About the Book
Soon to be a TV Series on AMC starring Pierce Brosnan and co-written by Philipp Meyer.
Now in paperback, the critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling epic, a saga of land, blood, and power that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the oil booms of the 20th century.
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries.
Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive. Despite their torture and cruelty, Eli--against all odds--adapts to life with the Comanche, learning their ways, their language, taking on a new name, finding a place as the adopted son of the chief of the band, and fighting their wars against not only other Indians, but white men, too-complicating his sense of loyalty, his promised vengeance, and his very understanding of self. But when disease, starvation, and westward expansion finally decimate the Comanche, Eli is left alone in a world in which he belongs nowhere, neither white nor Indian, civilized or fully wild.
Deftly interweaving Eli's story with those of his son, Peter, and his great-granddaughter, JA, The Son deftly explores the legacy of Eli's ruthlessness, his drive to power, and his life-long status as an outsider, even as the McCullough family rises to become one of the richest in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege.
Harrowing, panoramic, and deeply evocative, The Son is a fully realized masterwork in the greatest tradition of the American canon-an unforgettable novel that combines the narrative prowess of Larry McMurtry with the knife edge sharpness of Cormac McCarthy.
About the Author :
Philipp Meyer is the author of the critically lauded novel American Rust, winner of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was an Economist Book of the Year, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a New York Times Notable Book. He is a graduate of Cornell University and has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a James Michener Fellow. A native of Baltimore, he now lives mostly in Texas.
Review :
"An epic of the American Southwest, Meyer's masterly second novel follows several generations of a Texas ranching and oil dynasty through the 19th and 20th centuries..." - New York Times Book Review, Paperback Row
"Meyer's tale is vast, volcanic, prodigious in violence, intermittently hard to fathom, not infrequently hard to stomach, and difficult to ignore." - Boston Globe
"The greatest things about The Son are its scope and ambition. . . It's an enveloping, extremely well-wrought, popular novel with passionate convictions about the people, places and battles that it conjures." - New York Times
"Mr. Meyer's version of how a white child grows into the culture of a Comanche warrior is so vivid, violent, heartless and tender at the same time that I often put the book down to recover from the scenes, then picked it up, eager to follow the narrative." - Pittsburg Post-Gazette
"Meyer has penned another masterpiece of American fiction. Read it and see if you don't agree." - Dayton Daily News
"The Son is a true American original. Meyer describes the Comanche as 'riding to haul hell out of its shuck.' It's an apt description of how it feels to read this exciting, far-reaching book." - Milwaukee Journal Sentinel
"One of the best books I've ever read . . . Incredibly ambitious and rich, and it reminds me of Blood Meridian and As I Lay Dying. Faulkner and McCarthy fans should definitely check it out." - Dallas Observer
"The Son drives home one hard and fascinating truth about American life: None of us belong here. We just have it on loan until the next civilization comes around." - Atlanta Journal-Constitution
"Ambitious readers who take their prose seriously should grab a copy of The Son, a stunning work of historical fiction by Philipp Meyer. Scores of critics are gushing over the book calling it epic, one of the best of the year, even an American classic." - CNN Online (Hot Reads for June)
"By the novel's end, Philipp Meyer has demonstrated that he can write a potboiler of the first rank, aswirl with pulpy pleasures: impossible love affairs, illicit sex, strife between fathers and sons, the unhappiness of the rich, the corruption of power." - New York Times Book Review
The Son is positioned to seduce readers who swooned for Lonesome Dove and 2011's briskly selling Comanche history, Empire of the Summer Moon. - Cleveland Plain Dealer
"It may not be the Great American Novel, but it certainly is a damn good one." - Entertainment Weekly (Grade A Review)
"The Son is adeptly written, rife with conflict, and richly built on scads of historical detail. Meyer is unflinching in his portrayal of violence and its role in America's bedrock." - Austin American-Statesman
". . . a raw and gritty novel not for the faint-hearted." - Eagle (Bryan-College Station, Texas)
"Philipp Meyer offers a tale that spans generations and, in its own way, encapsulates the history of the state itself." - Los Angeles Times
"One of the most solid, unsparing pieces of American historical fiction to come out this century... a brilliant chronicle of Texas... stunning, raw and epic... The Son is vast, brave and, finally, unstoppable." - NPR
"An old-fashioned family saga set against the birth of Texas and the modern West, this is a riveting slow burn of love, power, and a legacy of violence spanning generations. Meyer is a writer of vast ambition and talent, and he has created nothing less than an American epic." - Parade
"There is an extravagant quantity of birth, death and bitter passion in Philipp Meyer's grand and engrossing Texas saga." - Wall Street Journal
