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Title: The Last Crossing by Guy Vanderhaeghe, John Henry Cox, John Keating, Colin Lane, Tom McKeon, Simon Prebble, Chelsey Rives ISBN: 1-56511-853-7 Publisher: Penguin Audiobooks Pub. Date: February, 2004 Format: Audio CD Volumes: 10 List Price(USD): $36.95 |
Average Customer Rating: 4.55 (11 reviews)
Rating: 5
Summary: Duty, honor, and love, sublimely rendered
Comment: Once in awhile, a book comes along that haunts its readers' thoughts for years. The Last Crossing is such a book.
Set in the latter part of the 1800s, in the western U.S. and Canada, and in Victorian England, this is a tale of a a man lost in the wilderness, and those who seek to find him, including his very stiff British father, two very different brothers, a pair of star-crossed lovers, a quirky journalist, a saloon-keeper, and an Indian guide. They all suffer from painful pasts that taunt them into life-changing courses of action.
Telling the story from their own points of view, the characters look back at their own lives. This drives each of them to live up to their sense of duty, to defend their own honor, and ultimately to act in one way or another because they either love, or can't love.
Scenes of the early west tear at the heart--caravans, Indian villages, conflicts, battles, disease, death, tragedy, comic relief. And love, sometimes unrequited, and at a distance. There is one scene that will stay with me for years. In it, two lovers find each other, their desperate searches ending and beginning in an instant. The night air, the stars, the prairie wind and their hearts carry them to where they couldn't dream of going.
The characters speak with undeniable truth to and about themselves. They narrate, but also wonder about their own personal honor and how they can love despite their pasts and the hard lessons that duty and love teach them.
Rating: 5
Summary: Great novel about the real wild west
Comment: Set in the late 1800's around the character Simon Gaunt an idealistic young gentleman from England who goes as a missionary to the New World to convert Indians. He disappears and when no word is heard from him back at home, his father sends Simon's two brothers, his twin Charles and the elder brother Addington to the New World on a mission to find Simon and bring him home. "The Last Crossing" is the story of their journey away from civilization and into the raw wilderness. Some unforgettable scenes for me were the dance at Fort Edmonton, the "ghost village" where everyone had died of smallpox, the story of the Blackfoot going south past Salt Lake on a raid for horses, and the grizzly hunt.
The story is usually told in the first person, but with continually changing and fascinating viewpoints as there are 6 different main narrators - the two brothers Charles and Addington, - Jerry Potts, the half Blackfoot/half Scottish hired guide, - Lucy Stoveall, a woman with her own motivations for accompanying the posse, - Custis Straw who is in pursuit of Lucy, and Aloysius, the saloon owner going after Custis for his own protection. The characters are richly developed and believable, all completely different, some more likable than others.
I read this book in a day and a half, reading whenever I got an opportunity, it was so hard to put down and the ending was great and uplifting, filled with possibilities. Guy Vanderhaeghe is one of those authors whose books get better and better, I first read "Homesick", a moving family story, then "The Englishman's Boy", an intriguing look at early Hollywood and the wild west and now this "The Last Crossing", not just a western but really suspenseful historical literature.
Rating: 4
Summary: "A boom town draws rogues like a jam jar draws wasps."
Comment: Part historical drama, romance, and character study THE LAST CROSSING has a lot to offer - and rightly so. Hailed as a bestseller in Canada for two years and only recently published in the United States I've been waiting patiently to get my hands on a copy of this book and now I'm far from being disappointed. Guy Vanderhaeghe takes the reader on an adventure through the British Territory (Canada) filled with remarkable characters and wonderful prose. At the center of the novel are Charles and Addington Gaunt who are sent from England to North America in 1871 by their overbearing father to track down their missing brother Simon who has mysteriously disappeared.
After arriving Charles is distressed to learn that Addington is not as concerned about Simon; in fact, Addington has hired a writer to document his journey through the Frontier in an effort to later write a book. The Gaunt's caravan into the British Territory in search of Simon is without incident or danger. Vast and wild pastures filled with dueling Indian tribes and scrupulous whisky traders provide the grand backdrop to this impressive tale. To complement the depth and realization of the landscape Vanderhaughe does a great job of getting into the heads of his characters. I was deeply impressed with his depiction of Charles' torment and grief over his stressed relationship with Simon, and how he wishes he could mend the fences between them. Another successful aspect was how multiple narrators were utilized which enables the reader to gain a better-rounded perspective unlike the reliance of one narrator.
It's rare indeed that I become so enthralled while reading a book that I virtually sink into the prose and see the story unfolding in three-dimension around me, and that was exactly what happened each time I picked up this book. For this simple fact I wouldn't hesitate but recommend this book to others. It's been well worth the wait.
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Title: The Englishman's Boy : A Novel by Guy Vanderhaeghe ISBN: 0312195443 Publisher: St. Martin's Press Pub. Date: 15 September, 1998 List Price(USD): $14.00 |
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Title: Crofton's Fire by Keith Coplin ISBN: 0399151125 Publisher: Putnam Pub Group Pub. Date: 01 January, 2004 List Price(USD): $21.95 |
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Title: The Rope Eater by Ben Jones ISBN: 0385509774 Publisher: Doubleday Pub. Date: 30 December, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: The Great Fire: A Novel by Shirley Hazzard ISBN: 0374166447 Publisher: Farrar Straus & Giroux Pub. Date: 14 October, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.00 |
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Title: Last Car to Elysian Fields: A Novel by James Lee Burke ISBN: 0743245423 Publisher: Simon & Schuster Pub. Date: 30 September, 2003 List Price(USD): $24.95 |
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