gift for giving a good feel for the times and places without going into overly long descriptions of scenery, which I liked because every word in the book really stuck to the heart of the story. It's not as easy feat to pull off a story that spans so much time, from 1836 to 2012, but Philipp Meyer has accomplished it with this novel.

I received a free advance readers copy of this book from TheReadingRoom.com. It will be released to the public May 28, 2013.

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I had loved Meyer's American Rust when I read it during a holiday in Pennsylvania a couple of years back; a trip to Texas last week seemed like a good excuse to read his follow-up, which showed every sign of being a culmination of his many talents. The Son is a sprawling, multigenerational family

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tale, not a million miles away from the kind of AGA-saga that people like Joanna Trollope have been writing for years, though because the author is male and American the book – which in alternating chapters follows the members of three different generations from the 1830s to the present day – has been lauded as some kind of revolution in narrative structure.

The earliest storyline, which is by far the most compelling (there's problem one), consists of a first-person account by the family patriarch, who was abducted by Comanches and brought up first as a slave and eventually as an accepted member of the tribe. Here Meyer is in fine deadpan Western mode, channelling Faulkner and – especially – inviting risky comparisons with Cormac McCarthy, in relation to whom Meyer occasionally seems almost to be a pasticheur:

By sundown the walls of the canyon looked to be on fire and the clouds coming off the prairie were glowing like smoke in the light, as if this place were His forge and the Creator himself were still fashioning the earth.

Meyer's prose style is not as distinctive as McCarthy's, and he doesn't have quite the same bleakness of vision (Meyer reacts to man's violence with weariness and sympathy, while McCarthy reacts with pure horror), but he does have a stronger sense of plot and incident. Following Eli McCullough's early life as a Comanche captive is totally compelling from a purely narrative point of view, the inside portrayal of Comanche life is impressively convincing, and interleaving the stories of Eli's descendants makes it very clear how this violence was handed down to future generations.

There is a practical point being made here, which appealed to me: it's not anything high-flown about the metaphysics of conflict and death, but rather about the sober realities of how the American West was built on constant cycles of killing – whether of animals, Native Americans, Mexicans or neighbours – and how these cycles do not just replay endlessly in place but are also even exported (notice how later generations of McCulloughs, heavily involved in the oil industry, discuss creating further opportunities in Iran and Iraq).

On the ranch they had found points from both the Clovis and the Folsom, and while Jesus was walking to Calvary the Mogollon people were bashing each other with stone axes. When the Spanish came there were the Suma, Jumano, Manso, La Junta, Concho and Chisos and Toboso, Ocana and Cacaxtle, the Coahuiltecans, Comecrudos…but whether they had wiped out the Mogollons or were descended from them, no one knew. They were all wiped out by the Apaches. Who were in turn wiped out, in Texas anyway, by the Comanches. Who were finally wiped out by the Americans.

The book's title, then, doesn't refer to any son in particular. Rather, it brings to mind Biblical warnings about where the sins of the father will be visited: that sense of retribution, unfairness, and cyclical violence is what the novel is finally about. The cycles have not stopped and they show every sign of continuing to play out until we're all long gone.

The question is, do you need six hundred pages to illustrate that point? I felt that you didn't, and the book overstayed its welcome slightly for me; from around the halfway mark, I was silently urging, yes, yes, we get it and battling a growing sense that the more modern strands of narrative were underdeveloped and contributing little – they wouldn't stand on their own two feet and only worked as adjuncts to the richer story of the 1860s.

This practical problem, I suspect, is what motivated the novel's structure. Nevertheless, there are passages in here, of Comanche raids and southwestern hoodoos, that I wouldn't have missed for anything; and as a man-hands-on-misery-to-man family drama, it's full of gruff charm, emotional resonance, and pointed reflections on what lies behind the making of America.

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You just can't beat a sprawling multi-generational saga, and The Son is the best one I've read in a good long time. Author Philipp Meyer takes the McCullough family from the Comanche raids of the mid-1800s all the way through to the oil boom of the twentieth century. Once the last page is turned,

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the reader is left with the fascinating history of Texas, and the three indelible characters Meyer has created.

