Paulette Jiles is a new author for me. In addition to being a novelist, she is a poet and memoirist. Her writing style is spare, but she can craft complete characters with few words. The novel is a new movie starring Tom Hanks (the reason I bought the book).
The setting is five years after the Civil War – in Texas. Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd is an old man who travels from small town to small town giving readings from newspapers of the day (or past month or two). He agrees to take a ten-year-old child to her relatives over 400 miles away. She was kidnapped six years earlier by Kiowa raiders. The story takes Captain Kidd and Johanna over the dangerous terrain. The times are also extremely dangerous. It was well worth reading. I enjoyed the writing style.
Thanks for your blog, nice to read. Do not stop.