This book proves that I can’t necessarily judge an author by
his previous work. I was not a huge fan
of Jess Walter’s
Beautiful
Ruins, but this novel is completely different in a completely
positive way. The primary characters are
two brothers, Ryan (Rye) and Gregory (Gig) who ride the rails in the early
1900s to Spokane. They survive on
whatever work they can find at a time when corrupt employment agencies are
flourishing. The charismatic Gregory is
the idealist, engaged in a fight for free speech at a union protest, and Ryan,
only seventeen but the more practical of the two, idealizes Gregory and is
willing to follow his older brother’s lead regardless of the consequences. This book is a rough-and-tumble adventure,
complete with violence, bribery, and historical figures that I had never heard
of. Ryan soon emerges as the principal
character, attaching himself to the unlikely rabble-rouser Elizabeth Gurley
Flynn while Gregory is either in jail or on the move. Flynn, a teenager herself and pregnant, has
an oratory gift and the drive to use it in the struggle to achieve justice for
workers. She’s not the only one who can
turn a phrase, though. My favorite
chapter is the first one narrated by Del Dalveaux, whose job it is to slow down
Flynn’s efforts. He arrives in Spokane
with these comments:
“I couldn’t believe how the syphilitic town had
metastasized….The city was twice the size of the last time I’d hated being
there. A box of misery spilled over the
whole river valley.”
The author proves himself to be quite the wordsmith here,
creating an atmosphere that reeks of tramps and trains in stark contrast to a
wealthy man who poses as his own chauffeur--as sort of a joke that falls flat
and doesn’t fool anyone. The epigraph
for Part III is an appropriate Wallace Stegner quote, and this book is reminiscent of his novels about the growing pains of this country,
particularly in the West.
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