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Inland
In the lawless, drought-ridden lands of the Arizona Territory in 1893, two extraordinary lives unfold. Nora is an unflinching frontierswoman awaiting the return of the men in her life--her husband, who has gone in search of water for the parched household, and her elder sons, who have vanished after an explosive argument. Nora is biding her time with her youngest son, who is convinced that a mysterious beast is stalking the land around their home.
Meanwhile, Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Lurie's death-defying trek at last intersects with Nora's plight is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.
Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht's talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely--and unforgettably--her own.
Meanwhile, Lurie is a former outlaw and a man haunted by ghosts. He sees lost souls who want something from him, and he finds reprieve from their longing in an unexpected relationship that inspires a momentous expedition across the West. The way in which Lurie's death-defying trek at last intersects with Nora's plight is the surprise and suspense of this brilliant novel.
Mythical, lyrical, and sweeping in scope, Inland is grounded in true but little-known history. It showcases all of Téa Obreht's talents as a writer, as she subverts and reimagines the myths of the American West, making them entirely--and unforgettably--her own.
384 pages, Paperback
First published August 13, 2019
About the author
Téa Obreht
13 books1,604 followersTéa Obreht was born in 1985 in the former Yugoslavia, and spent her childhood in Cyprus and Egypt before eventually immigrating to the United States in 1997. Her writing has been published in The New Yorker, The Atlantic, Harper’s, Zoetrope: All-Story, The New York Times, and The Guardian, and has been anthologized in The Best American Short Stories and The Best American Non-Required Reading. Her first novel,
The Tiger’s Wife,
was published by Random House in March 2011. She has been named by The New Yorker as one of the twenty best American fiction writers under forty and included in the National Book Foundation’s list of 5 Under 35. Téa Obreht lives in Ithaca, New York.
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Displaying 1 - 30 of 2,419 reviews
August 25, 2019
I wasn’t captivated by The Tiger's Wife so I almost wasn’t going to read this. But I kept reading so much about it that my interest was piqued, and I have to say that I was very captivated by this western story. There are two narratives which for most of the novel felt very disconnected, but when they did, it was an amazing thing. Lurie, a Middle Eastern immigrant is brought to Missouri by his father in 1856. When his father dies, Lurie is sold to the Coachman who picks up the dead and robs graves. He finds “brothers” in Donovan and Hobb Mattie and soon becomes an outlaw. Nora’s is the second narrative and it’s 1893 in Amargo, Arizona Territory, where homesteading is tough and living on this parched land during a drought can be brutal. It’s particularly hard for Nora, whose husband is missing and then her two sons, as she tries to keep her home, while caring for her young son Toby, who sees a beast and her husband’s niece who holds seances. Nora is so thirsty and the writing is so spectacular- so was I because I felt as if I was there .
There is death here and whether or not there are ghosts here is a question that the reader will have to reconcile for themselves. Is his lost “brother” Hobb a ghost or does Lurie just imagine Hobb’s “want” that makes him steal? Is Evelyn, Nora’s daughter who died as a baby and has grown beside Nora through the years, an apparition or is Nora’s imagining her as a way of dealing with her grief and the secret she holds? I know this might sound eerie, but for me it wasn’t. I can’t forget to mention, Lurie’s camel, Burke who is his best friend and confidante. Camels in the west? So of course, this had me searching to find out if this was true and it was. There was a United States Camel Corp, an army experiment to use camels as pack animals : https://armyhistory.org/the-u-s-armys...
It’s slow going at times and it took a while for the two narratives to connect, but it was worth the wait to get to that moment where a sip of water meant everything in this time of desolation and despair. Beautifully written and highly recommended. I won’t hesitate to read Tea Obreht’s next book.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley.
There is death here and whether or not there are ghosts here is a question that the reader will have to reconcile for themselves. Is his lost “brother” Hobb a ghost or does Lurie just imagine Hobb’s “want” that makes him steal? Is Evelyn, Nora’s daughter who died as a baby and has grown beside Nora through the years, an apparition or is Nora’s imagining her as a way of dealing with her grief and the secret she holds? I know this might sound eerie, but for me it wasn’t. I can’t forget to mention, Lurie’s camel, Burke who is his best friend and confidante. Camels in the west? So of course, this had me searching to find out if this was true and it was. There was a United States Camel Corp, an army experiment to use camels as pack animals : https://armyhistory.org/the-u-s-armys...
It’s slow going at times and it took a while for the two narratives to connect, but it was worth the wait to get to that moment where a sip of water meant everything in this time of desolation and despair. Beautifully written and highly recommended. I won’t hesitate to read Tea Obreht’s next book.
I received an advanced copy of this book from Random House through NetGalley.
July 19, 2019
2.5 stars, rounded down
I picked this purely because I thought it took place in Arizona and I’ve always wanted to read a historical novel from the Arizona Territory days. I have not read Obreht’s prior book.
This one just never grabbed me. Told from two POVs, Lurie, a wanted man from Missouri who becomes a cameleer, and Nora, a frontier woman awaiting the return of her husband and older sons, it was choppy and stilted. Both are haunted by ghosts. In Laurie’s case, they literally make demands of him. And his narrative is directed to the camel he leads across the west. Nora holds conversations with her dead daughter.
I debated just putting this one down numerous times. The pace of this book is as slow as a desert tortoise. The story also meanders across time and place. To be honest, I only kept reading because other reviews mentioned how great the ending was (and it was worth finishing for the ending). In a way, it reminded me of Lincoln in the Bardo, similar language and of course, the ghosts. If you like that book, you’ll probably like this one. I didn't care for either. I was an outlier on that book and will probably by on this one as well.
Also, I had to do some research, but it would appear that Nora’s homestead was actually in what is now New Mexico, up close to the Four Corners. While the author spends a lot of time writing about the homestead, she didn’t give me a real sense of place. Anyone who has spent time in NM and AZ knows how different the landscape can be and I resented having to research it to get a better feel. And despite them being down to their last cups of water, huge periods of time pass when it doesn’t factor into the story at all. And how can there be mud in a drought? Little things like that irritated me. I did enjoy the story about the camels and their trek. In fact, the relationship between Burke and Lurie was the one part of the story I did enjoy.
My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
I picked this purely because I thought it took place in Arizona and I’ve always wanted to read a historical novel from the Arizona Territory days. I have not read Obreht’s prior book.
This one just never grabbed me. Told from two POVs, Lurie, a wanted man from Missouri who becomes a cameleer, and Nora, a frontier woman awaiting the return of her husband and older sons, it was choppy and stilted. Both are haunted by ghosts. In Laurie’s case, they literally make demands of him. And his narrative is directed to the camel he leads across the west. Nora holds conversations with her dead daughter.
I debated just putting this one down numerous times. The pace of this book is as slow as a desert tortoise. The story also meanders across time and place. To be honest, I only kept reading because other reviews mentioned how great the ending was (and it was worth finishing for the ending). In a way, it reminded me of Lincoln in the Bardo, similar language and of course, the ghosts. If you like that book, you’ll probably like this one. I didn't care for either. I was an outlier on that book and will probably by on this one as well.
Also, I had to do some research, but it would appear that Nora’s homestead was actually in what is now New Mexico, up close to the Four Corners. While the author spends a lot of time writing about the homestead, she didn’t give me a real sense of place. Anyone who has spent time in NM and AZ knows how different the landscape can be and I resented having to research it to get a better feel. And despite them being down to their last cups of water, huge periods of time pass when it doesn’t factor into the story at all. And how can there be mud in a drought? Little things like that irritated me. I did enjoy the story about the camels and their trek. In fact, the relationship between Burke and Lurie was the one part of the story I did enjoy.
My thanks to netgalley and Random House for an advance copy of this book.
September 27, 2019
Ghost whispers and camel corps
I expected to like it more than I did, still an okay read. My favorite characters were a couple of camels.
I expected to like it more than I did, still an okay read. My favorite characters were a couple of camels.
March 27, 2024
4.5 Stars
It’s been around eight years since I read Téa Obreht’s debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, but the fact that I loved the beautiful writing and the story had been enough incentive for me to request this second novel, Inland. I’m so glad that I did.
This story has a duel narrative, which kept me on my toes, and wanders over time, over centuries, and around the world in one of the narratives. Over the course of a day in another narrative, traveling through time using memories revisited, times and places, loves and losses over a lifetime. Through all of this, Obreht weaves this story of the early days of the Arizona Territory, 1893, with an enchanting sprinkling of magical realism, as well as a spiritual connection – both of these two narrators have conversations with, and connections to the dead.
This isn’t a carefree, cheerful read, yet it doesn’t dwell in the harshness of these lives. There is much pondering and wonderment of their surroundings, as bleak as they are, and through these we learn their stories. Obreht manages to skillfully weave into this story the historical experimentation of the United States Camel Corps. using camels as pack animals in the Southwest during the mid-19th-century development of the country. The US Army eventually decided to abandon this project, despite the camels’ stamina. This added another layer to the story, but what I loved most about this was the vivid portrayal of the era, the landscape, and the memories of these two people, their stories, as well as their conversations with those who haunt their days and nights.
If there were brief moments while reading this where it felt as though I had wandered in the desert too long, the breathtaking ending is one that will remain etched in my mind.
Pub Date: 13 Aug 2019
Many thanks for the ARC provided by to Random House Publishing Group – Random House
May 23, 2019
Homeless and orphaned at age six, Lurie survived by working with "the Coachman" and sleeping in his stable. He helped collect "...lodgers who'd passed in their sleep, or had their throats cut by bunkmates." Grave robbing was included. Lurie developed a hunger. "A hunger that could not be satisfied...the want grew and grew." Apprehended by the law, he was sent away with other ruffians to the midwest. Securing a job at a mercantile and working with co-workers Donovan and Hobb Mattie, small robberies morphed into stagecoach robberies by the "Mattie Gang". Lurie was now a wanted man, on the run from Marshall John Berger.
Nora Lark felt "unbounded" by husband Emmett's move from town to town "to get away from all his mistakes and shortfalls." Nora was fiercely protective of their homestead in Amargo, Arizona territory. The year was 1893. Emmett, with sons Rob and Dolan, ran a small press, the Sentinel. Nora cared for youngest son Toby, blinded in one eye from a riding accident, wheelchair bound Gramma, and seventeen year old Josie, who communicated with the dead, a clairvoyant of sorts.