This story is told, in alternating chapters, from the points of view of patriarch Eli McCullough who, as a thirteen-year-old boy, was captured by the Comanches and raised as one of them; Peter, Eli's son, who comes close to eviscerating the empire his father created; and Jeanne, Eli's great-granddaughter, who presides over an inheritance that's changed from ranching to millions of dollars in the oil and gas industry.

This book is brutal, it's honest, and it doesn't flinch once. It's also one of the best Indian captive stories I've ever read. Meyer's eye for historical detail and vernacular speech is amazing, and although the book is long, it is never ever boring. In the beginning chapters, Eli's story almost completely overshadows those of the other two characters, but it doesn't take long for Peter and Jeanne to steal their share of the spotlight away from "the Colonel" (as Eli is known in later life). Each one speaks in his or her own distinctive voice, and the further along McCullough Road you travel, the more you want to know about each one.

As I've already said, this book is brutal, and it's honest. Meyer describes terrifying Comanche raids and the massacre of a Mexican family. If you don't like scenes of graphic (not gratuitous) violence, this may not be the book for you. If you don't like racial slurs being used, you're not going to like Eli very much. He is a man of his time, and he speaks as men did then. Meyer could not write about life on the frontier and avoid either the violence or the language and have his story remain true.

Normally when I read a book, I like to care about at least one of the characters. I didn't find many to like in The Son, but that didn't matter. I was completely swept away by the author's powerful narrative, and by book's end I was shaken and almost felt as though I'd lived through some of those chapters myself. There's no other way to say it: Philipp Meyer is one hell of a storyteller, and I'll be keeping watch for his next book.

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Loved this novel about generations of a Texas family starting with old Eli McCullough born in 1836 and captured by the Comanches when a young boy. Peter, his son, is also a product of the frontier but with very different values than his father. Eli's story is told in alternating chapters with

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entries from Peter's diary and the story of Peter's granddaughter, Jeanne born in 1926. Jeanne's life began when Texas was still part of the "Old West." But her life takes her into today's world of oil production.

Without the family tree at the first of the book, I would have had some difficulty figuring out who was who, but after I got to know these characters they became so alive with faults, foibles, motives, ethics, loves, and the invisible but strong ties that bind families. Peter is so different from Eli. To Eli, the end always justifies the means; to Peter, life is just the opposite. Jeanne is definitely her great-grandfather's daughter as she learns to hold her own as a woman in the world of Texas oil.

These three provide the backbone of the book which is then encompasses Indians, Texas Rangers, Mexicans, corrupt politicians, and a host of other memorable characters. This is a story of family love and hate and of the effects of greed and wealth on a family. It is a portrait of a violent, prejudiced, yet colorful history of Texas.

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This excellent book starts in 1836 in Texas when the west was the new frontier. It covers the stories of Eli McCulloughs, his son Peter and his great grandaughter Jeanne in alternating chapters.It is the struggle of the blood, sweat and tears (and there was plenty of all 3) that went into settling

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the state of Texas. The hostility between the Commanche and the Whites, the injustices done to the Mexicans and the development of the oil industry are all key factors in this story. Be warned it is a little brutal in places but don't let that stop you from picking up this l book. It will be one of my favourites this year.

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This ambitious historical novel relates the history of Texas from 1836 through the present day. The story is told through three narrators whose lives span five generations of the fictional McCullough family, beginning with the birth of Eli in March 1836 on the same day Texas won independence from

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Mexico.

At age 13, Eli was kidnapped by the Comanches, who murdered his mother and sister. He adapts to life with the Comanches, even becoming the chief’s adopted son. But after the tribe is devastated by smallpox, Eli returns to the white world and becomes a Texas Ranger, whose principal occupation was fighting and killing Indians.

Eli represents a “type” of Texan male that may be characterized as undereducated, yet omnicompetent. When the Civil War comes, he becomes a brevet colonel and leads a group of rangers who call themselves RMNs (Rich Men’s N_____'s) in a contemptuous reference to the ideals of Southern chivalry. After the war, he becomes a very successful rancher, and later an oil tycoon. Although generally amoral, Eli maintains a code of loyalty to his close associates, whether they be Comanche tribesmen or fellow rangers, asserting:

"You could butcher and pillage but as long as you did it for people you loved, it never mattered."

