The Son
In which I learn not to trust rave reviews
I got sucked in by the rave reviews and picked up Philipp Meyer’s The Son. “Stands fair to hold its own in the canon of Great American Novels.” “Gorgeously gritty prose,” said another. This one sold me, “Like Cormac McCarthy’s Blood Meridian. . . .” You can probably see where I’m heading. The Son shouldn’t be in the GAN canon, its prose isn’t gorgeous or particularly gritty, and Meyer doesn’t belong in the same sentence with McCarthy. I should have considered the sources. That “gritty prose” comment? It’s from O, the Oprah Magazine.
The Son tells an intergenerational story of a Texas clan, the McCulloughs, cycling chapter-by-chapter through three generations – Eli (born 1836), patriarchal founder who was kidnapped and raised by Comanches as a boy until his tribe died in an epidemic; Peter (born 1870), his son, haunted by his father’s extermination of the Garcia family, in love with Maria Garcia, the last of her family; and Jeanne Anne (J.A.), great-granddaughter of Eli, heir to the family fortune who transitions the family wealth from cattle to oil.
Sounds intriguing, no? I mean, a boy captured by Comanches! Gonna be great, amiright?