In order to create inner peace, both Lurie and Nora needed and found comfort in strange ways. Nora conversed with deceased daughter, Evelyn. This was comforting when Emmett journeyed to Cumberland for water. The family rain barrel was almost depleted. Rob and Dolan go to work at the print shop, or do they? Nora awaits the return of her husband and sons. Lurie's inner peace comes when working as a cameleer. He "talks" with Burke, his trusty camel, one of the pack animals for the U.S. cavalry.
"Inland" by Tea Obreht was filled with the struggles of frontier settlers living inland. The Camel Corps was instrumental in carrying salt, dry goods, even mail. Camels could bear heavier loads and in less time than horses. Author Obreht has taken two seemingly distinct storylines and masterfully connected them in a fascinating, poignant historical novel. Highly recommended.
Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Inland".
Nora Lark felt "unbounded" by husband Emmett's move from town to town "to get away from all his mistakes and shortfalls." Nora was fiercely protective of their homestead in Amargo, Arizona territory. The year was 1893. Emmett, with sons Rob and Dolan, ran a small press, the Sentinel. Nora cared for youngest son Toby, blinded in one eye from a riding accident, wheelchair bound Gramma, and seventeen year old Josie, who communicated with the dead, a clairvoyant of sorts.
In order to create inner peace, both Lurie and Nora needed and found comfort in strange ways. Nora conversed with deceased daughter, Evelyn. This was comforting when Emmett journeyed to Cumberland for water. The family rain barrel was almost depleted. Rob and Dolan go to work at the print shop, or do they? Nora awaits the return of her husband and sons. Lurie's inner peace comes when working as a cameleer. He "talks" with Burke, his trusty camel, one of the pack animals for the U.S. cavalry.
"Inland" by Tea Obreht was filled with the struggles of frontier settlers living inland. The Camel Corps was instrumental in carrying salt, dry goods, even mail. Camels could bear heavier loads and in less time than horses. Author Obreht has taken two seemingly distinct storylines and masterfully connected them in a fascinating, poignant historical novel. Highly recommended.
Thank you Random House Publishing Group-Random House and Net Galley for the opportunity to read and review "Inland".
February 24, 2020
I feel sorry for the next book I pick up. When I love a read as much as Inland, the subsequent story or two usually pales unfairly in the afterglow.
This is a work of historical fiction, a panoramic western in the great tradition of Cather, McCarthy and Portis, but author Téa Obreht is too skilled a writer to be confined by expectations and conventions of genre. She writes with such urgency and empathy, with wonder for her story and compassion for her characters, that this reader was simply swept away in the moment, carried on the current of a brilliant narrative through a parched land where drops of water are as precious as flakes of gold. I think of recent historical fiction by the outstanding William Kent Kruger and Mary Doria Russell, and those novels now seem plodding and clunky compared to the ethereal grace of Obrecht's Inland.
Two stories unfold, one expanding over four decades, the other in a span of hours, until they come together in the novel's final, gutting pages that left me sobbing the smallest hours of the morning. Lurie, an immigrant and wanted man, hustles west from an Eastern seaport where he landed from Bosnia as a boy. He attaches himself to bands of itinerants and outlaws, trying to outrun his own WANTED poster. He finds himself astride a camel, imported as pack animals by the Army which supposed the beasts well suited to the desert west of the Arizona Territory. His compatriots hail from Greece, Turkey, and the ancient cultures of the Levant, places we don't typically associate with the settlement of the American West. Lurie spins out his long tale to his beloved companion, the stalwart camel, Burke.
Her throat aching with thirst, Nora Lark homesteads with her husband, Emmett, and three sons in "a little mining district between Phoenix and Flagstaff." Emmett is three days late returning with their water supply and the morning after a heated argument with Nora, the two older Lark sons disappear in search of their father. Nora is left on the forlorn property with fragile seven-year-old Toby, stroke-addled Grandma, and her husband's scatterbrained young cousin, Josie, who claims to commune with the spirit world. Nora maintains a heartrending patter with her daughter, Evelyn, who died of heatstroke as an infant, but in conversation is a sophisticated and articulate foil to the cruel, unforgiving land that her family survives in. Nora carries a slow-burning torch for Sheriff Harlan Bell, with whom she has a shadowy unrequited love that is full of longing and empathy. Their few scenes together are full of aching desire, their loneliness epitomizing the beautiful, terrible landscape that shifts between silence and violence in a heartbeat.
Obreht creates a breathless tension as Lurie's and Nora's stories track toward collision. The desiccated land is haunted with ghosts, menaced by drought and starvation, riders appearing on the horizon are unknown as friend or foe until they reach shotgun distance. And yet the cast of characters retains an enchanting humanity with Nora, tough, broken, resolute and loving, the greatest among them.
It's been eight years since Téa Obreht's celebrated debut The Tiger's Wife, which I lauded for its beautiful prose, but lamented the lack of connection to character and the overwrought fabulism. Inland is the work of an author deeply in touch with her rich cast, allowing them agency in this exquisitely rendered story. I didn't expect to love Inland as much as I did, given the low rating here. I'm so very glad I ignored the naysayers to discover this unusual, luminous novel.
Also, I love camels.
This is a work of historical fiction, a panoramic western in the great tradition of Cather, McCarthy and Portis, but author Téa Obreht is too skilled a writer to be confined by expectations and conventions of genre. She writes with such urgency and empathy, with wonder for her story and compassion for her characters, that this reader was simply swept away in the moment, carried on the current of a brilliant narrative through a parched land where drops of water are as precious as flakes of gold. I think of recent historical fiction by the outstanding William Kent Kruger and Mary Doria Russell, and those novels now seem plodding and clunky compared to the ethereal grace of Obrecht's Inland.
Two stories unfold, one expanding over four decades, the other in a span of hours, until they come together in the novel's final, gutting pages that left me sobbing the smallest hours of the morning. Lurie, an immigrant and wanted man, hustles west from an Eastern seaport where he landed from Bosnia as a boy. He attaches himself to bands of itinerants and outlaws, trying to outrun his own WANTED poster. He finds himself astride a camel, imported as pack animals by the Army which supposed the beasts well suited to the desert west of the Arizona Territory. His compatriots hail from Greece, Turkey, and the ancient cultures of the Levant, places we don't typically associate with the settlement of the American West. Lurie spins out his long tale to his beloved companion, the stalwart camel, Burke.
Her throat aching with thirst, Nora Lark homesteads with her husband, Emmett, and three sons in "a little mining district between Phoenix and Flagstaff." Emmett is three days late returning with their water supply and the morning after a heated argument with Nora, the two older Lark sons disappear in search of their father. Nora is left on the forlorn property with fragile seven-year-old Toby, stroke-addled Grandma, and her husband's scatterbrained young cousin, Josie, who claims to commune with the spirit world. Nora maintains a heartrending patter with her daughter, Evelyn, who died of heatstroke as an infant, but in conversation is a sophisticated and articulate foil to the cruel, unforgiving land that her family survives in. Nora carries a slow-burning torch for Sheriff Harlan Bell, with whom she has a shadowy unrequited love that is full of longing and empathy. Their few scenes together are full of aching desire, their loneliness epitomizing the beautiful, terrible landscape that shifts between silence and violence in a heartbeat.
Obreht creates a breathless tension as Lurie's and Nora's stories track toward collision. The desiccated land is haunted with ghosts, menaced by drought and starvation, riders appearing on the horizon are unknown as friend or foe until they reach shotgun distance. And yet the cast of characters retains an enchanting humanity with Nora, tough, broken, resolute and loving, the greatest among them.
It's been eight years since Téa Obreht's celebrated debut The Tiger's Wife, which I lauded for its beautiful prose, but lamented the lack of connection to character and the overwrought fabulism. Inland is the work of an author deeply in touch with her rich cast, allowing them agency in this exquisitely rendered story. I didn't expect to love Inland as much as I did, given the low rating here. I'm so very glad I ignored the naysayers to discover this unusual, luminous novel.
Also, I love camels.
Read
August 12, 2019DNF at 30%. It may be my reading mood, but I've picked this up several times, and I am not connecting with the story nor the characters. The story was just striking me as disjointed.
August 5, 2019
“We were bound up, you and I…Though it break our hearts, we had as little choice then as we have now.”
This is one of those books that I’ve been dreading writing the review for because nothing I say can really convey what makes it so great. I like literary fiction, but it’s rare that I will pick up anything that’s straight up literature. This particular book interested me for two reasons: the historical, western context, and the promise of supernatural elements.
Inland doesn’t disappoint on either front. The story follows two main characters, Lurie of the Mattie gang, and Nora Lark of a small town called Amargo, in the Arizona territory. It isn’t until the very end that the reader comes to understand how and why these two stories are being told side by side. That’s all I’m saying about that because it’s just better that you know nothing going in.
This is a character driven story, with Nora’s part of it happening over (I think) the course of one day, from morning to night. She often reminisces on things that happened in the past, her relationship with her husband and people in the town, the birth and lives of her children, etc. These parts can be very slow, but they all contribute to painting the picture of Nora’s life and the people in it.
Life in Arizona isn’t easy and every day has been a struggle. There are a few supernatural elements to her story as well. Her niece-by-marriage, Josie, is a medium, conducting seances with the dead, and her son Toby has been seeing a strange beast roaming their land. Nora believes both things are just figments of wild imaginations.
“And what did you ever learn from me–save to keep to yourself, and look over your shoulder?”
In contrast to Nora, we have Lurie. He’s a Turkish immigrant that is orphaned as a child and eventually falls in with the Mattie gang. He gets on the wrong side of the law early in the book and we follow his story as he runs from Marshall Berger and from his past. Lurie also has a supernatural ability to see and speak to the dead. If they touch him, he feels their last wants, and they consume him as his own needs.
The contrast in their stories is brilliant.
Between the two of these characters, it’s easy to assume Lurie would be the least likable, and that the reader would come to care deeply for Nora, the struggling, “innocent”, ranch-wife. But Obreht brilliantly turns this assumption on it’s head by making Nora the more unlikeable of the two. She can sometimes be cruel to those around her, including her husband and children, but most of all her niece, and she holds some clear prejudices against the local native population. Meanwhile, Lurie proves himself to be a man capable of caring deeply for others, and a man, maybe, searching for redemption.
“The longer I live…the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions.”
Despite it’s slow pacing, the book is so hard to put down. Different little mysteries are introduced along the way, while other interesting little connections and reveals are being made (not between Nora and Lurie, but within the narrative of each of their separate lives). Different story elements and characters in the story return at the most unexpected times, keeping the reader surprised throughout. It’s a dramatic story that feels perfectly mundane, and I’m still in awe of it.
