About the Book
THE NEW YORK TIMES BESTSELLER
The critically acclaimed, New York Times-bestselling epic, a saga of land, blood and power, follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the oil booms of the 20th century.
Eli McCullough is just twelve years old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead, brutally murder his mother and sister and take him captive. Despite their torture and cruelty, Eli - against all odds - adapts to life with the Comanche, learning their ways and language, taking on a new name, finding a place as the adopted son of the band's chief and fighting their wars against not only other Indians but white men too, which complicates 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 nor fully wild.
Deftly interweaving Eli’s story with those of his son Peter and his great-granddaughter JA, The Son maps the legacy of Eli’s ruthlessness, his drive to power and his lifelong status as an outsider, even as the McCullough family rises to become one of the richest in Texas, a ranching and oil dynasty that is as resilient and dangerous as the land they claim. Yet, like all empires, the McCulloughs must eventually face the consequences of their choices.
Panoramic, deeply evocative and utterly transporting, The Son is a masterpiece American novel - part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story - that combines the narrative prowess of Larry McMurtry with the knife-edge sharpness of Cormac McCarthy.
'Stunning ... a book that for once really does deserve to be called a masterpiece' Kate Atkinson
'Magnificent ... McCarthy's Border Trilogy is a point of reference, as is There Will Be Blood, but it is not fanciful to be reminded of certain passages from Moby-Dick - it's that good'The Times
'Brilliant ... a wonderful novel' Lionel Shriver
About the Author :
Philipp Meyer grew up in Baltimore, dropped out of high school and attended Cornell, where he studied English. Since graduating, Meyer has worked as a derivatives trader and a construction worker. His writing has been published in McSweeney's, The Iowa Review, Salon, and New Stories from the South. From 2005-2008 Meyer was a fellow at the Michener Center for Writers in Austin, Texas. He lives near Ithaca in New York State.
Review :
‘The Son is an epic, heroic, hallucinatory work of art’ Chris Cleave
'Stunning ... a book that for once really does deserve to be called a masterpiece' Kate Atkinson
‘Only in the greatest of historical novels do we come to feel both the distance of the past and our own likely complicity in the sins of a former age, had we been a part of it. To that rank, we now add The Son’ New York Times
‘A work of extraordinary narrative power and contrasts . . . the power of this remarkable and beautifully wrought novel is that we remember in its careful dissection of imperial power, our innate potential for moral courage and companionship’ Guardian
‘Texas flows not with milk and honey, but with cattle and oil, and blood. Philipp Meyer’s magnificent, sprawling epic tells the story of the battle for those riches and the price of them . . . His previous novel, American Rust . . . drew comparisons with Steinbeck, but The Son is something else again. Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy is a point of reference, as is There Will Be Blood, but it is not fanciful to be reminded of certain passages from Moby-Dick – it’s that good’ The Times
‘A pulverising epic of the American West. Its viscerality and boundless capacity for storytelling puts it on a par with that classic of the genre, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian . . . In Eli, Meyer has created a picaresque antihero of crackling ambition and unspoken losses. He remains the bedrock of this work, right up to its eerie, heart-stopping finish’ Sunday Telegraph
'The Son makes a viable claim to be a Great American Novel... an extraordinary orchestration of American history' Washington Post
‘An epic in the tradition of Faulkner and Melville, this is the work of a writer at the height of his power’ Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds ‘Unforgettable . . . An epic revision of Texan history seen through the eyes of three related narrators, this depicts the landscape of the oil state as a setting for the relentless pursuit of power in which nobody emerges without blood on their hands . . . a deeply sympathetic portrayal of human relationships’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Leaps about in time with enviable assurance, evoking the Spartan vistas of Cormac McCarthy and Peter Mathiessen while maintaining its own powerful voice’ Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
