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Summary
Summary
In the mid-1950s, America was flush with prosperity and saw an unbroken line of progress clear to the horizon, while the West was still very much wild. In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates that time and untamed landscape, in a tale of the modern and the ancient, of love and fate, and of heritage threatened by progress.
Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist on her way to Montana, with a huge task before her--a canyon "as deep as the devil's own appetites." Working ahead of a major dam project, she has one summer to prove nothing of historical value will be lost in the flood. From the moment she arrives, nothing is familiar--the vastness of the canyon itself mocks the contained, artifact-rich digs in post-Blitz London where she cut her teeth. And then there's John H, a former mustanger and veteran of the U.S. Army's last mounted cavalry campaign, living a fugitive life in the canyon. John H inspires Catherine to see beauty in the stark landscape, and her heart opens to more than just the vanished past. Painted Horses sends a dauntless young woman on a heroic quest, sings a love song to the horseman's vanishing way of life, and reminds us that love and ambition, tradition and the future, often make strange bedfellows. It establishes Malcolm Brooks as an extraordinary new talent.
Author Notes
Malcolm Brooks was raised in the rural foothills of the California Sierras, and grew up around Gold Rush and Native American artifacts. A carpenter by trade, he has lived in Montana for most of two decades. His writing has appeared in Gray's Sporting Journal , Outside , Sports Afield , and Montana Quarterly , among others.
Reviews (4)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Brooks's debut captures the grandeur of the American West. Catherine Lemay, a former pianist, goes to Montana in the 1950s as a young archeologist to survey a valley for signs of native habitation before the area is flooded by a hydroelectric project. Catherine fell in love with archeology while digging at Roman sites in Britain as a student, but now in the ruggedly masculine West, she almost immediately butts heads with her assigned guide, Jack Allen. She also falls under the spell of John H., an artist and lover of horses who leads a nomadic life in the badlands. Catherine's arduous search of the valley is contrasted for much of the novel with John H.'s harrowing life story. When the two meet, intrigue sparks respect, which eventually flares into passion. The middle of the novel bogs down with lavish description ("The tilt of the planet had outrun the legs of winter and dawn climbed early now over the wide lip of the world"), and the third act, in which Catherine's findings threaten the balance of money and power in the community, follows a predicable course. But on the whole, this is a debut that captures a spirit of a place. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Booklist Review
Set in an American West of the 1950s but carrying vestiges of the nineteenth century, and with Indian artifacts and the ancestry of wild horses going back even earlier, much of this novel, like its milieu, has a timeless feel. Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist hired to explore a Montana canyon slated for damming and destruction, although she may have been hired specifically to find nothing, no evidence of why some of the local Crow Indians oppose construction of the dam. She is aided by Miriam, a young Crow woman (whose centenarian great-grandmother connects back to the Greasy Grass and Custer), and assisted (or not) by local horsemen and townspeople with a variety of interests in the land's future. Two of the horsemen, including the enigmatic John H, served together in the mounted cavalry in wartime Italy, and, though some readers will rightly find in Brooks' themes suggestions of Jim Harrison or Cormac McCarthy, the lengthy wartime flashbacks nicely recall vintage Hemingway. The book loses some credibility as it develops more contemporary plot elements, but its vividly drawn atmosphere and strong characters will keep the reader engaged.--Levine, Mark Copyright 2014 Booklist
Kirkus Review
A mid-1950s oater that wants to comeover all cowboy and sensitive at the same time.Catherine Lemay, the heroine ofBrooks' debut, is a young archaeologist who's seen the aftermath of war pokingaround in the rubble of London. John Hshe thinks it could stand for "horses,"but "hell raiser" is a reasonable candidaterides the Western fence line,following the mustangs. He's known war up close, a member of the last Americanhorse cavalry unit to see combat, fighting the Germans in Italy. It stands toreason that, Montana being a small state and all, they'll meet and becomeintertwined like two wind-blasted strands of barbed wire. When Mr. H funs, hefuns, but when he and Catherine get serious, well.There's plenty to be seriousabout apart from sad reflections on the war, for a dam is coming to the couleein which the mustangs run, and both Catherine and John H have to make a stand:Do they serve progress, or do they fight for what's real about the West? Brooksdoes a good job of plotting, following parallel stories that speak to thatlarge question through characters who are more than just symbolsthough they'rethat, too. There's some fine writing here, especially when it comes to horsesand the material culture that surrounds them, and when it comes to Westernlandscapes, too, for Brooks knows that in good Western writing, the land isalways a character. There's also some overwriting, along the lines of "[s]hewanted Audrey Williams to keep talking, wanted to know her story too, thefragments and pieces and the buried mysteries, wanted the whole vicarioustreasure of it." A little of that goes a long way, especially when Brooksplaces himself inside Catherine's headand, from time to time, elsewhere in herbody.It's a sight better than TheBridges of Madison County, but it's a kindred project: Boy meets girl underopen sky, boy kisses girl, girl emotes, and then it's a whole new shootingmatch. Copyright Kirkus Reviews, used with permission.
Library Journal Review
Brooks's wonderful debut novel is set in the modernizing Montana of the 1950s. Catherine, a passionate yet sheltered young archaeologist, is sent west by a power company to investigate a canyon before it is destroyed to make a dam. John, a gruff yet sensitive cowboy, leads her to ruins that the two eventual lovers must fight the power company to preserve. Much of the story is told in flashbacks to Catherine's break with her strict upbringing to pursue archaeology or John's horseback Nazi hunting during World War II. Stirring descriptions of horses and Western landscapes echo the characters' preservationist motives. Julia Whelan portrays the many characters of the novel deeply and distinctly. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Westerns, archaeology, historical romances, or horse epics.-Mark Swails, Johnson Cty. Community Coll., Overland Park, KS (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.