Lurie’s parts are written in second person, though I won’t tell you who he is addressing. The writing itself is gorgeous. It isn’t as impactful as say, The Mere Wife, but it’s emotional, and often left me feeling a little wistful. By the end of it, I was in tears.
This review has probably rambled on for far too long already, and I haven’t remotely done the book justice. Just know if any part of this story or review appeals to you at all, it’s well worth picking up and reading through to the end, where the reveals and realizations will surprise and haunt you for a long time to come. Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC for review.
This is one of those books that I’ve been dreading writing the review for because nothing I say can really convey what makes it so great. I like literary fiction, but it’s rare that I will pick up anything that’s straight up literature. This particular book interested me for two reasons: the historical, western context, and the promise of supernatural elements.
Inland doesn’t disappoint on either front. The story follows two main characters, Lurie of the Mattie gang, and Nora Lark of a small town called Amargo, in the Arizona territory. It isn’t until the very end that the reader comes to understand how and why these two stories are being told side by side. That’s all I’m saying about that because it’s just better that you know nothing going in.
This is a character driven story, with Nora’s part of it happening over (I think) the course of one day, from morning to night. She often reminisces on things that happened in the past, her relationship with her husband and people in the town, the birth and lives of her children, etc. These parts can be very slow, but they all contribute to painting the picture of Nora’s life and the people in it.
Life in Arizona isn’t easy and every day has been a struggle. There are a few supernatural elements to her story as well. Her niece-by-marriage, Josie, is a medium, conducting seances with the dead, and her son Toby has been seeing a strange beast roaming their land. Nora believes both things are just figments of wild imaginations.
“And what did you ever learn from me–save to keep to yourself, and look over your shoulder?”
In contrast to Nora, we have Lurie. He’s a Turkish immigrant that is orphaned as a child and eventually falls in with the Mattie gang. He gets on the wrong side of the law early in the book and we follow his story as he runs from Marshall Berger and from his past. Lurie also has a supernatural ability to see and speak to the dead. If they touch him, he feels their last wants, and they consume him as his own needs.
The contrast in their stories is brilliant.
Between the two of these characters, it’s easy to assume Lurie would be the least likable, and that the reader would come to care deeply for Nora, the struggling, “innocent”, ranch-wife. But Obreht brilliantly turns this assumption on it’s head by making Nora the more unlikeable of the two. She can sometimes be cruel to those around her, including her husband and children, but most of all her niece, and she holds some clear prejudices against the local native population. Meanwhile, Lurie proves himself to be a man capable of caring deeply for others, and a man, maybe, searching for redemption.
“The longer I live…the more I have come to understand that extraordinary people are eroded by their worries while the useless are carried ever forward by their delusions.”
Despite it’s slow pacing, the book is so hard to put down. Different little mysteries are introduced along the way, while other interesting little connections and reveals are being made (not between Nora and Lurie, but within the narrative of each of their separate lives). Different story elements and characters in the story return at the most unexpected times, keeping the reader surprised throughout. It’s a dramatic story that feels perfectly mundane, and I’m still in awe of it.
Lurie’s parts are written in second person, though I won’t tell you who he is addressing. The writing itself is gorgeous. It isn’t as impactful as say, The Mere Wife, but it’s emotional, and often left me feeling a little wistful. By the end of it, I was in tears.
This review has probably rambled on for far too long already, and I haven’t remotely done the book justice. Just know if any part of this story or review appeals to you at all, it’s well worth picking up and reading through to the end, where the reveals and realizations will surprise and haunt you for a long time to come. Thank you to the publisher for providing an ARC for review.
August 12, 2019
Totally Hip Video Book Review of “Inland”: https://www.washingtonpost.com/video/...
Shelved as 'dnf'
August 16, 2019Unfortunately, this is going in the DNF pile. I am just not connecting with this at all. There are parts of this that I just marvel at - it is written so beautifully. The rest I'm left scratching my head. I never read the author's heralded debut, but I was anxious to read this as the summary sounded different and interesting. Plus, THAT COVER!!
Sadly, I'm far enough in and I can tell it's not going to get any better (based on my personal preference). It's far too slow (nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea at the moment), and while beautifully written, I am very, very bored. I am reminded of Lincoln In The Bardo, (that was also a DNF for me as well) and that isn't a bad comparison, but that book also just wasn't for me. The reviews seem to be all over the map on this, so I suggest you try it for yourself as your opinion my vary wildly from mine.
Thank you to Netgalley, Random House and Tea Obreht for the opportunity to read this and provide an honest review.
Review Date: 8/15/19
Publication Date: 8/13/19
Sadly, I'm far enough in and I can tell it's not going to get any better (based on my personal preference). It's far too slow (nothing wrong with that, just not my cup of tea at the moment), and while beautifully written, I am very, very bored. I am reminded of Lincoln In The Bardo, (that was also a DNF for me as well) and that isn't a bad comparison, but that book also just wasn't for me. The reviews seem to be all over the map on this, so I suggest you try it for yourself as your opinion my vary wildly from mine.
Thank you to Netgalley, Random House and Tea Obreht for the opportunity to read this and provide an honest review.
Review Date: 8/15/19
Publication Date: 8/13/19
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August 14, 2019Highly recommended - full review here: https://openlettersreview.com/posts/i...
August 26, 2019
4.5 stars. And honestly only 4.5 stars because I would occasionally find myself wishing Lurie would hurry it up so I could get back to Nora and I would need to go back and read it again with a little less impatience to more accurately judge the Lurie sections.
There was not much of a reason for me to power through this book. I didn't read Obreht's previous novel. I do not have any particular affection for Westerns. I prefer faster reads with a quick pace on audio. It was, honestly, only because I saw that Anna Chlumsky was one of the readers and I have always liked her and I figured what the hell. (Chlumsky absolutely crushes it, btw.)
This is a book you have to stick with for a while. It has two disparate narrators, and while both are in the still-unsettled west, they don't even take place during the same time period, so there is nothing beyond a general setting to tie them together. Lurie is the kind of character we are used to in Westerns, a man without a home or a family, roving the territory, on the run from the law and his past. Then we meet Nora, she isn't an unfamiliar character, but she is usually in the background of these stories. The faithful wife and mother, out making a homestead, working to keep her house running, her land providing, and her family fed.
While Lurie's narrative meanders through time, Nora's is as focused and sharp as a knife. It is so masterfully done I would like to chart it out. Her story only lasts a day (maybe two?) but along with drawing us oh so slowly through the hours, Obreht also slowly imparts more context and history and information about what has gotten Nora to this particular day and why it is such an important one. To me, it was quite clear early on that something very bad was going to happen or maybe had already happened. I felt a sense of palpable dread in Nora's story, knowing something was wrong, but only having a few pieces of the puzzle. I swear it is as meticulously done as any mystery novel, one of the most impressively suspenseful books in recent memory. Of course, living out in a homestead in the Arizona territory in the late 1800's, there is always a fine line between stability and catastrophe, it takes so little to lose everything.
But even without all that, I enjoyed every second spent in Nora's company. I loved her steely outlook, her prickly manner. I felt deeply how much she had been changed by her life in the desert but how little room she had for resentment or anger because survival itself took so much work. Nora hides things from herself to get by, we follow her through the day as she goes through it. The previous night she argued with her sons, but we barely hear of it in the morning. She has too much to do, she knows no other way to get through a day than to move forward ignoring the pains of the past, that threaten to overwhelm her if she gives them room in her heart. The slow reveals of Nora's life are not just a narrative device, they're who she is as a character. Being so close to her inner thoughts means that we experience the way she does. When a calamity befalls her, when she is in physical pain, she insists on moving forward because she simply has no choice but to do so. It is a truly immersive experience into the difficult life of a woman in the West, giving you all the little details of a day along with the massive undertakings survival requires.
Eventually, Lurie and Nora's stories come together, though it is to Obreht's credit that even if you have a suspicion of how it's going to go, even if you feel certain these stories will connect, it is only at the actual moment they collide that any of it becomes at all clear. It all culminates in an amazing, sustained climax, that keeps its intensity for a truly astounding period of time, finally softening to an emotionally fulfilling ending that takes all the pieces and puts them together beautifully.
I'm bowled over by this book. The audio was fantastic, both narrators fully inhabited their characters. Chlumsky's gristly Nora spoke to my soul. I get what all the fuss over Obreht is about and I will definitely be reading The Tiger's Wife soon.
There was not much of a reason for me to power through this book. I didn't read Obreht's previous novel. I do not have any particular affection for Westerns. I prefer faster reads with a quick pace on audio. It was, honestly, only because I saw that Anna Chlumsky was one of the readers and I have always liked her and I figured what the hell. (Chlumsky absolutely crushes it, btw.)
This is a book you have to stick with for a while. It has two disparate narrators, and while both are in the still-unsettled west, they don't even take place during the same time period, so there is nothing beyond a general setting to tie them together. Lurie is the kind of character we are used to in Westerns, a man without a home or a family, roving the territory, on the run from the law and his past. Then we meet Nora, she isn't an unfamiliar character, but she is usually in the background of these stories. The faithful wife and mother, out making a homestead, working to keep her house running, her land providing, and her family fed.
While Lurie's narrative meanders through time, Nora's is as focused and sharp as a knife. It is so masterfully done I would like to chart it out. Her story only lasts a day (maybe two?) but along with drawing us oh so slowly through the hours, Obreht also slowly imparts more context and history and information about what has gotten Nora to this particular day and why it is such an important one. To me, it was quite clear early on that something very bad was going to happen or maybe had already happened. I felt a sense of palpable dread in Nora's story, knowing something was wrong, but only having a few pieces of the puzzle. I swear it is as meticulously done as any mystery novel, one of the most impressively suspenseful books in recent memory. Of course, living out in a homestead in the Arizona territory in the late 1800's, there is always a fine line between stability and catastrophe, it takes so little to lose everything.
But even without all that, I enjoyed every second spent in Nora's company. I loved her steely outlook, her prickly manner. I felt deeply how much she had been changed by her life in the desert but how little room she had for resentment or anger because survival itself took so much work. Nora hides things from herself to get by, we follow her through the day as she goes through it. The previous night she argued with her sons, but we barely hear of it in the morning. She has too much to do, she knows no other way to get through a day than to move forward ignoring the pains of the past, that threaten to overwhelm her if she gives them room in her heart. The slow reveals of Nora's life are not just a narrative device, they're who she is as a character. Being so close to her inner thoughts means that we experience the way she does. When a calamity befalls her, when she is in physical pain, she insists on moving forward because she simply has no choice but to do so. It is a truly immersive experience into the difficult life of a woman in the West, giving you all the little details of a day along with the massive undertakings survival requires.
