News of the World

A Novel

No cover

Paulette Jiles: News of the World (2016, HarperCollins Publishers)

English language

Published 2016 by HarperCollins Publishers.

ISBN:
978-0-06-240922-5
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4 stars (1 review)

In the wake of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels through northern Texas, giving live readings from newspapers to paying audiences hungry for news of the world. An elderly widower who has lived through three wars and fought in two of them, the captain enjoys his rootless, solitary existence. In Wichita Falls, he is offered a $50 gold piece to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. Four years earlier, a band of Kiowa raiders killed Johanna's parents and sister; sparing the little girl, they raised her as one of their own. Recently rescued by the U.S. army, the ten-year-old has once again been torn away from the only home she knows. Their 400-mile journey south through unsettled territory and unforgiving terrain proves difficult and at times dangerous. Johanna has forgotten the English language, tries to escape at every opportunity, throws away her shoes, and …

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Review of 'News of the World' on 'Goodreads'

4 stars

Extremely evocative of an innocent, simpler time. Our guide and bearer of news from the world after the civil war, Jefferson Kidd, is a wise, brave, grumpy grandfather and widower. The diverse characters that come in and out of his life are intriguingly rendered by Jiles, to the point that she must satisfy the reader's curiosity, explaining the fate of them all in detail. And Kidd's sidekick, Johanna, is rendered in such detail that her internal, unspoken struggle brought me to tears as I read out loud to my parents. My mother and father had to repeatedly take over for me when I got choked up. And the intellectual linguist in you will delight at the intricate explanations of the Kiowa language and culture, not to mention the now arcane language of preindustrial Texas and the southeastern US. Normally this would be a 5-star for me. The only detractor is …

Subjects

  • Fiction, historical, general
  • Indians of north america, fiction
  • Widowers, fiction