News of the World

An Amazon Best Book of October 2016: I’ll admit, Paulette Jiles’s News of the World was not at the top of my to-read pile. It’s a post-Civil War western, the good guys are good, the bad guys are bad, and you can be sure the former will ride off into the sunset at the story’s end (Womp, Womp). But, what is wrong with that, you say? As it turns out, not a darn thing. Captain Jefferson Kyle is a war-weary widower, traveling from town to town reading relevant bits of news to paying customers. In one such town he is given a $50 dollar gold piece to ferry a kidnapped girl back to what’s left of her family--her parents and sister having been murdered by members of the Kiowa tribe--who spare the then 6-year-old and raise her as one of their own. Fast-forward four years and tribe life is the only life she knows, so she’s not about to go quietly with a stranger who doesn’t speak her language, whose motives she does not trust, and to a place that is not what she now considers home. Thus begins a seemingly ill-advised but transformative road trip where the mismatched pair eventually form and uneasy truce, then a not-so begrudging alliance, and finally something more wonderful that neither Captain nor kid could have imagined. Save for the carnage, this could be a great plot for Disney movie, and there is even a cinematic showdown thrown in for good measure. But in the complex world that we live in, sometimes it’s nice to know who is wearing the white hats, and who is wearing the black hats, and to root for someone who—out of a sense of duty, and later, love--is doing something pure and good. And that’s what News of the World is: Pure and good. --Erin Kodicek, The Amazon Book Review