Eventually, Lurie and Nora's stories come together, though it is to Obreht's credit that even if you have a suspicion of how it's going to go, even if you feel certain these stories will connect, it is only at the actual moment they collide that any of it becomes at all clear. It all culminates in an amazing, sustained climax, that keeps its intensity for a truly astounding period of time, finally softening to an emotionally fulfilling ending that takes all the pieces and puts them together beautifully.
I'm bowled over by this book. The audio was fantastic, both narrators fully inhabited their characters. Chlumsky's gristly Nora spoke to my soul. I get what all the fuss over Obreht is about and I will definitely be reading The Tiger's Wife soon.
September 10, 2019
This memorable novel is my introduction to Tea Obreht, and I read it free and early, thanks to Net Galley and Random House. The combination of word smithery and whimsy creates the purest literary magic, and I recommend it to anyone that has a high vocabulary level and stamina. It is for sale now.
The tale takes place just after the American Civil War, and the narrative is divided between two characters, Lurie and Nora. Lurie begins his life in Arkansas; he is orphaned early and the man that takes him in is a grave robber that uses Lurie and other boys to assist him in his nightly plundering. Lurie grows up hard, fast, and mean; he wishes that he did not see and feel the dead, but he does, and most of all he senses their cravings. I am immediately drawn by his second person narrative as he relates his memories to someone named Burke. You don’t see many writers use the second person, and I am curious as to who Burke is. When I find out, I am even more fascinated.
Nora is one of the early (Caucasian) Western settlers, and here Obreht uses the third person omniscient. Nora is unlike any Western protagonist I have ever read, and it is delightful to see the way this author turns stereotypes and caricatures squarely upside down. Nora has her hands full, trying to care for the aged, wheelchair bound Gramma; fighting a political battle in the press that is run by her husband and sons, none of whom she has seen lately; and carrying on a running dialogue with the ghost of her daughter Evelyn, who died in infancy. To add insult to injury she is saddled with Josie, a relative Emmett insisted they must take in. Nora is carrying a heavy emotional load, but the slow revelation of the secrets that weigh her down and the way that these impact the decisions she makes and the way she solves problems is completely convincing. Whereas Lurie’s narrative is mostly about setting, Nora’s is about character. Both are rendered brilliantly.
I initially rated this novel 4.5 stars because of a few small areas where historical revisionism has crept in, but ultimately it is too fine a work to deny all five stars. I am reluctant to say more because the surprises start early, so to relate details that occur even twenty percent of the way in feels like a disservice both to the reader and the writer.
One feature that is present throughout both of the narratives is thirst, and it’s related so well that I found myself downing extra water in sympathy and thanking my lucky stars that I live in Seattle rather than somewhere dusty and drought-stricken. In fact, there are places in Nora’s narrative where she is busy with other tasks or discussions of an urgent nature and I find myself telling Nora to just go ahead and ask the person she’s talking to for a sip of water. Nora won’t do it because she is proud and self-reliant, and the fact that I am already talking to the character instead of the author tells you how convincing the story is.
The reader is also advised that it’s a violent, gritty tale, particularly in the beginning but in other places also, and it’s loaded with triggers. To tell it otherwise would be to deny history, but if you are a mealtime reader or avoiding harsh prose for other reasons, it’s worth knowing. But I also think that the whimsy is all the sweeter for it.
Perhaps one of every ten novels I read becomes that book, the one that I can’t stop talking about. My spouse understands that to pass through a room when I am reading it is to guarantee he will be hijacked, at least momentarily, because I am either going to paraphrase an interesting tidbit or read a particularly arresting passage out loud. This works well for me, though, because I find myself with more uninterrupted reading time. Inland is that sort of book. Highly recommended.
The tale takes place just after the American Civil War, and the narrative is divided between two characters, Lurie and Nora. Lurie begins his life in Arkansas; he is orphaned early and the man that takes him in is a grave robber that uses Lurie and other boys to assist him in his nightly plundering. Lurie grows up hard, fast, and mean; he wishes that he did not see and feel the dead, but he does, and most of all he senses their cravings. I am immediately drawn by his second person narrative as he relates his memories to someone named Burke. You don’t see many writers use the second person, and I am curious as to who Burke is. When I find out, I am even more fascinated.
Nora is one of the early (Caucasian) Western settlers, and here Obreht uses the third person omniscient. Nora is unlike any Western protagonist I have ever read, and it is delightful to see the way this author turns stereotypes and caricatures squarely upside down. Nora has her hands full, trying to care for the aged, wheelchair bound Gramma; fighting a political battle in the press that is run by her husband and sons, none of whom she has seen lately; and carrying on a running dialogue with the ghost of her daughter Evelyn, who died in infancy. To add insult to injury she is saddled with Josie, a relative Emmett insisted they must take in. Nora is carrying a heavy emotional load, but the slow revelation of the secrets that weigh her down and the way that these impact the decisions she makes and the way she solves problems is completely convincing. Whereas Lurie’s narrative is mostly about setting, Nora’s is about character. Both are rendered brilliantly.
I initially rated this novel 4.5 stars because of a few small areas where historical revisionism has crept in, but ultimately it is too fine a work to deny all five stars. I am reluctant to say more because the surprises start early, so to relate details that occur even twenty percent of the way in feels like a disservice both to the reader and the writer.
One feature that is present throughout both of the narratives is thirst, and it’s related so well that I found myself downing extra water in sympathy and thanking my lucky stars that I live in Seattle rather than somewhere dusty and drought-stricken. In fact, there are places in Nora’s narrative where she is busy with other tasks or discussions of an urgent nature and I find myself telling Nora to just go ahead and ask the person she’s talking to for a sip of water. Nora won’t do it because she is proud and self-reliant, and the fact that I am already talking to the character instead of the author tells you how convincing the story is.
The reader is also advised that it’s a violent, gritty tale, particularly in the beginning but in other places also, and it’s loaded with triggers. To tell it otherwise would be to deny history, but if you are a mealtime reader or avoiding harsh prose for other reasons, it’s worth knowing. But I also think that the whimsy is all the sweeter for it.
Perhaps one of every ten novels I read becomes that book, the one that I can’t stop talking about. My spouse understands that to pass through a room when I am reading it is to guarantee he will be hijacked, at least momentarily, because I am either going to paraphrase an interesting tidbit or read a particularly arresting passage out loud. This works well for me, though, because I find myself with more uninterrupted reading time. Inland is that sort of book. Highly recommended.
February 28, 2020
Time doesn't change,There are so many elements in this novel that I enjoyed:
nor do times.
Only things inside time change,
Things you will believe, and things you won't. ~ James Galvin, "Belief"
- interesting characters;
- unbelievable plot;
- gripping prose;
- picturesque atmosphere.
- the noire factor.
- part of the Arizona and New Mexiko history
- unique voice of the author.
Two main characters:
Around 1856: Lurie, the Turkish boy who came over with his father to America. His dad would not make it any further than the docks.
Lurie: Our mattress, I remember, was stained. I stood on the stairs to watch the Coachman load my father into his wagon. When they drove off the Landlady put her hand on my head and let me linger. The evening downpour had withdrawn, so a sunset reddened the street. The horses looked ablaze. After that, my father never came to me again, not in the waters, not even in dreams.
Lurie would become the coachman's sidekick, selling dead bodies from the boarding houses, and when they became in short supply, would rob the graves. After that he became part of the Mattie gang and soon appeared on posters all over the country, with marshal John Berger short on their heals.
Donovan Michael Mattie and Hobb were his partners in crime. Both would have a distinct influence on his life, even after their deaths.
But then: Hadji Ali (Hi Jolly for short, but born Philip Tedro) walked onto American soil with his camel entourage. Seid, the formidable alpha camel could communicate in four languages. English was not one of them. Yet. With Jolly came Yiorgios (George from Hella, Greece), soft-faced Mehmet Halil (called Lilo by all) and Jolly's cousin, Mimico Tedro, a wiry, battlesome kid who likewise spliced his native tongue with French at speed. The cook, a freeman, was named Absalom Reading, or old Ab.
Lurie would become known as Misafir, and his camel would be named Burk (for his fearsome gargling buuuurk).
They were all destined for Camp Verde in the company of Edward Fitgerald Beale: bushwacker, explorer, lieutenant, compatriot and brother-in-arms of Kit Garson.
Nora Lark - The redoubtable young matriarch of the Lark family.
Amargo. Arizona. 1893. Emmett, Nora, and their boys lived and were happy here, was engraved into the wood frame of the window sill by Emmett.
Nora was not so sure about that. ...she doubted whether any of them could stand before the court of heaven and truthfully lay claim to happiness.
What about Evelyn, their little girl who resided beneath a headstone on their property, Nora thought. Why wasn't her name mentioned. But there they were, three boys: Rob, Nolan and little Toby. And then there was Emmett's ancient mother, Missus Harriet, disabled in a wheelchair from a stroke, and Emmett's young niece, Josie Kincaid, who communicated - openly - with the dead.
It was Toby who saw traces of the beast first. Nora couldn't. She said she saw nothing. But she wasn't looking. What we see with our hearts is much truer than what we see with our eyes, Nora believed. Those words would come to haunt her.
Toby did not believe his mama. She promised him she wasn't lying. Lies cut holes in the fabric of Heaven, Toby, and make all the angels fall out. Nobody believed young Toby about the beast which arrived to roam their property...
They all had one thing in common: a thirst for non-existent water in the inhospitable drought-stricken territory of Arizona and New Mexico. And in just one day, one night, and one early morning, everything will change forever for all of them in the vast open spaces of Amargo.
COMMENTS
This is certainly one of the best reads by far this year. However, too many back stories and too wordy infomation-drops slowed down the experience considerably. The author is a super brilliant wordsmith. The plot contains so many nuances, it will take a while to absorb it all. It is, for me, one of those novels that can be reread to capture more of the magic. And yes, traces of magic realism. Kind of.
Noire from beginning to end, with little emotional attachment negotiated among the characters or between the characters and the readers. A kind of clinical, weird experience. The impact is still huge.
Read
August 31, 2022I remembered from when her first book came out, photographs of her showing an astonishing high forehead, but in more recent pictures her forehead looks quite unremarkable. Perhaps it is simply remarkable what difference a hairstyle can make.