The other two narrators are Eli's son Peter, and Jeannie, Eli's great granddaughter. Peter may be the only character in the book with a true conscience. However, he does not have Eli’s power or force of personality. The target of violence for this generation changes from Indians to Hispanics. Peter greatly regrets (but does nothing to prevent) the killing of all but one of a Spanish neighbor family, after which his family takes over their land. Even his regret, though, earns him the disrespect of the rest of his family.

By the time Peter’s granddaughter, Jeannie, is born, the McColloughs have become very wealthy ranchers with huge land holdings. In time Jeannie marries a competent oil engineer, and learns the oil business from him. After his untimely death, she becomes fabulously wealthy through the family’s oil holdings, although she prefers being a rancher. As Jeannie’s life comes to an end, she reflects back on the overarching importance of land to the McCulloughs, and the “butchery” required to make that land their own. It may not be "just Chinatown," but it's "just Texas" instead.

Discussion: Although each individual narrator’s tale is told chronologically, the book’s chapters jump from one narrator to another in no particular order. The effect is somewhat like an old movie serial in which a character is left in a perilous situation, the resolution of which is postponed until after we see what different (or, occasionally the same) characters were doing a generation (or three) earlier or later.

There is a lot of violence in this novel, quite detailed at times. Moreover, while the story of the setting is so central, Meyer’s characters are more fully and realistically developed than those in other books that describe a place by way of a family saga, such as the books of James Michener. Meyer reprises several themes developed in Larry McMurtry’s Lonesome Dove: e.g., the Comanches were VERY tough Indians and not all horses are equal. The locale and “atmosphere” of the book are also reminiscent of Cormac McCarthy’s All the Pretty Horses, although Meyer’s writing is more direct and less stylistic than McCarthy’s.

If there is a lesson to be inferred from the book, it is that Texas (and by implication, American) history is a series of bloody conquests in which ruthless, well-armed men prevail over less well-armed adversaries. It is a story well-told and entertaining, but a bit discouraging. Nonetheless, Meyer can’t help admiring courage, particularly among the less well-armed. For example, the Comanches are portrayed as rather noble if very cruel. In the final chapter, Eli leads his rangers against a band of Lipan Apaches (a small western tribe) and kills all of them but a nine year old boy whom they leave “as a witness.” The boy, armed only with a bow and arrows, then pursues the mounted rangers on foot for twenty miles. Eli observes, “A child like that would be worth a thousand men today. We left him standing on the riverbank. As far as I know he is looking for me yet.”

Evaluation: I enjoyed this book, but I am able to keep savagery and abuse walled off in their fictional realms, and am not too affected by them. If you like Cormac McCarthy or if you were a fan of Lonesome Dove, I think you will find this book as riveting as I did.

(JAB)

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I picked up this book because of our wonderful trip to the Texas Hill country and this is the location for part of the book. Interesting story, with three stories going on at once. One that takes place in the mid-1800's, another in 1915 and an elderly lady who looks back at her life in the present

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century. Gruesome at times with Indian Wars, but an interesting look at life in a Comanche village. Well-written by an author who has done his research before writing the book.

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I found this novel, which focuses on five generations of a south Texas family to be immensely entertaining, captivating and educational. I would put it alongside Lonesome Dove with regard to both subject matter and quality. Our family owns a ranch near Cotulla, Texas, immediately adjacent to the

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fictional McCollough Springs, so much of the geography, history and landscape are familiar.

From the family patriarch, Eli McCollough, down to the octogenarian present day family business manager, Jeannie, the five generations are examined through a series of chapters that bounce back and forth through the years. Eli, was born in the early/mid 1800s, as Texas was settled, and was an Indian captive after his family was burned out and largely massacred. He served as a Texas Ranger and a brevet colonel in the Civil War before settling down to amass a roughly 250,000 spread in Dimmit County Texas, very near Mexico, through both hard work and unscrupulous means. His immediate descendants were not up to the job of maintaining the family empire, but luckily, Jeannie’s arrival, overlapping the life of the 100 year old Eli, serves to solidify and expand the family’s influence.

