AmericanMeteor by Norman Lock
(Believe Literary Press, 2015, 208 pages, $27.99/10.99) is a
picaresque coming of age novel featuring narrator Stephen Moran, a
product of mid-nineteenth century Irish lower East Side of New York,
as a Western Forest Gump, hitting many of the historical highlights
of the westward expansion during and after the Civil War from
Manassas to the Little Big Horn. Along the way he meets and is
influenced by many of the seminal characters of that era, describing
in often flowery, luminous language his experiences as he develops.
While described as a “Western” novel, this worthy piece does not
strike me as the sort of heroic, shoot-em-up western my reading
experience has led me to expect with that designation. Rather, taking
a reflective view of the Civil War and the rush to subdue the Indians
while creating a continental nation, Lock creates a memorable
character who sees it all while providing a shimmering eulogy for the
loss of one America in order to create another.
Moran
is not much of an actor in his westward trip. Rather, he's an
observer, eventually becoming that most detached of observers, a
photographer capturing for posterity the events of a westward-bound
people. We first see him as an Irish street urchin at the beach in
Brooklyn where he observes a wild Walt Whitman proclaiming, to the
waves hitting the shore, his love for everything. Moran finds himself
in trouble, and sentenced to the Union Army where, because of his
youth and small stature, he becomes a bugler, one who sounds the
charge and proclaims the loss through his instrument. He's present at
Bull Run, trains endlessly in Washington under McClelland, and is
wounded in the Wilderness, where he loses an eye under rather unclear
circumstances, but a pervasive image thoughout the novel. While in
the hospital, he's nursed back to health by Whitman, who gives him a
copy of Leaves of Grass, providing
him with a wealth of imagery and understanding of American
expansiveness which yields him insights throughout the rest of his
journey. When Lincoln is assassinated, Stephen is there to play the
bugle and Grant awards him with an undeserved Medal of Honor, which
lubricates his stature. He's chosen to accompany Lincoln's body back
to Springfield, playing taps along the way at each stop, while riding
in the funeral car as Lincoln decomposes.
In
Springfield, Moran meets photographer William Henry Jackson, who
teaches the skills of photography and makes him an apprentice.
Traveling west with Jackson, Moran encounters railroad tycoon Thomas
Durant, who hires him as a waiter on his private rail car. As he
travels west, Moran experiences the destruction of the buffalo herds,
the exploitation of Chinese workers (where he meets a Chinese
laundryman reminiscent of Lee in John Steinbeck's East of
Eden, whose wisdom is masked
behind an assumed ignorance and pidgin English), and finally that
greatest of all self-glorifying Americans, George Armstrong Custer,
who Stephen sees as the destroyer of the West, as well as Crazy
Horse, its potential savior. Throughout this evocative novel, Stephen
Moran observes, comments, and learns, while never truly
participating. His often trenchant, humorous, and insightful
commentary on the westward migration and its relationship to American
Exceptionalism make up the core of this thought provoking and
intriguing book.
Norman Lock
Norman
Lock is
the award-winning author of novels, short fiction, and poetry, as
well as stage, radio, and screen plays. He has won The Dactyl
Foundation Literary Fiction Award, The
Paris Review Aga
Khan Prize for Fiction, and writing fellowships from the New Jersey
State Council on the Arts, the Pennsylvania Council on the Arts, and
the National Endowment for the Arts. He lives in Aberdeen, New
Jersey.
(publisher profile)
Norman
Lock has created a tightly written episodic journey through a crucial
part of American history in American
Meteor (Believe Literary
Press, 2015, 208 pages, $27.99/10.99). It's literary fiction, filled
with allusions, imagery, and scraps of Walt Whitman's poetry, usrf to
illustrate and enhance many of protagonist Stephen Moran's
adventures. I almost put it down at the beginning, but decided to
continue, and am glad I did. Moran's observations and experiences
enrich the reader's understanding of the meaning of our move westward
to build while destroying. I read American
Meteor as an electronic
galley on my
Kindle app provided by the publisher through Edelweiss.
I recommend this book for readers who enjoy literary fiction
surrounding our westward migration and post-Civil War period.
No comments:
Post a Comment