Anyway, I guess I was attracted by the colours on the cover of this book, I scanned the back, sniffilly dismissed the praise, I saw it was a western. I put it down and wandered on. But the thought gnawed at me - why would she write a western? OK, why not you might say, but why does a writer chose to set a story in the past, and in a particular location? You will have guessed by now that Obreht had subtly caught me and that I soon found myself sitting in the sun reading the first few pages of this book wondering where it was going and how or even if the different elements might be brought together.
An answer to my question rose up out of the cloudy, gloomy depths of my memory. As I was writing in my review of Helden in Harnas; Gedrukte ridderverhalen uit de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw, the western is a realm of fantasy , a translation in to more modern times of the knightly Arthurian Romance of the middle ages. It is a space of reinvention, there is the potential of transformation, the clash of ideologies and ways of life, but also and probably importantly just as with Camelot and with special thanks to Frederick Jackson Turner's essay The Significance of the Frontier in American History we know this fantasy realm is time limited. But before we crash in to 1890 there is space for multiple American dreams, for huddled teaming masses to escape from Europe and forget their native languages and try out new names or faiths, for a drifting aspiring teacher to become an indebted newspaper proprietor, for a no good, low down scheming Englishman to become a sinister cattle magnate, a place of fantasy where you can seek to exterminate all the prior inhabitants or seek to live with them, a place of adventure where you will be cheated and fooled, and worst of all when you have your gun in your hand and you look at your target you are pretty certain that the one chance you have to end the bad business you find yourself in just isn't good enough and that you will lose the ensuing shoot-out.
The story has two narrators, one a seemingly tough as nails wife and mother, her narration takes places over a day and the following morning. It is rather like a western version of the book of Job - losses and receiving visitors in between scratching at her sores. The other is a man who addresses us directly, but it later turns out that he is talking to his camel, so as readers we spend a chunk of the book as a camel, which is very useful for traversing the arid landscape of Arizona before statehood, only occasionally pausing to drink incredible amounts of water while carrying the plot forward. The camel romance spans maybe half a century. These two stories intertwine. Both narrators carry or create their ghosts . The people and the places they left behind them, the identities they had, or might have preferred to have, the people they have lost.
Complete magical realism breaks out in a glorious two page passage at the close of the book. It is a fun book, if it will be much read in sixty years time I could not say, but now it is fun.
Anyway, I guess I was attracted by the colours on the cover of this book, I scanned the back, sniffilly dismissed the praise, I saw it was a western. I put it down and wandered on. But the thought gnawed at me - why would she write a western? OK, why not you might say, but why does a writer chose to set a story in the past, and in a particular location? You will have guessed by now that Obreht had subtly caught me and that I soon found myself sitting in the sun reading the first few pages of this book wondering where it was going and how or even if the different elements might be brought together.
An answer to my question rose up out of the cloudy, gloomy depths of my memory. As I was writing in my review of Helden in Harnas; Gedrukte ridderverhalen uit de vijftiende en zestiende eeuw, the western is a realm of fantasy , a translation in to more modern times of the knightly Arthurian Romance of the middle ages. It is a space of reinvention, there is the potential of transformation, the clash of ideologies and ways of life, but also and probably importantly just as with Camelot and with special thanks to Frederick Jackson Turner's essay The Significance of the Frontier in American History we know this fantasy realm is time limited. But before we crash in to 1890 there is space for multiple American dreams, for huddled teaming masses to escape from Europe and forget their native languages and try out new names or faiths, for a drifting aspiring teacher to become an indebted newspaper proprietor, for a no good, low down scheming Englishman to become a sinister cattle magnate, a place of fantasy where you can seek to exterminate all the prior inhabitants or seek to live with them, a place of adventure where you will be cheated and fooled, and worst of all when you have your gun in your hand and you look at your target you are pretty certain that the one chance you have to end the bad business you find yourself in just isn't good enough and that you will lose the ensuing shoot-out.
The story has two narrators, one a seemingly tough as nails wife and mother, her narration takes places over a day and the following morning. It is rather like a western version of the book of Job - losses and receiving visitors in between scratching at her sores. The other is a man who addresses us directly, but it later turns out that he is talking to his camel, so as readers we spend a chunk of the book as a camel, which is very useful for traversing the arid landscape of Arizona before statehood, only occasionally pausing to drink incredible amounts of water while carrying the plot forward. The camel romance spans maybe half a century. These two stories intertwine. Both narrators carry or create their ghosts . The people and the places they left behind them, the identities they had, or might have preferred to have, the people they have lost.
Complete magical realism breaks out in a glorious two page passage at the close of the book. It is a fun book, if it will be much read in sixty years time I could not say, but now it is fun.
July 23, 2022
A somewhat surreal, mystical and expanded novel about a very minute slice of history which chronicles the journey of camels across the US for use by the Texas militia and of a tough or maybe not so tough frontierswoman. Their stories converge in this tale set in the late nineteenth century. The story is actual really about a day and a half but backstory, context, historical facts, and conversation all take place within this timeframe. The reader really has to know who is doing the talking and who they are talking to. Nora speaks to her deceased infant, Evelyn, who seems to have aged to the teenager age she would have been provides Nora with a moral compass and advice much needed in this remote outback setting. Lurie is a wanted man who talks to Burke, the stolen camel which is his companion through most of the book. Lurie also sees ghosts and can converse with the dead. Their paths converge in what is at the time, the Arizona territory. There is a severe drought that has driven many to do things quite out of character.
There are chapters that take a long time to get through because of the backstory and conversations throughout. However, Tea Obreht's writing is incredible and very few authors could have pulled this off.
There are chapters that take a long time to get through because of the backstory and conversations throughout. However, Tea Obreht's writing is incredible and very few authors could have pulled this off.
March 27, 2019
Téa Obreht burst onto the literary scene in 2011 with her debut novel, The Tiger’s Wife, a National Book Award finalist and winner of the Orange Prize. I thought it a remarkable first novel and have been eagerly (and impatiently) waiting for her follow-up. I never expected that the follow-up would be a historical novel of the American West and I imagine other readers of The Tiger’s Wife might share that surprise. No worry, her reimagined vision of the western (and a little-known piece of history) is stunning, the eight-year wait well worth it. The writing here is gorgeous, Obreht fulfilling all the promise of her debut. Her description of a beautiful, but often unforgiving landscape is astonishing. I felt the heat and experienced the thirst of the parched, drought-stricken terrain. Her imagery is nothing short of brilliant and so necessary in a novel that is as much about the land as it is the people. As far as plot goes, to reveal even a little may be to reveal too much. I’ll only say there is a steady buildup of suspense, a sense of foreboding, accompanied with wonderful twists and surprises. I was left dumbstruck at the end and any wavering between a 4 and 5 star review was determined in those final pages. Obreht is simply a superb story-teller and delivers a sweeping tale rooted in time and place and the ghosts of an American West.
I want to thank Goodreads giveaways and Random House for this ARC.
I want to thank Goodreads giveaways and Random House for this ARC.
July 23, 2019
You will argue with me, as your husband has, that you were all getting along just fine without me. Raising up your corn and wheat and losing your children to heatstroke. But before me, there was no aguaje where a traveler could water his horses. Before me there was no stage route, no postmaster, no sheriff, no stock association. There was nobody in Flagstaff gave a good goddamn about bringing the law to this place. People rustling cattle and people falling down cliffs and calling both an accident. Before me, we were all the way inland.
Turns out, I love a literary Western (Blood Meridian, The Sisters Brothers, Days Without End), and following on the heels of Téa Obreht's breakout success with The Tiger's Wife in 2011, I was surprised to discover that her newest release, Inland, is set in the American Frontier; surprised, I suppose, because as Obreht was born in Croatia (and set her first book there), the tropes and language of a Western might not have been 100% ingrained in her. But not to worry: from the stunning landscape writing to the natural, easy dialogue, Obreht captures time and place delightfully; and as an immigrant herself, she unfolds an incisive story in which all the characters are immigrants – either from abroad or those making the trek inland, from the Atlantic states to the Territories. Not to get political, but in a day where American citizens can be told to go back where they came from if they don't love America the way it is right now, this book is a well-timed reminder that, other than the Indigenous peoples (whom Obreht rightly identifies as tragic victims of Manifest Destiny), everyone who moved to the Frontier was an immigrant to a new land, hoping to wrestle its realities into submission to their own desires. There are the requisite saloon fights and standoffs and bronco busting – and also ghosts and visions and mysterious beasts; these make the book feel like familiar Obreht territory – and despite the fascinating and emotional plot to which they all contribute, the details serve a higher literary purpose as well. I'd say I loved this one. [Note: I read an ARC and passages quoted may not be in their final forms.] I will endeavor to keep this spoiler-free, because the details are so surprising.
They were all moving past each other, the mother, and the little girl, and the old man, too – and it struck me, after all these years of seeing the dead, as I stood there holding your bridle and with your breath in my hair, that I had never seen more than one at a time, and had never realized: they were unaware of each others' presence. Suddenly, the gruesome way they had fallen seemed the least mournful thing about this place. They could see the living, but not one another. Nameless and unburied, turned out suddenly into that darkness, they rose to find themselves entirely alone.
Inland alternates between two narrators; one timeline covering decades and the other just one day. In the first, Lurie and his father are Balkan immigrants (Lurie doesn't remember his homeland and his father died not long after they arrived in [presumably?] NYC, so that history is lost to him, and us), and after the boy was orphaned, he had many adventures (inside and outside the law), the recounting of which gives a fascinating overview of the Wild West and those who attempted to tame it. Lurie also sees ghosts, and their aching desires can feel more emotionally touching than the quotidian harms that a living body is subject to.
Through three sons and seventeen years of motherhood, shaving had borne out as the only successful campaign against lice, but its effects were decidedly punitive – Toby looked like a deserter from some urchin militia, sentenced to bear the badge of his dishonor. What if, this time, history should fail him, leaving him bald forever? He made a sorry little man as it was: too thin for seven, soft and golden and clewed-up with doubt. Prone to his father's wilding turn of mind.
The second narrator is Nora: a weather-beaten, hard-working homesteader who is left on a drought-dry ranch in the Arizona Territories to tend to her family while her husband has gone off to find the overdue water merchant. Down to only cups of water in their home, Nora is left alone to deal with a young son who's afraid of monsters, a ditzy and delicate ward who communes with the dead, a stroke-struck mother-in-law who sneers from her corner, two teenaged sons who have stormed off in anger, and a squabble between neighbours that threatens the survival of their ranch; all while parched and isolated and worried about what's taking her husband so long.