At the heart of the novel is the relationship and juxtaposition between Eli and his sole surviving son, Peter. Where Eli is a cold blooded pragmatist, who doesn’t let a little murder stand in the way of his empire building, Peter is a kinder soul, with a standard of ethics that are ill suited for his life with the Colonel.

In addition to the numerous personal tales contained therein, the novel is an outstanding history lesson on the founding and settling of Texas, the Civil War in that state, Native American culture, the numerous border incursions throughout the 19th and early 20th century and racial and ethnic prejudices in the region over the years.

All in all, a first class piece of work. Among the best I’ve had the pleasure to read.

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The Son by Philipp Meyer tells the epic story of the McCullough family and in doing so also tells the story of the settling and growth of Texas. The scope is huge, as this tale of a cattle and oil dynasty unfolds over the course of 150 years of history. The story is revealed through the voices of

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three members of the McCullough family: First and foremost is Eli McCullough , Indian captive, Texas Ranger, rancher and oil man, a strong, powerful and complex character . Secondly, his son Peter , a more introspective and gentle man who is often in conflict with his harsh father but who is definitely the moral compass of the story. Lastly, Jeanne, great-granddaughter of Eli, a strong willed business orientated woman who struggles to find her place in both the male dominated family she grows up in and the oil industry that is top heavy with masculine oil barons.

Of the three stories I was most taken with Eli’s dealing as it did with the early days, his being taken captive by the Comanche, his difficulties when returned to the white world, his years as a Texas Ranger, and his days of cattle ranching. Peter’s tale is a difficult one exposing the racism that existed in the early 1900’s between the Texans and the Mexicans as the U.S. and Mexico were on the brink of open warfare. Peter walks a taunt line with his father on one side and his own inner feeling of compassion and decency toward those of Mexican descent on the other. Unfortunately, I found the author showed a weakness in depicting realistic women characters and that weakness extended to the female voice of Jeanne McCullough. I never felt invested or even particularly interested in Jeanne which was too bad as her story covered an interesting time period and should have been a more exciting read.

Ultimately, I did enjoy The Son, I was both entertained and educated, but I wish I could say that this story totally swept me away and that I “felt” more. After a truly epic opening, I found myself distanced from the characters and the plot and I wish the author had offset the violence and coldness of his story with some humor and fleshed out his characters a little more to produce a more approachable and human story.

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The Son intertwines the story of three generations of the McCullough family, living in Texas. Born before the Civil War, Eli McCullough is the long lived family patriarch. Eli was born when so much of Texas was uninhabited and Indian attacks a constant source of danger. His son Peter is the

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solitary rancher, out of step with his family and neighbors, secretly pining for the one woman he should never have. Great-granddaughter Jeannie McCullough launches the family from the ranks of the wealthy, to the super wealthy as she transitions the family holdings from ranching to oil. The single minded pursuit of wealth leads to great personal cost and a reckoning with the tragic misdeeds of her families past.

A central theme of the book is how the strong conquer the weak. Indian tribes slaughtered other tribes. Only to be slaughtered by Mexicans who were both in turn slaughtered by the white Anglos. There are no hero’s and oddly enough, no real villains. Every group is able to justify the outrages they commit, while ignoring their own bloody histories. The McCullough family offers a microcosm of Texan history and in the end the family is not able to outpace its own violent past.

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This novel embraces a huge family saga outlining their experiences from the early nineteenth century when they were beset by raids from neighboruing Mexican rustlers and Native American insurrection, carried through into the twentieth and twenty-first centuries.

Despite the rave reviews I found it

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rather a struggle with altogether too much detail on the squalor, violence, rage and overriding despair. No doubt all very true to life as a representation of the pioneers' experience, but I get more than enough of all that at work.

I found myself wondering where all the beautiful writing so heavily eulogise in the reviews had gone - it all struck me as rather journeyman-like.

