#2 News of the World by Paulette Jiles

A galley of News of the World sat on my shelves for almost a year and, for whatever reason, I just didn’t pick it up. But I’m glad I finally did, it’s a charming book.

The premise: “In the aftermath of the American Civil War, an aging itinerant news reader agrees to transport a young captive of the Kiowa back to her people in this morally complex, multi-layered novel of historical fiction from the author of Enemy Women that explores the boundaries of family, responsibility, honor, and trust.”

At first I was apprehensive that the young girl/older man narrative would veer into cringe-worthy sexual territory, but thankfully it never did. The aging news reader character, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd, surprised and delighted me. Kidd’s view of the world is wider than the characters around him, he reads the news aloud to crowds, verbally presenting the world to those who cannot read and/or have no access to newspapers. Because of this world view, his lens positions the story within a bigger historical context and provides insight into that particular time in that part of the Southwest. We get a glimpse of the eradication of Native American tribes, the ramifications of slavery, the appropriation of Mexico, the violent grab for land, power, people, money, all at the complex intersection of new and old, of civilization and wilderness.

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