Man is only man. And God, in His infinite wisdom, made it so that to live, generally, is to wound another. And He made every man blind to his own weapons, and too short-living to do anything but guard jealously his own small, wasted way. And thus we go on.
Both timelines are taut with mysteries that take the entire narrative to unravel; both timelines have their ghosts; and both deal with the prejudices faced by immigrants – whether they be “limey carpetbaggers”, “small hirsute Levantines”, bird-boned blonds with “Doric foreheads”, or those Mexican nationals who suddenly found their homes on the foreign side of the border when it was moved south to the Rio Grande. There are soldiers triumphant in their massacre of entire Native families, agents from the Land Office trying to harass widows off their land, kingly cattlemen, and miners with unlucky claims; this is a true Western. Touching and intense, with a fitting and fantastical collision of timelines, I found that the ending redeemed a third quarter slump, and I'm left to chew over whether to round a 4.5 up or down. Up it is to five stars because I'm just that sorry to have ended this read.
December 5, 2019
Deeply imagined historical fiction based on an unusual episode in the history of Arizona Territory in the mid-to-late 1800s. Obreht threads together two seemingly disparate stories: Lurie, a Turkish immigrant whose alliances have led to his status as a wanted man, and Nora, a mother toiling in a rugged landscape to care for her family in a drought while her husband searches for water. These two storylines eventually merge in a satisfying way. I don’t want to give away too much of the plot, as I found part of the enjoyment in reading this novel is figuring out the connections.
The characters are well-crafted, and the style of prose is suited to the time period. The reader is privy to the inner thoughts of the two main characters, how they view what they have done in life, and the stories they tell themselves. They each have experienced grief, and it continues to influence them at a cost to their mental well-being. Their personal stories and a few well-kept secrets are gradually revealed, containing a few surprises for the reader.
The desert is a character unto itself. The author expertly evokes the oppressive heat, arid landscape, and the harsh realities faced by anyone trying to make a life in the desert. It felt authentic in its portrayal of what life may have been like on the lawless, rough frontier. I recommend keeping a water bottle at hand!
I should mention that this book contains a few ghosts, called “the other living,” that can be read either as supernatural elements or as figments of the characters’ imaginations. I found it very easy to explain these apparitions as a product of extreme grief, influence by others, or a deterioration in mental health.
This novel works on several levels: it is a picture of the challenges within a long-term marriage, the lingering impact of the death of loved ones, and the impact of individual choices on a person’s life. I highly enjoyed it.
I received an advance reader’s copy from the publisher. This book is due to be published August 2019.
The characters are well-crafted, and the style of prose is suited to the time period. The reader is privy to the inner thoughts of the two main characters, how they view what they have done in life, and the stories they tell themselves. They each have experienced grief, and it continues to influence them at a cost to their mental well-being. Their personal stories and a few well-kept secrets are gradually revealed, containing a few surprises for the reader.
The desert is a character unto itself. The author expertly evokes the oppressive heat, arid landscape, and the harsh realities faced by anyone trying to make a life in the desert. It felt authentic in its portrayal of what life may have been like on the lawless, rough frontier. I recommend keeping a water bottle at hand!
I should mention that this book contains a few ghosts, called “the other living,” that can be read either as supernatural elements or as figments of the characters’ imaginations. I found it very easy to explain these apparitions as a product of extreme grief, influence by others, or a deterioration in mental health.
This novel works on several levels: it is a picture of the challenges within a long-term marriage, the lingering impact of the death of loved ones, and the impact of individual choices on a person’s life. I highly enjoyed it.
I received an advance reader’s copy from the publisher. This book is due to be published August 2019.
April 26, 2019
I just spent two days reading Inland basically without coming up for air. It is beautiful on the sentence-level and I wish I spent more time with each sentence, but the truth is the story was so good that I was compelled to rush along to find out what happened. It was one of those where I was resenting everyone and thing in my day that took me out of the world of the book. The first novel I’ve read like that in a while. I am much more for western literature than I am for the actual West, it turns out. But in books, the West sure is beautiful. I loved this book.
October 31, 2019
The writing style in this book wasn’t for me. There were two narrators, neither of whom was telling a story in a compelling or compressible manner. There were meandering, random thoughts out of chronological order. I made it to the 20% point and gave up. I received a free copy of this book from the publisher.
April 20, 2019
Eight years ago Tea Obreht burst upon the literary scene with her truly original fable-like tale, The Tiger's Wife. With so much attention paid to her debut novel, it would not be unreasonable to fear that she experiences the sophomore curse, having what follows not measure up. But in this case, she succeeds, I think primarily because she took her time and didn't rush into a subsequent publication immediately. Here we find a totally different part of the world, drought-ridden Arizona Territory in the late nineteenth century. And a most unlikely band of characters who face the rigors of survival and prevail. Lurie, who immigrated from Eastern Europe with his father, is beset with ghosts, and converses with his charge, a somewhat bedraggled but heroic camel named Said. And Nora, who gives a whole new dimension to the term Pioneer Woman, who also is beset with one ghost, that of her deceased daughter with whom she seeks advice and comfort. Obreht is truly a masterful writer, and this, her second novel, proves she is the real deal.
August 26, 2019
First of all, I am so glad that i had the chance to read this early and review it. As the sophomore attempt, and much awaited at that, from Obreht, much was expected after the tremendous success of the debut novel. Inland was an interesting story told from two main perspectives, Nora Lark who is a homeowner in an Arizona town during a drought, awaiting her husband's water-seeking return. The alternate story is from the perspective of a pair of camel-riding outlaws. Both perspectives were fascinating and well researched. From a historical perspective, this was a work of art, telling the story from the various POVs that gave a firsthand view of what life would have been like for those who dared to try to live in the western, newly settled regions. The language used in each experience was so vivid and heartfelt that I could feel what the characters were feeling. This character driven story was poignant and compelling. In addition, Obreht adds the element of magical realism into the mix with characters talking to "the other dead" or Josie having these abilities to see and talk to the dead or see things about what was to be in the future. The slow, methodical pacing normally is not my favorite thing in a book but here it worked. It captured the growing thirst in Nora and her family as they waited for the return of her husband with the fresh water. This was a beautiful story and poignant novel that was a fantastic second book from a highly talented author.
Highly recommend.
#Inland #NetGalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup #RandomHouse
Highly recommend.
#Inland #NetGalley #RandomHousePublishingGroup #RandomHouse
June 28, 2022
1850'lerde Amerikan ordusunun Osmanlı ve civarından 75 deve satın aldığını ve bu develerin bakıcılarıyla -15 deveci- beraber gemilerle Amerika'ya gönderildiğini biliyor muydunuz? Ben bilmiyordum, bu roman sayesinde öğrendim. Tea Obrecht'in Bozkır'ındaki başkarakterlerden biri, Lurie -misafir-, kendini bir anda bu deve kafilesinin içinde, onların bir parçası olarak buluyor. Diğer başkarakterimiz ise vahşi batının içlerindeki bir kasabada bir yandan susuzlukla mücadele etmeye çalışırken diğer yandan kocasının da bir şekilde dahil olduğu politik çekişmede kendini sesini duyurmaya, hakkını savunmaya çalışan bir kadın, Nora.
Böyle kısaca bahsedince Bozkır'ın iki paralel anlatısının da ilgi çekici olduğunu kabul etmem gerekiyor galiba. Ancak kitabın benim için en büyük sıkıntısı da bu noktada yatıyor: işlediği bu ilginç hikayelere rağmen Bozkır çok ağır ilerleyen, durağan, sıkıcı bir roman. Mesela Nora'nın bolca geriye dönüşler içerse de tek bir gün içinde geçen macerası betimlemelerle doldurulmuş çünkü son 40 sayfaya kadar anlatacak çok da bir şey gerçekleşmiyor aslında. Nora'yı, ailesini, içinde bulunduğu atmosferi ayrıntılarıyla öğreniyoruz ama yine de bunun için hiçbir yere çıkmayan, bize hiçbir şey anlatmayan sayfalara da katlanmamız gerekiyor.
Balkanlardan babasıyla Amerika'ya gelen, babasını kısa sürede kaybedip vahşi batıda bir şekilde hayatta kalmaya çalışan, mezarcılıktan soygunculuğa birçok iş yapan, ihanete uğrayan, kanundan kaçan, en sonunda kendini oraya ait olmayan bir grup deve ve deveciyle beraber bulan Lurie'nin hikayesi ise çok daha hareketli ve keyifliydi benim için. Ama bu yolculuğun da kendini çok tekrar ettiğini, bazı bölümlerin çok sıkıcı olduğunu söyleyebilirim.
Romanın büyülü gerçekçi tarafı fena değil ama en azından iki anlatıyı bir şekilde birbirine bağlayan daha güçlü bir öge olmasını isterdim. Ölüleri görmek iki hikayede de ortak gibi görünse de hem gerçekleşme şekli hem de sebebinin çok farklı olması birbiriyle bağdaştırmayı engelliyor. İki anlatının birbiriyle temas şekli de zayıf olmuş bence, son sayfalara kadar alakasız ama sürekli birbirini kesen iki hikaye okuyoruz. Bu da tempoyu düşüren bir başka etmen oluyor. Kitabın sonunu ise beğendim, yarım kalan bir şey olduğunu hissetmedim.
Yine de Bozkır çeşitli yanlarıyla okuduğuma memnun olduğum bir kitap oldu. Öncelikle bu bir göçmen hikayesi, karakterlerin çoğu göçmen olan ve her gün bunun zorluklarıyla mücadele eden kişiler. Kendisi de bir göçmen olan yazar, Balkanlardan ve Anadoludan gelmiş bütün bir deve kafilesinden tutun da Latin kökenli kasaba sakinlerine kadar birçok karakteri, onların dertlerini oldukça doğal ve inandırıcı bir şekilde anlatmış. Hikayenin vahşi batı gibi aklımızda çok belirgin özelliklerle yer etmiş bir mekanda geçip de hiç alışık olmadığımız karakterlere, olaylara yer vermesi de sevdiğim bir diğer şey oldu.
Çeviri bence iyiydi, ama kitap kulübünde aksi yönde ve hak verdiğim bazı argümanlar da sunuldu. En azından Roza Hakmen seviyesinde değildi denilebilir herhalde. Yazarın ilk romanını okumak istemem için gereken şeyi verdi Bozkır bana, bununla da yetinebilirim.