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Philipp Meyer’s The Son is one of those books that instantly clicked with me. It happens sometimes that the perfect-for-you book comes along at just the right moment, a book that intrigues you from the first page right on through the last one (and there are 561 pages in The Son, so that is really

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saying something). I am not naïve enough to believe that everyone will have the same reaction to The Son that I had, but at this point it is my favorite novel of the first half of 2013.

This is the story of seven generations of the McCulloughs, a Texas family whose third generation was sired by Eli McCullough who claims to have been the first Anglo male child born in the Republic of Texas (March 1836). But, unlike so many family sagas, this one is not told in a linear, let’s follow the family tree right down the line, kind of way. Rather, Meyer lets three generations of the McCullough family carry the brunt of the action: Eli (second generation), Peter (third generation), and Jeanne Anne (fifth generation). By alternating narrative chapters from his three main narrators, and having each of them fill in the backstories of other family members, Meyer makes it easy for the reader to follow this remarkable family’s entire 200-year saga.

Living in Texas during Eli’s generation was not for sissies, something Eli and the rest of his immediate family learn the hard way when a Comanche raiding party targets the McCullough family farm. For Eli, however, the raid will turn out to be one of those cases of “what doesn’t kill you makes you stronger.” The years he spends with the tribe, his new family, prepare him for anything that Texas will be able to throw at him for the rest of his life.

But Peter McCullough, born in 1870, is not the typical Texan of his day, especially for a man fathered by Eli McCullough. Peter is the “sensitive” type, a man whom his father and two younger brothers see as strangely unwilling to defend the family interest in the long running border war between American and Mexican ranchers. His empathy for his Mexican counterparts is considered a weakness by even, if not especially by, those closest to him.

The formidable Jeanne Anne (Peter’s granddaughter), already an old woman by the end of the twentieth century, brings the family into the modern era. Partly because she is somewhat of a feminist, but largely because there is no one else of her generation to do it, Jeanne Anne personally oversees the family’s enormous oil fortune at a time when women do not even think of attempting such a thing.

The Son has become a personal favorite of mine, a novel I am likely to read several times over the years. I cannot guarantee that it will work as well for you, of course, but this Philipp Meyer novel is certainly worth a look.

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I enjoyed this story of the McCullough family. The book told some of the history of Texas and followed the family from 1832 to 2011. It was told by members of the family. The only thing that bothered me is that using that many voices and jumping back and forth in time as much as the author did, I

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really had to keep track of the time period and I sometimes got confused about which father belonged to which generation. The ending nicely tied it all together and saved the book in my eyes. A long, but great read.

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The story of six generations of the McCullough family taming Texas and building their fortune. The Sun follows three members of the family each with a different flaw. While I enjoyed the book I would have preferred if Meyer told each story in more detail. Every time I got invested, he changed

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stories.

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One of the better books I have read this year, A epic American story, brutal at times, but so very interesting.

I read Meyer's first book "American Rust" and based on the glowing reviews I decided to read this. I had read Texas by Michener and Lonesome Dove and Comanche Moon by Larry McMurtry so I was familiar with the subject manner. I thought the author did a great job in weaving together the 3 stories

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covering a 150 year time frame. I thought there could have been less about Eli's time with the Comanches and more about his dealings between 1880 and 1915 but by the end of the book I understood why he set up the way he did. The book is accurate in its' portrayal of the treatment of the Mexicans and the Indians by the Texans. In our present day debate over immigration, let's not forget that we essentially stole Mexico and of course basically stole this country from the Indians. A good historical novel told in an entertaining way. I strongly recommend this as well as the first book by Meyer. An excellent author..

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Terrible to go against popular opinion but did not love this book. Wanted to finish it and find out how it ended. Funny how writers forget it is all about the characters.

Read from January 21 to February 03, 2014

A sweeping historical fiction about a Texas family full of an ugly past. This book had many things I love: family secrets, alternating POVs, and history. As the McCullough family story was laid before me, I was reminded of how harsh and absolutely brutal

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history is and it doesn't seem to ever stop repeating itself.

The second half of the book seemed to slow down the pace -- Eli's younger years moved much more quickly than his later years, but still a book that will stick with you.

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