The Son

By: Philipp Meyer

Narrated by: Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, Clifton Collins Jr.

Length: 17 hrs and 48 mins

Publisher's summary

Audie Award Finalist, Literary Fiction, 2014

Soon to be a TV Series on AMC starring Pierce Brosnan and co-written by Philipp Meyer.

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.

©2013 Philipp Meyer (P)2013 HarperCollinsPublishers

Great book

Truly a captivating narration, beautiful story, at times so gritty and harsh that it felt like being there. It has been a long time since I’ve enjoyed listening to a book like this!

Great story.

I liked the actors who read and the authenticity of the story kept it real besides idealizing the settling of Texas.

"Each of us walks in our own fire"

Philipp Meyer's The Son (2013) is an absorbing historical novel about the history of Texas (Indians, Mexicans, whites, nature, cattle, land, oil, blood, etc.) told via three different narrative modes and writing styles from three different point of view characters from three different generations of the McCullough family. (And late in the book a fourth one appears.) As indicated by the epigraph to the novel, a quotation from Gibbon's The Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire ("the vicissitudes of fortune, which spares neither man nor the proudest of his works. . . buries empires and cities in a common grave"), Meyer takes no sanguine view of the sanguinary history of Texas and the McCulloughs (and of America, the world, and humanity in general).

The first voice of the novel belongs to Colonel Eli McCullough, who in 1936 at age one hundred is recording his autobiography for a WPA project. Thinking that his life has been too short, the self-proclaimed "heathen" begins by explaining how Texas became a republic, how his family came to be living in Comanche hunting grounds, and how the Indians captured him at thirteen in 1849. Eli's experiences are horrible, beautiful, and vivid. No idealized noble savages, the Comanche are human beings attuned to the natural world and capable of as much cruelty and kindness as any people. The details Eli relates about making bows and arrows, hunting, raiding, being a captive, using buffalo, making love, giving names, and so on, are mesmerizing and authentic-feeling. And he often evokes a terse beauty: "the water glassing over the stone, skunk tracks in the mud, a heron in a far pool. There was a bobcat ghosting through the willows, thinking no one saw him." Looking back in 1936, Eli feels the thinning of life in the world with the loss of the rich wilderness. "The human mind was open in those days. We felt every disturbance and ripple. Man today lives in a coffin of flesh, hearing and seeing nothing." If a fire came to destroy everyone on earth, he would pour coal oil on himself. As for his family, Eli knows what his son did, but he's not talking about it for the WPA.

The second point of view character introduced, with third person narration, is that of Eli's great-granddaughter, Jeanne Anne McCullough, an immensely wealthy eighty-six year old woman who in 2012 is lying paralyzed on the floor of the deserted family mansion, recalling and reflecting on her tomboy childhood, her admired great-grandfather, her all-consuming work, her big brothers, and her disappointing children. She has come to realize that, "The Colonel had been right; the only one you could depend on is yourself." As a woman trying to succeed in and be accepted by the male world of land and oil, she has not had an easy time. She thinks, "There had never been a place for a person like her." But fracking is for her an act of creation, and she doesn't care (too much) that some people view business empires like hers as evil. She has hired a man to write the history of her family, but for years he's only researched without writing anything; is he the "author" of the book we're reading? And what are the papers she regrets not having burned? As for her family, she knows that at one point her grandfather Peter McCullough (Eli's son) disappeared in disgrace, but tantalizingly prefers not to think about why.

The third narration is that of "The Son" of the title, Peter McCullough. Writing in his diary at age 45, the guilty pacifist Peter depicts painful events during the "bloody summer" of 1915, a time of horrific violence between white and Mexican Texans. With Peter trying to defuse a potential massacre ("the old family ritual"), he believes that his journal is the only true account of the McCulloughs. Not unlike Jeanne, he has often felt out of place: "I am an exile inside my own house, my own country." Unlike Jeanne and the Colonel, he believes that "This family must not be allowed to continue." Peter is given to morose self-criticism like, "Looking back on my forty-five years I see nothing worthwhile--what I had mistaken for a soul appears more like a black abyss--I have allowed others to shape me as they pleased. To ask the Colonel I am the worst son he has ever had." He says that he remembers everything, so when is he going to tell us what he did to become expunged from his family?