Böyle kısaca bahsedince Bozkır'ın iki paralel anlatısının da ilgi çekici olduğunu kabul etmem gerekiyor galiba. Ancak kitabın benim için en büyük sıkıntısı da bu noktada yatıyor: işlediği bu ilginç hikayelere rağmen Bozkır çok ağır ilerleyen, durağan, sıkıcı bir roman. Mesela Nora'nın bolca geriye dönüşler içerse de tek bir gün içinde geçen macerası betimlemelerle doldurulmuş çünkü son 40 sayfaya kadar anlatacak çok da bir şey gerçekleşmiyor aslında. Nora'yı, ailesini, içinde bulunduğu atmosferi ayrıntılarıyla öğreniyoruz ama yine de bunun için hiçbir yere çıkmayan, bize hiçbir şey anlatmayan sayfalara da katlanmamız gerekiyor.
Balkanlardan babasıyla Amerika'ya gelen, babasını kısa sürede kaybedip vahşi batıda bir şekilde hayatta kalmaya çalışan, mezarcılıktan soygunculuğa birçok iş yapan, ihanete uğrayan, kanundan kaçan, en sonunda kendini oraya ait olmayan bir grup deve ve deveciyle beraber bulan Lurie'nin hikayesi ise çok daha hareketli ve keyifliydi benim için. Ama bu yolculuğun da kendini çok tekrar ettiğini, bazı bölümlerin çok sıkıcı olduğunu söyleyebilirim.
Romanın büyülü gerçekçi tarafı fena değil ama en azından iki anlatıyı bir şekilde birbirine bağlayan daha güçlü bir öge olmasını isterdim. Ölüleri görmek iki hikayede de ortak gibi görünse de hem gerçekleşme şekli hem de sebebinin çok farklı olması birbiriyle bağdaştırmayı engelliyor. İki anlatının birbiriyle temas şekli de zayıf olmuş bence, son sayfalara kadar alakasız ama sürekli birbirini kesen iki hikaye okuyoruz. Bu da tempoyu düşüren bir başka etmen oluyor. Kitabın sonunu ise beğendim, yarım kalan bir şey olduğunu hissetmedim.
Yine de Bozkır çeşitli yanlarıyla okuduğuma memnun olduğum bir kitap oldu. Öncelikle bu bir göçmen hikayesi, karakterlerin çoğu göçmen olan ve her gün bunun zorluklarıyla mücadele eden kişiler. Kendisi de bir göçmen olan yazar, Balkanlardan ve Anadoludan gelmiş bütün bir deve kafilesinden tutun da Latin kökenli kasaba sakinlerine kadar birçok karakteri, onların dertlerini oldukça doğal ve inandırıcı bir şekilde anlatmış. Hikayenin vahşi batı gibi aklımızda çok belirgin özelliklerle yer etmiş bir mekanda geçip de hiç alışık olmadığımız karakterlere, olaylara yer vermesi de sevdiğim bir diğer şey oldu.
Çeviri bence iyiydi, ama kitap kulübünde aksi yönde ve hak verdiğim bazı argümanlar da sunuldu. En azından Roza Hakmen seviyesinde değildi denilebilir herhalde. Yazarın ilk romanını okumak istemem için gereken şeyi verdi Bozkır bana, bununla da yetinebilirim.
September 10, 2019
Inland proved to be a surprising reading experience for me in unexpected ways. I had heard positive words about the book before I began reading and was looking forward to it. Then I read the first section about the life and development of the young outlaw-to-be, Lurie Mattie. I disliked Lurie so much that I didn’t return to reading the book for a while after the chapter ended.
And then, a breath of fresh air, of sorts, as another story begins with the next chapter. In the desert of the Arizona territories we join a frontier family in the midst of a drought, with some chaos within the family itself. Father, Emmett, has not yet returned from what was to be a short trip for water. Nora and Emmett’s two older sons, Rob and Dolan, then seem to likewise disappear after an argument. Meanwhile young Toby and distant relative Josie are reporting having seen the Beast, whatever that is.
In long alternating chapters, Obreht tells the stories of the outlaw and Nora and, through them, tells a greater story of the settling of the West, the land of the Indian tribes and former Mexican territory, prospectors, farmers, ranchers, outlaws, lawmen, soldiers, the women who raised families or tried to. When Lurie’s story returned, I enjoyed his chapters and character.
I very much enjoyed Obreht’s prose. At times she writes simply and evocatively in describing the desert landscape. At other times, she renders versions of tall tales perfectly. She captures the complexity of her people as she gives them to us.
I do recommend this book. It is very much a Western so some may not want to read it for that reason alone. But it does capture a time in American history when life was uncertain in many areas on this continent. And it reveals a piece of our past.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
And then, a breath of fresh air, of sorts, as another story begins with the next chapter. In the desert of the Arizona territories we join a frontier family in the midst of a drought, with some chaos within the family itself. Father, Emmett, has not yet returned from what was to be a short trip for water. Nora and Emmett’s two older sons, Rob and Dolan, then seem to likewise disappear after an argument. Meanwhile young Toby and distant relative Josie are reporting having seen the Beast, whatever that is.
In long alternating chapters, Obreht tells the stories of the outlaw and Nora and, through them, tells a greater story of the settling of the West, the land of the Indian tribes and former Mexican territory, prospectors, farmers, ranchers, outlaws, lawmen, soldiers, the women who raised families or tried to. When Lurie’s story returned, I enjoyed his chapters and character.
I very much enjoyed Obreht’s prose. At times she writes simply and evocatively in describing the desert landscape. At other times, she renders versions of tall tales perfectly. She captures the complexity of her people as she gives them to us.
I do recommend this book. It is very much a Western so some may not want to read it for that reason alone. But it does capture a time in American history when life was uncertain in many areas on this continent. And it reveals a piece of our past.
A copy of this book was provided by the publisher through NetGalley in return for an honest review.
May 7, 2019
I received an ARC from NetGalley in exchange for an honest review. Therefore, I must honestly admit that I am adding it to my “Did Not Finish” list at 40%. This I was my first Tea Obreht book, and I think my hopes were set rather high... I wasn’t entirely sure that this book would be my cup of tea from the description, but since I live in Arizona and like historical fiction (also there was supposed to be a hint of magic...) I applied for it anyway and was approved. At 40% I am still not relating to any of the characters or invested in the story at all... This book is as dry as the Sonora Desert. My apologies if it gets better in the second half, please let me know and maybe one day I’ll try again.
October 23, 2019
Inland is the latest novel by Tea Obreht that is an all-encompassing and beautifully written saga of the American West in the late nineteenth century. The book focuses on two very different characters leading very disparate lives until the exciting conclusion of the book when their lives intersect in a very different and unexpected but magical way. Nora Lark, a pioneering woman living in the Arizona Territory in the late nineteenth century is waiting for her husband, Emmett, to return as well as her two eldest sons who have also vanished. She is home with her youngest son Toby, who is convinced that there is a mysterious and dangerous beast stalking them, as is young cousin, Josie, also living with them. As she works through the dilemmas facing her, Nora is frequently conversing with her daughter who died in infancy. Her story alternates with the tale related by Lurie Mattie, an orphan from Eastern Europe and a notorious outlaw being pursued by a Texas Marshall. Lurie also has the uncanny ability to see people who have died and is haunted throughout his travels. The result is an exciting new novel treating one to a different look at the American West as only Tea Obreht can do.
"I moved slow along the main thoroughfare, looking through windows, hovering barside, carried on the aftermath of sojourn and execution until I found myself in the plaza once more. The dead were everywhere, flitting in and out of doorways, looking for bits of themselves--for here sat the Alamo, Burke, with its ruined steeples like the peaks cut off a mountain. The flag was slumped on its mast in the courtyard of the governor's house. The windows were filled with yellow light, and shadows of the revelers within were dark against the drapes."
"They diverged according to their responsibilities: he was a man of words; she a woman of action."
"So we went back to the malpais, you and I, and wandered the snaking Colorado, from its floodplain to its northernmost narrows, where the river left us behind to twist between its canyons. I thought often of that water on its unseen course, coming to us from places unreachable by man."
"Hardly a day went by, it seemed without the newspapers touting some remarkable discovery that upended the truth or convenience of living. Miracles of every variety: buildings so tall they could only be summited by electric conveyance; pictures captured on metal. From Atlantic state palaces of learning, educational revues were making their way slowly inland to share the latest scientific advancements: anatomical marvels and wonders of automation. Put together, these all had the effect of drawing things closer to one another, of illuminating that grainy twilight beyond which lay the landscape of a new and truer world."
"I got the sense that everybody had found out what I had known for years: the West was too fine a promise to waste. They were heading there with their wagons and sheep and their trampling feet to make a life that just bit harder and more crowded for folks like me who had known and kept this secret for years."
"I moved slow along the main thoroughfare, looking through windows, hovering barside, carried on the aftermath of sojourn and execution until I found myself in the plaza once more. The dead were everywhere, flitting in and out of doorways, looking for bits of themselves--for here sat the Alamo, Burke, with its ruined steeples like the peaks cut off a mountain. The flag was slumped on its mast in the courtyard of the governor's house. The windows were filled with yellow light, and shadows of the revelers within were dark against the drapes."
"They diverged according to their responsibilities: he was a man of words; she a woman of action."
"So we went back to the malpais, you and I, and wandered the snaking Colorado, from its floodplain to its northernmost narrows, where the river left us behind to twist between its canyons. I thought often of that water on its unseen course, coming to us from places unreachable by man."
"Hardly a day went by, it seemed without the newspapers touting some remarkable discovery that upended the truth or convenience of living. Miracles of every variety: buildings so tall they could only be summited by electric conveyance; pictures captured on metal. From Atlantic state palaces of learning, educational revues were making their way slowly inland to share the latest scientific advancements: anatomical marvels and wonders of automation. Put together, these all had the effect of drawing things closer to one another, of illuminating that grainy twilight beyond which lay the landscape of a new and truer world."
"I got the sense that everybody had found out what I had known for years: the West was too fine a promise to waste. They were heading there with their wagons and sheep and their trampling feet to make a life that just bit harder and more crowded for folks like me who had known and kept this secret for years."
August 23, 2019
4 ★ Tea Obreht’s new book is fantastic and highly imaginative! Inland is historical fiction with a big dose of magical realism, that weaves together two narratives.
