The Son: A Novel
Written by Philipp Meyer
Narrated by Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Clifton Collins, Jr. and Scott Shepherd
4/5
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About this audiobook
The critically acclaimed, New York Times bestselling epic, a saga of land, blood, and power that follows the rise of one unforgettable Texas family from the Comanche raids of the 1800s to the oil booms of the 20th century.
Part epic of Texas, part classic coming-of-age story, part unflinching examination of the bloody price of power, The Son is a gripping and utterly transporting novel that maps the legacy of violence in the American west with rare emotional acuity, even as it presents an intimate portrait of one family across two centuries.
Eli McCullough is just twelve-years-old when a marauding band of Comanche storm his Texas homestead and brutally murder his mother and sister, taking him as a captive. Despite their torture and cruelty, Eli — against all odds — adapts to life with the Comanche, learning their ways, their language, taking on a new name, finding a place as the adopted son of the chief of the band, and fighting their wars against not only other Indians, but white men, too-complicating his sense of loyalty, his promised vengeance, and his very understanding of self. But when disease, starvation, and westward expansion finally decimate the Comanche, Eli is left alone in a world in which he belongs nowhere, neither white nor Indian, civilized or fully wild.
Deftly interweaving Eli's story with those of his son, Peter, and his great-granddaughter, JA, The Son deftly explores the legacy of Eli's ruthlessness, his drive to power, and his life-long status as an outsider, even as the McCullough family rises to become one of the richest in Texas, a ranching-and-oil dynasty of unsurpassed wealth and privilege.
Harrowing, panoramic, and deeply evocative, The Son is a fully realized masterwork in the greatest tradition of the American canon — an unforgettable novel that combines the narrative prowess of Larry McMurtry with the knife edge sharpness of Cormac McCarthy.
A HarperAudio production.
Editor's Note
Magisterial & unflinching...
Magisterial & unflinching, bloody & ruminative, a multi-generational story about the decline of a Texas dynasty & the formation of a state. That Meyer manages all this in one novel is nothing short of spectacular.
Philipp Meyer
Philipp Meyer is the author of the critically lauded novel American Rust, winner of the 2009 Los Angeles Times Book Prize. It was an Economist Book of the Year, a Washington Post Top Ten Book of the Year, and a New York Times Notable Book. He is a graduate of Cornell University and has an MFA from the University of Texas at Austin, where he was a James Michener Fellow. A native of Baltimore, he now lives mostly in Texas.
Reviews for The Son
579 ratings63 reviews
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A brilliant sprawling tale of a Great American Family. The Eli sections - a more accessible, less gruesome Blood Meridian - are so good that they outshine the other two strands quite dramatically, but it's fun flicking back and forth in time to see quite how the formidable patriarch's reputation was formed.
- Rating: 3 out of 5 stars3/5This long family saga set in Texas is primarily told from the point of view of three related characters of different generations. Unfortunately, I found the story of only one of the characters interesting and even that storyline sort of petered out. Eli McCullough is taken by the Comanche when he is 12 and lives with them until he is 16. I liked his description of life with his captors, who became his new family. His life after he returned to live with white people also had an interesting progression. In contrast, the lives of the other two protagonists had no progression at all and did not interest me very much. The story of Eli's son Peter is mostly about the murder of Mexicans by the white Texans who then stole their land. There was also Peter's affair with a Mexican woman, which probably wasn't a good idea for either of them. The chapters of the book dealing with Eli's great granddaughter were like episodes of Dallas - all money, politics and oil deals. Also there was a lot of whining about the problems of a woman in a man's world (which are hard to take seriously coming from someone enormously wealthy). I don't think the blurb does this book any favors by comparing it to the work of Larry McMurtry and Cormac McCarthy.I'd had this book for a while but only decided to read it when I heard about the upcoming TV series based on the book. After listening to the audiobook, I'm still undecided about whether or not I want to watch the series. I can easily see it sinking in a morass of sex and violence. The audiobook had multiple narrators and I particularly liked the narration of the Eli chapters by Will Patton.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I bought this book after watching the series The Son and I am so glad I did. This book has it all from the Indian raids to the settling of Texas. It is told by 3 people, Eli, his son Peter, and his great granddaughter Jeanne Anne. It tells the story of Eli being taken hostage by the Indians after his mother, sister and brother are killed. His life with the Indians and how he returned to his own kind and how he made his fortune. Although I think his life would have been kinder to him had he stayed with the Indians because his own children weren't kind to him at all. All in all a very good read with a few surprises at the end.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5One of the best ever.
- Rating: 4 out of 5 stars4/5A sweeping historical novel about the Texans, the Mexicans, the Indians and a family that lives through it all. Very engaging read! The story-line did a wonderful job of weaving together the generations across 250+ years of history. A very clever and insightful story. Highly recommended.
- Rating: 5 out of 5 stars5/5I read The Son because it was shortlisted for the Pulitzer and I'm doing that super-time-consuming-yet-fun-yet-frustrating Pulitzer winner vs. Shortlist thing in which I read the books that were shortlisted for the Pulitzer and decide if one of them is better than the winner. The Son was shortlisted in 2014 and I've now read both shortlisted books and the winner. I'll do an official comparison sometime in the next week but for now - The Son.This is a massive epic that spans, I don't even know how many years: lots? Yes, lots. It's the story of a Texas . . . not really town, but enormous parcel of land that once belonged to Mexico and by the end of the book is split up amongst a number of families. The story is told from numerous points of view, including the land owners, their various family members, and the Native Americans who were there long before any of these other jokers. This is a book with a much-needed cast of character list in the front so you can keep track not just of which character is narrating each chapter but what century it takes place in. The author did an excellent job of making this as easy to navigate as possible. I do love a book told from many perspectives but it can be done really terribly. That was certainly not the case here. I gave this book five stars on Goodreads because it was so easy to identify as a Very Good Book. The writing was solid, the character development was on point, and the author admirably made several conflicting impressions of the situation seem valid. That said, I can't say that I loved this book. It was very good. I never dreaded getting back to it. But I also didn't connect with any of the characters on a personal level. I didn't think about them when I wasn't reading the story and I wasn't disappointed to finish this book. I would absolutely recommend this book to a person who enjoys reading a very realistic Western where all guys are both good guys and bad guys, and to anyone who likes family dramas that span centuries.