The haunting "western" music beginning and ending the audiobook is perfect, and the readers, Will Patton, Kate Mulgrew, Scott Shepherd, Clifton Collins Jr., are excellent, fully inhabiting the characters whose narratives they are relating. Will Patton is especially appealing as the laconic, leathery, masculine, and sensitive Eli.

I did find Jeanne and Peter and their stories less compelling than Eli and his. As Meyer rotates among the three characters, his novel reads like a fusion of Conrad Richter's The Light in the Forest, Cormac McCarthy's Blood Meridian, William Faulkner's Yoknapatawpha County family novels, and the movie Giant. In addition to telling the complex and gory story of the American west, Meyer's novel is about parents and children, the inexorability of fate, and the futility, greed, and destruction of human endeavor. Eli's last chapter is apocalyptic ("I looked into the book of the earth"). Human history consists of one people displacing another, whether Indians, Spanish, Mexicans, or Anglos, all parties being expert at atrocity. Meyer at times uses that kind of past to evoke a forlorn, numinous mood, as when Eli is digging graves and finds an ancient black cup: "Because it had lain there a thousand years or more it made Toshaway [his Comanche father] and all the others seem very young; as if they were young and there was still hope." People interested in American and western history full of detail, blood, love, and loss should like The Son.

Good story!

I enjoyed reading The Son. It had a great combination of gritty, cowboy and Indian story telling, and also a lush, nostalgic feel. I loved the descriptions by Eli, the book’s namesake, of the Texas countryside when the grasses were high and they went on forever. As Eli rides the plains with the Indians, the descriptions of the countryside seemed to evoke the now long gone beauty and purity of the natural surroundings. The Indians certainly weren’t romanticized, but one did get a feeling from reading this book that our lives now are smaller in many ways than back when the Indians ruled or roamed the plains. When Eli returns from his captivity, his life back with the whites seems so confining and almost stultifying.

Eli, although he has a good and moral side, is also a man who stops at nothing to get what he wants and stops at nothing to defend his family. His ultimate greed, violence, and excess sets up one of the novels themes of justice or payback. I love the way that justice plays out in the end. It’s like history looping back on itself as we finally find out what has happened to Jeanne McCullough, the Colonel’s (Eli’s) great -granddaughter.

I thought the ending of the book with the Colonel was perfect, too. The nine-year-old Indian boy following after the Colonel was like an echo of Eli’s earlier days and just seemed such a fitting way to end.

“When the people were finished we killed every living dog and horse. I took the chief’s bladder for a tobacco pouch; it was tanned and embroidered with beads. In his shield, stuffed between the layers, was Gibbon’s Decline and Fall of the Roman Empire.

WHEN THE SUN came up, we discovered a boy of nine years. We left him as a witness. At noon we reached the river and saw the boy had followed us with his bow—for twenty miles he had kept up with men on horseback—for twenty miles he had been running to his death. A child like that would be worth a thousand men today. We left him standing on the riverbank. As far as I know he is looking for me yet.”

(Kindle Locations 8290-8295).


This ending speaks to one of the major themes of the book, that of the rise and fall of empires. The empire could be the American west, the Comanche nation, OR , in this case, the McCullough family. All are doomed to fall. People are getting soft. This passage where Jeanne McCullough is thinking, states this change perfectly.

”But the slackening. By five she and her brothers were throwing loops. By ten she was at the branding fire. Her grandchildren were not good at anything and did not have much interest in anything either. She wondered if the Colonel would even recognize them as his descendants, felt briefly defensive for them, but of course it was true. Something was happening to the human race.

That is what all old people think, she decided…

When the first men arrived, she told them, there were mammoths, giant buffalo, giant horses, saber-toothed tigers, and giant bears. The American cheetah—the only animal on earth that could outrun a pronghorn antelope.

Her grandsons … went inside to watch television.”

(Kindle Locations 7882-7892).

Where the Colonel is hard and ruthless, His son, Peter, is almost the opposite. He has taken on the guilt of his father’s excesses and is compassionate and caring. I loved his character. I listened to the book and thought Peter’s voice was fantastic! What a great narrator. His voice seemed to take on the sadness and guilty burden that Peter carried with him. And I loved Peter’s story. Early on we find out the Peter has committed some act that has made him a pariah to the family. Since he seems so sensitive, moral, and thoughtful, it is hard to imagine what this act could be. That sets up a wonderful tension that carries on through the novel.

