A violent, harrowing story about love, honor, power and family. A great book, not to be missed! — Liz Barnum
The Son is a majestic, multigenerational tale of power, greed, and the intricacies of a Texan family stained by violence. The story begins with a brutal massacre by a band of tomahawk wielding, scalp thirsty Comanches, and the capture of thirteen-year-old Eli McCullough, son of the new frontier. Having endured the murder of his family and initial privation and humiliation at the hands of his captors, Eli quickly adapts to tribal ways by assimilating the rituals, customs and language of his new "family" as Tiehteti. From the wild, rich country of Texas in the mid-1800s with "grass up to the chest," an abundance of buffalo, and trees "that had never felt an axe," The Son traces Eli's journey as the voices of subsequent generations trace the history and eventual demise of one of the most powerful Texan dynasties and the land with which it is inextricably bound. — Amy Palmer
A multi-generational, centuries-spanning saga of a Texas family whose history coincides with the evolution of Texas itself, from a wild territory torn by conflict and savagery to a modern state dominated by a different kind of ruthlessness. Epic in every sense of the word. — Alden Graves
A multi-generational, centuries-spanning saga of a Texas family whose history coincides with the evolution of Texas itself, from a wild territory torn by conflict and savagery to a modern state dominated by a different kind of ruthlessness. Epic in every sense of the word. — Alden Graves
A violent, harrowing story about love, honor, power and family. A great book, not to be missed! — Liz Barnum
The Son is a majestic, multigenerational tale of power, greed, and the intricacies of a Texan family stained by violence. The story begins with a brutal massacre by a band of tomahawk wielding, scalp thirsty Comanches, and the capture of thirteen-year-old Eli McCullough, son of the new frontier. Having endured the murder of his family and initial privation and humiliation at the hands of his captors, Eli quickly adapts to tribal ways by assimilating the rituals, customs and language of his new "family" as Tiehteti. From the wild, rich country of Texas in the mid-1800s with "grass up to the chest," an abundance of buffalo, and trees "that had never felt an axe," The Son traces Eli's journey as the voices of subsequent generations trace the history and eventual demise of one of the most powerful Texan dynasties and the land with which it is inextricably bound. — Amy Palmer
“Epic yet intimate, Meyer's The Son is the best kind of historical fiction. Vivid characters and great storytelling bring to life a distant time and place, while the themes and issues explored are completely relevant to our time. The interwoven perspectives of the three generations of the McCullough family create a counterpoint as each comments on the others, their mores, and their expectations and how these change over time. This is what great literature should be: a page-turner with a serious moral purpose.”
— Scott, Books Inc., San Francisco, CA
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching portrait of the bloody price of power, The Son is an utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American West through the lives of the McCulloughs, an ambitious family as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim.
Spring, 1849. The first male child born in the newly established Republic of Texas, Eli McCullough is thirteen years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him captive. Brave and clever, Eli quickly adapts to Comanche life, learning their ways and language, answering to a new name, carving a place as the chief's adopted son, and waging war against their enemies, including white men--complicating his sense of loyalty and understanding of who he is. But when disease, starvation, and overwhelming numbers of armed Americans decimate the tribe, Eli finds himself alone. Neither white nor Indian, civilized or fully wild, he must carve a place for himself in a world in which he does not fully belong--a journey of adventure, tragedy, hardship, grit, and luck that reverberates in the lives of his progeny.
Intertwined with Eli's story are those of his son, Peter, a man who bears the emotional cost of his father's drive for power, and JA, Eli's great-granddaughter, a woman who must fight hardened rivals to succeed in a man's world.
Phillipp Meyer deftly explores how Eli's ruthlessness and steely pragmatism transform subsequent generations of McCulloughs. Love, honor, children are sacrificed in the name of ambition, as the family becomes one of the richest powers in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege. Yet, like all empires, the McCoulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.
Harrowing, panoramic, and vividly drawn, The Son is a masterful achievement from a sublime young talent.