Evan S. Connell (1924–2013)

This very skilled rendering of the modern wife in early to mid-century America pulls out a lot of the continuing themes of modernism: the power of conformity, the elimination of God, alienation, communities built out of exclusivity, the broken family. Consumerism is one of the many dead ends in this novel. It's heroine,India Bridges, seems forever on the edge of screaming "I give in!" without knowing exactly who is pulling the strings around her. She is a great mirror and that, I think, is why we cannot put the book down.… (más)

Too few historians focus on honing the craft of writing. Too often, it is the novelists and journalists who know how to tell the story. Sadly, these good writers often over-estimate their historical research skills. Fortunately, the novelist Evan S. Connell was no slouch when it came to writing history. Son of the Morning Star is a rambling, dry-wit recount of the horrific Battle of the Little Bighorn in 1876 – "Custer’s last stand".

This fantastic book tells the story through anecdotes, half-heard rumours, and malicious lies. It is by no means chronological in the usual sense. In fact, negative reviewers of the book accuse it of being a hodge-podge, all over the place, lacking in clear chronology, etc. It absolutely is those things, but successfully. I knew next to nothing about Custer, the battle, the campaign, or America in the 1870s. Yet I learnt a lot despite the lack of the usual historical guideposts in this book.

The reality that Connell was trying to get across to us is that this battle and everything associated with it had been mythologised out of all perspective in the century preceding this book’s publication. In such an atmosphere, perhaps the best way of approaching the history was to report on the myths, the rumours, the colourful characters, and the ways it has all been retold over time.

By repeating the tall tales, and reporting the rumours, rehashing the lies, and so on (but always with a skeptical eye), Connell brings to us the complexities of the past. A pessimist might say that Son of the Morning Star shows the utter futility of historical research.

You don’t know what the 1870s were like. Nor do I. Nor did Evan S. Connell. And, truthfully, we can’t know. However, I don’t read this as a pessimistic book. The myths, the lies, the self-aggrandisement (not just Custer’s), and the uncertainty are the story. And Connell’s method of relating them to us is precisely what is needed.

Connell’s book is often described as a masterpiece. It means nothing for me to add my voice to the crowds of people acclaiming his work. On a personal level, though, reading this book was mind-expanding. It helped me see what history could be.… (más)