I just now saw a McCullough family tree diagram in the front of the Kindle edition! Seeing that earlier would have saved me a lot of initial confusion. The story sprawls out over many generations and flips back and forth a lot. I was listening to the book most of the time and was a bit confused until about 200 pages in as to who the characters were and how they fit together. It all fell into place, and I enjoyed putting together the puzzle pieces, but I think referring to the family tree in the beginning would have been great, too.

A lot of work to mentally tackle this book.

This story was too large of a time period to enjoy. There were so many characters in the novel that it was hard to remember who was who and in what time span. He could have written a mini series and focused on one time period per book instead.

It is definitely a bleak novel in following the history of the three members of the McCullough family. I was definitely glad when the novel was over. A lot of people raved about this book, however, I can only give it an average rating.

I love the narrator, Will Patton, but wish Phillipp Meyer had written a better book for him to read.

Wonderful

Would you recommend this audiobook to a friend? If so, why?

Absolutely. Epic, intense, everything an story should be.

What did you like best about this story?

I got lost in it. What other purpose does a good novel serve?

What about the narrators’s performance did you like?

The narration was top drawer. Now, after listening to about 30 audio books, I can wholeheartedly recommend "The Son" and "Far Pavilions" as having the best narration and production. I wish I could have heard more of that music! Why not make it available?

If you could take any character from The Son out to dinner, who would it be and why?

Eli, but I doubt he would have wanted to go!

Any additional comments?

Top notch, top drawer. I was born 100 years too late!

Uneven multi-generational story of the West

This multi-generational saga takes place in Texas from the 1850's and goes to the later part of the 20th century. It focuses on one family, and alternates narration and story from Eli, the patriarch, to his disappointing son, Peter, and to Eli's great-granddaughter Jeanne. Eli is captured as a boy by the Comanches and raised as a tribesman. Eli's story is by far the most engaging from start to end, and takes up about half the novel. Eli is a fearless boy and man, and goes on to be a major force in ranching and oil in Texas. Peter the son cannot get past an incident where his neighbors and townspeople slaughter a neighboring Mexican family. His sadness gets weary and boring, and this part only picks up with a love affair later in his life. Jeanne's story starts slowly but does gather steam up as she gets older and assumes the reins of her family. I like that Jeanne and Eli have some great qualities, but flaws as well, making them not totally likeable but believable. The novel jumps from one character to the next advancing each of those lives. There were so many parts of this novel that I loved, but too many times when I was impatient to return to a thread or character which was more interesting. The readers were very good. Only Peter's might have overdone the sad/whiny quality. The readers for Eli and Jeanne were excellent.

21st Century Version of Texas History

If you could sum up The Son in three words, what would they be?

I loved the naration by all of the characters. The story was compelling. I have suggested my friends read this book if this is the type of story they like.

What other book might you compare The Son to and why?

Family saga reminds my a bit of "New York the Novel" and "Carribean".

Which character – as performed by the narrators – was your favorite?

Eli's character was my favorite, but I liked the contrast between them all.

Any additional comments?

This was great for a long road trip.

Two "Son" books out at same time

What made the experience of listening to The Son the most enjoyable?

The narrators and the very, very interesting story.

What did you like best about this story?

My favorite part of this story was the description of life and customs within the Native American tribe.

Which scene was your favorite?

Many of the scenes in this book are very compelling. So compelling in fact that it is going to make it difficult to know what to leave out when the HBO series is made, which I am only hoping it will be. It is much too big a story for a single motion picture to do it justice.

Was this a book you wanted to listen to all in one sitting?

For me when a book is so good one hates to put it down, I tend to slow things down so as not to finish it too quickly. Great stories like this are just not being written every day. One look at any bestseller list reveals this truth.

Any additional comments?

Listen. Go slow. Don't let the three intertwining stories confuse you. It will all come together in the end just beautifully. Don't confuse this book with, "& Sons: A Novel" by David Gilbert which recently came out and is getting a great deal of attention.

Great story. Excellently read.

I listened to it two times, back-to-back. It was like I was listening to it for the first time.