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Title: Gabriel's Story by David Anthony Durham ISBN: 0-385-72033-5 Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 30 April, 2002 Format: Paperback Volumes: 1 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.81 (16 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: All glowing book review cliches apply
Comment: Page-turner, can't put it down, tour de force, and all those other cliches apply to Gabriel's Story. Actually, I could put it down, but only because I had to. Couldn't wait to pick it up again.
Gabriel's Story is an amazing adventure -- perfectly plausible -- of a teen aged African American in the 1870's who leaves his family's Kansas farm unannounced. He and a friend join a crew of cowboys headed for Texas....
How to tell more of the book without giving away bits and pieces of the story that is best discovered by the reader? Can't be done.
Suffice it to say that Gabriel sees and experiences more than he could ever had imaganed. He is handicapped by racism, his youth and inexperience, but boasts the distinct advantages of intelligence and a good heart.
If you're overly sensitive to violence, beware; but it all rings true to the times and is never gratuitous.
Now stop reading reviews of the book and buy it, you'll be glad you did.
Rating: 5
Summary: Altogether a really good novel.
Comment: I picked up this book after reading the USA Today review, which was essentially an unconditional rave. I decided to give it a try, but figured I'd probably be disappointed, as few books live up to the praise heaped on them. But GABRIEL'S STORY was a pleasant surprise. It begins with vivid homesteading scenes - all the toil and the poverty of it. Makes me glad I wasn't a homesteader, and it made it reasonable that Gabriel would want to run away from it. The journey that he sets off on is truly engrossing, well-plotted, with beautiful language and great descriptions of the Western landscape.
It looks like the novel is being compared to Cormac McCarthy's work. There are some similarities, but GABRIEL'S STORY is a bit more hopeful than McCarthy's work. The world is still harsh and dangerous, but Durham seems to have more faith in humanity, in family and friends. Also, I thought it was interesting that the reviewer in USA Today said that he was a city-dwelling white guy that still got into this book about a black boy in another century out on the plains. I felt the same way. Yes, the main characters are black, but their racial identity is only part of the whole world of the story. They're black like James Joyce's characters are Irish or Faulkner's are Southern - it matters, but it doesn't change the fact that anybody can connect with them. Altogether a really good novel.
Rating: 5
Summary: Finally. Talent!
Comment: The characters a full-bodied and mature. The story is heart-breaking and real to the core. One sympathizes with the protagonists and wishes the antagonists straight to hell. Now that is what I call a good novel. Durham has done a fabulous job...
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Title: Peace Like a River by Leif Enger ISBN: 0802139256 Publisher: Grove Press Pub. Date: 20 August, 2002 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Walk Through Darkness by David Anthony Durham ISBN: 038572036X Publisher: Anchor Books/Doubleday Pub. Date: 12 August, 2003 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Kit's Law by Donna Morrissey ISBN: 0618109277 Publisher: Mariner Books Pub. Date: 01 May, 2001 List Price(USD): $13.00 |
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Title: Postcards from No Man's Land by Aidan Chambers ISBN: 0525468633 Publisher: Dutton Books Pub. Date: 01 June, 2002 List Price(USD): $19.99 |
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Title: Motherland by Vineeta Vijayaraghavan ISBN: 1569472831 Publisher: Soho Press Pub. Date: 01 May, 2002 List Price(USD): $12.00 |
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