‘Members of a Texas clan grope their way from the ordeals of the frontier to celebrity culture’s absurdities in this masterly multigenerational saga’ New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2013
‘Essentially a multigenerational western, it is both his immersive fascination with the collision between the Comanche and their settler adversaries in 1850s Texas, and the modern liberties he takes with speech and dialogue that make for an astonishingly involved, if blood-soaked, read’ Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year
‘Brilliant . . . In an epic tale spanning seven generations, Meyer achieves an admirable neutrality . . . Just like Meyer’s riveting 2009 debut American Rust, this is a wonderful novel’ Financial Times
‘Meyer is an impressive and multi-talented storyteller in the old, good sense – the kind that makes me hang on for whatever the next chapter will hold’ Richard Ford
‘A remarkable, beautifully crafted novel. Meyer tackles large movements of American history and culture yet also delivers page-turning delights of story and character’ Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain
‘As epic as the sweep of the American west, Meyer’s second novel thunders through the years as Native Americans and white settlers fight for Texan lands’ Financial Times Books of the Year
‘The Son is an epic, heroic, hallucinatory work of art’ Chris Cleave
‘Only in the greatest of historical novels do we come to feel both the distance of the past and our own likely complicity in the sins of a former age, had we been a part of it. To that rank, we now add The Son’ New York Times
‘A work of extraordinary narrative power and contrasts . . . the power of this remarkable and beautifully wrought novel is that we remember in its careful dissection of imperial power, our innate potential for moral courage and companionship’ Guardian
‘Texas flows not with milk and honey, but with cattle and oil, and blood. Philipp Meyer’s magnificent, sprawling epic tells the story of the battle for those riches and the price of them . . . His previous novel, American Rust . . . drew comparisons with Steinbeck, but The Son is something else again. Cormac McCarthy’s Border Trilogy is a point of reference, as is There Will Be Blood, but it is not fanciful to be reminded of certain passages from Moby-Dick – it’s that good’ The Times
‘A pulverising epic of the American West. Its viscerality and boundless capacity for storytelling puts it on a par with that classic of the genre, Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian . . . In Eli, Meyer has created a picaresque antihero of crackling ambition and unspoken losses. He remains the bedrock of this work, right up to its eerie, heart-stopping finish’ Sunday Telegraph
‘An epic in the tradition of Faulkner and Melville, this is the work of a writer at the height of his power’ Kevin Powers, author of The Yellow Birds ‘Unforgettable . . . An epic revision of Texan history seen through the eyes of three related narrators, this depicts the landscape of the oil state as a setting for the relentless pursuit of power in which nobody emerges without blood on their hands . . . a deeply sympathetic portrayal of human relationships’ Scotland on Sunday
‘Leaps about in time with enviable assurance, evoking the Spartan vistas of Cormac McCarthy and Peter Mathiessen while maintaining its own powerful voice’ Daily Telegraph Books of the Year
‘Members of a Texas clan grope their way from the ordeals of the frontier to celebrity culture’s absurdities in this masterly multigenerational saga’ New York Times 100 Notable Books of 2013
‘Essentially a multigenerational western, it is both his immersive fascination with the collision between the Comanche and their settler adversaries in 1850s Texas, and the modern liberties he takes with speech and dialogue that make for an astonishingly involved, if blood-soaked, read’ Sunday Telegraph Books of the Year
‘Brilliant . . . In an epic tale spanning seven generations, Meyer achieves an admirable neutrality . . . Just like Meyer’s riveting 2009 debut American Rust, this is a wonderful novel’ Financial Times
‘Meyer is an impressive and multi-talented storyteller in the old, good sense – the kind that makes me hang on for whatever the next chapter will hold’ Richard Ford
‘A remarkable, beautifully crafted novel. Meyer tackles large movements of American history and culture yet also delivers page-turning delights of story and character’ Charles Frazier, author of Cold Mountain
‘As epic as the sweep of the American west, Meyer’s second novel thunders through the years as Native Americans and white settlers fight for Texan lands’ Financial Times Books of the Year