•One is of Nora Lark. A frontierswoman, wife and mother in Arizona, who is currently missing her husband who’d gone to town for water, and two eldest sons who left after a fight. Her youngest son insists he’s seen a terrible beast outside, while Nora seeks advice and is comforted by the ghost of their long-passed daughter, Evelyn. Nora’s story is told over the course of one day.
•The other story is of Middle Eastern immigrant Lurie Mattie who’s a wanted outlaw pursued by Marshall Berger.. and ghosts. He becomes a cameleer for the US Army Camel Corps and recounts his life from age 6 on up, to a camel he’s become inseparable with.
The narratives were sometimes hard to understand, but I’m so glad I stayed with it. I had that “ah-hah” moment a little under the halfway mark. From that point on I didn’t want to put it down. Inland is a surprising, wonderful and brilliant story. Well worth the effort!
Thank you to Random House, NetGalley and Tea Obreht for providing me with an ARC copy.
•One is of Nora Lark. A frontierswoman, wife and mother in Arizona, who is currently missing her husband who’d gone to town for water, and two eldest sons who left after a fight. Her youngest son insists he’s seen a terrible beast outside, while Nora seeks advice and is comforted by the ghost of their long-passed daughter, Evelyn. Nora’s story is told over the course of one day.
•The other story is of Middle Eastern immigrant Lurie Mattie who’s a wanted outlaw pursued by Marshall Berger.. and ghosts. He becomes a cameleer for the US Army Camel Corps and recounts his life from age 6 on up, to a camel he’s become inseparable with.
The narratives were sometimes hard to understand, but I’m so glad I stayed with it. I had that “ah-hah” moment a little under the halfway mark. From that point on I didn’t want to put it down. Inland is a surprising, wonderful and brilliant story. Well worth the effort!
Thank you to Random House, NetGalley and Tea Obreht for providing me with an ARC copy.
July 27, 2023
A Camel In The Old West
I took the opportunity during the pandemic to revisit some of the episodes of "Have Gun Will Travel", a 1950 television western I loved when I was young. Among these episodes, was "The Great Mohave Chase" from 1957. Paladin has come into an unusual resource -- a camel surplussed by the United States Army -- which he uses to win a bet and to bring water to a parched California town. The show aptly makes use of the Army's failed effort in the 1850s and 60s to use camels in patrolling the deserts.
Tea Obrecht's 2019 novel "Inland" involves the Army's use of camels to a much greater degree than the show on the exploits of Paladin. An immigrant from the former Yugoslavia, Obrecht carries on a tradition of non-native born Americans becoming fascinated with the uniquely American genre of the Western and making valuable contributions to it. Among other sources, this tradition includes Puccini's opera, "The Girl of the Golden West" the "Spaghetti Westerns" on film, and the western novels of the German writer, Karl May. Obrecht's "Inland" is a worthy contribution to the literature of the American West and shows the potential for depth and varied interpretation in this frequently slighted genre.
Obrecht weaves together two stories. The first involves the Army's experiment with camels. The story soon breaks off from the arrival of the camels in San Antonio to focus on a single camel and its rogue rider with a criminal past. The rider is a killer named Lurie who runs away from the Army camel procession when he is pursued by a sheriff who knows his unsavory history. Lurie recounts most of his story while talking to his camel mount, Burke, to whom he becomes greatly attached.
Obrecht's second story is set in the Arizona Territory in 1893 in the small, fictitious homesteader community of Amargo. It centers around a tough, persistent family, the Larks, including Nora, her husband Emmett, the couple's three sons and their daughter who died in infancy, an aged grandmother and a young woman related to Emmett, Josie, who works as a domestic, and is able to communicate with the dead through seances. The story of Amargo involves a lengthy drought, a conflict between the longstanding homesteaders and the cattle barons in the adjacent community for control of the county and the track towards statehood, and difficult personal issues arising in part from the harshness and loneliness of life in the developing community.
The two stories are told in lengthy alternating sections and for the most part are seemingly separate until Obrecht brings them together in the latter part of the book. Each story has a detailed complex texture with many characters and sub-stories. The author offers a broad portrait of the American West both in its beauty, expanse, and harshness. Her perspective is gritty and hard but also verges on the mystical. I felt the book showed a love and understanding of the West and of the United States with all their challenges, a critical quality for a Western. In its combination of the realistic and the mystical a perspective sometimes called "magic realism" I was reminded of a wonderful National Book Award winning novel, "Sing Unburied Sing" by Jesmyn Ward. which is set in Mississippi and also explores spirituality and realism.
The writing sometimes flags but is often beautiful. The author shows a gift for quotable aphorisms. that bring out the meaning of the story better than the lengthy chapters. For example, here is a portion of a discussion between Lurie and a fellow camel driver.
"There are wounds of time and there are wounds of person, [Lurie]. Sometimes people come through their wounds, but time does not. Sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes the wounds are so grievous, there's no coming through them at all."
"Why not?"
"Because man is only man. And god, in His infinite wisdom, made it so that to live, generally is to wound another. And He made very man blind to his own weapons, and too short-living to do anything but guard jealously his own small, wasted way. And thus we go on."
The book has its flaws. It is long in terms of number of pages and its density makes it feel much longer. The two stories are ultimately not fully integrated. The long lengths of the chapters with no apparent connection between the stories makes the novel difficult to follow. The details and side stories were frequently evocative but they were also distracting and confusing.
With the book's difficulties, I was glad to find this work. I have become attracted to the Western in recent years, and Obrecht's book carries on and adds to a venerable tradition. There is much more to the best works in the genre than violence and shoot-outs.
The Library of America has recently published a volume "The Western: Four Novels from the 1940s and 50s" that might interest readers wanting to explore classic works in the genre. One of the works in the collection is "Warlock" a 1958 novel by Oakley Hall. "Warlock" is set in the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s about ten years before "Inland" and involves some of the same issues, including the conflict between ranchers and townspeople and conflicts between adjacent communities going different ways. The book includes a character loosely based on Wyatt Earp, but it doesn't include camels. It is also a dense, thoughtful work. Readers fascinated by "Inland" might be interested in "Warlock" or in other classic American Westerns.
Robin Friedman
I took the opportunity during the pandemic to revisit some of the episodes of "Have Gun Will Travel", a 1950 television western I loved when I was young. Among these episodes, was "The Great Mohave Chase" from 1957. Paladin has come into an unusual resource -- a camel surplussed by the United States Army -- which he uses to win a bet and to bring water to a parched California town. The show aptly makes use of the Army's failed effort in the 1850s and 60s to use camels in patrolling the deserts.
Tea Obrecht's 2019 novel "Inland" involves the Army's use of camels to a much greater degree than the show on the exploits of Paladin. An immigrant from the former Yugoslavia, Obrecht carries on a tradition of non-native born Americans becoming fascinated with the uniquely American genre of the Western and making valuable contributions to it. Among other sources, this tradition includes Puccini's opera, "The Girl of the Golden West" the "Spaghetti Westerns" on film, and the western novels of the German writer, Karl May. Obrecht's "Inland" is a worthy contribution to the literature of the American West and shows the potential for depth and varied interpretation in this frequently slighted genre.
Obrecht weaves together two stories. The first involves the Army's experiment with camels. The story soon breaks off from the arrival of the camels in San Antonio to focus on a single camel and its rogue rider with a criminal past. The rider is a killer named Lurie who runs away from the Army camel procession when he is pursued by a sheriff who knows his unsavory history. Lurie recounts most of his story while talking to his camel mount, Burke, to whom he becomes greatly attached.
Obrecht's second story is set in the Arizona Territory in 1893 in the small, fictitious homesteader community of Amargo. It centers around a tough, persistent family, the Larks, including Nora, her husband Emmett, the couple's three sons and their daughter who died in infancy, an aged grandmother and a young woman related to Emmett, Josie, who works as a domestic, and is able to communicate with the dead through seances. The story of Amargo involves a lengthy drought, a conflict between the longstanding homesteaders and the cattle barons in the adjacent community for control of the county and the track towards statehood, and difficult personal issues arising in part from the harshness and loneliness of life in the developing community.
The two stories are told in lengthy alternating sections and for the most part are seemingly separate until Obrecht brings them together in the latter part of the book. Each story has a detailed complex texture with many characters and sub-stories. The author offers a broad portrait of the American West both in its beauty, expanse, and harshness. Her perspective is gritty and hard but also verges on the mystical. I felt the book showed a love and understanding of the West and of the United States with all their challenges, a critical quality for a Western. In its combination of the realistic and the mystical a perspective sometimes called "magic realism" I was reminded of a wonderful National Book Award winning novel, "Sing Unburied Sing" by Jesmyn Ward. which is set in Mississippi and also explores spirituality and realism.
The writing sometimes flags but is often beautiful. The author shows a gift for quotable aphorisms. that bring out the meaning of the story better than the lengthy chapters. For example, here is a portion of a discussion between Lurie and a fellow camel driver.
"There are wounds of time and there are wounds of person, [Lurie]. Sometimes people come through their wounds, but time does not. Sometimes it's the other way around. Sometimes the wounds are so grievous, there's no coming through them at all."
"Why not?"
"Because man is only man. And god, in His infinite wisdom, made it so that to live, generally is to wound another. And He made very man blind to his own weapons, and too short-living to do anything but guard jealously his own small, wasted way. And thus we go on."
The book has its flaws. It is long in terms of number of pages and its density makes it feel much longer. The two stories are ultimately not fully integrated. The long lengths of the chapters with no apparent connection between the stories makes the novel difficult to follow. The details and side stories were frequently evocative but they were also distracting and confusing.
With the book's difficulties, I was glad to find this work. I have become attracted to the Western in recent years, and Obrecht's book carries on and adds to a venerable tradition. There is much more to the best works in the genre than violence and shoot-outs.
The Library of America has recently published a volume "The Western: Four Novels from the 1940s and 50s" that might interest readers wanting to explore classic works in the genre. One of the works in the collection is "Warlock" a 1958 novel by Oakley Hall. "Warlock" is set in the Arizona Territory in the early 1880s about ten years before "Inland" and involves some of the same issues, including the conflict between ranchers and townspeople and conflicts between adjacent communities going different ways. The book includes a character loosely based on Wyatt Earp, but it doesn't include camels. It is also a dense, thoughtful work. Readers fascinated by "Inland" might be interested in "Warlock" or in other classic American Westerns.
Robin Friedman
November 4, 2019
Beautiful writing and a complex female protagonist in this story that excavates a little-known bit of the history of the American West. Things were a bit slow getting going but I read the last 100 pages in a day, and the last few pages were glorious.
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