The Son by Philipp Meyer

This long Phillip Meyer novel set in Texas is often a page-turner and fun to read, yet I feel that much of the positive hype that surrounds it is undeserved. I would certainly not classify it as "The Great American Novel" or "an epic in the tradition of Faulkner and Melville."

It's hard to know what opinion I might have if I lived in Wisconsin or New York City, for instance, but since I have lived all my life in Texas I'm sure my opinion is skewed. This is how a native Texan sees it. Yet another "foreigner" has written a multi-generational Texas epic, following in the footsteps of Edna Ferber and James Michener. This author is from Baltimore, and even though he now lives "mostly in Texas," he continues the tradition of presenting unflattering stereotypes of Texans. None of the characters are admirable, not even the titular son, the only one with a conscience. Really, you guys, surely some Texans manage to be both successful and honorable.

The action follows three members of the McCullough family: Eli, born in 1836, the first male child of the new Republic of Texas; Peter, son of Eli, born in 1870, heir to infamy as well as to a fortune; and Jeanne Anne, granddaughter of Peter, born in 1926, a woman constantly striving to be accepted as "one of the boys."

The story of Eli, told in first person, is the most riveting, recounting his captivity at age 13 by the Comanche and his life as an accepted member of the tribe. Obviously (sometimes too obviously), much authorial research went into this portion of the story, and the details of Comanche life are vivid and absorbing. Once Eli is returned to white society, the story becomes less interesting, being an account of his overweening ambition and pragmatically ruthless opportunism and outright thievery as he amasses a fortune.

Peter's story is told in first person through his journals, beginning when he accompanies his father Eli and a group of vigilantes on a raid against a wealthy Mexican neighbor because of suspected cattle rustling, as they slaughter all in sight, including the women and children. Though he is tortured by guilt, Peter lacks the strength of character or courage to do anything to stop the carnage or Eli's subsequent fraudulent takeover of the neighbor's vast ranch. In fact, Peter is perhaps fully as blameworthy as the other characters because he recognizes injustice but weakly allows it, doing little more than wringing his hands.

Meyer switches to third person to tell Jeanne Anne's story, which is very definitely the least interesting of the three strands. Her life is extraordinarily uneventful, her ruling ambition not being to make yet more money but being to gain recognition from the male power brokers of Texas as one of their equals. In her attempt to do so, she, also, tramples on the rights of others. Poor little rich girl--making money hand over fist and she still can't get respect. The structure of the novel, which switches from character to character, ingeniously cloaks the weakness of the Jeanne Anne segments in between the more interesting sections.

The apparent theme of the novel, that all land and wealth is acquired by stealing it from someone else, is repeated numerous times in different contexts. In Texas, Indians had stolen the land from other Indians, the Mexicans then stole it from the Indians, and the Texans then stole it from the Mexicans. Blood watered the land and only the most ruthless survived.

Undoubtedly, variations of this scenario have always existed everywhere. And yet this bleak picture of humanity is not the whole story of any land, nor does it reflect the entirety of the history of Texas, despite what the television show Dallas and novels by Yankees might have you believe.