El Paso

De: Winston Groom

Narrado por: Robertson Dean

Three decades after the first publication of Forrest Gump, Winston Groom returns to fiction with this sweeping American epic.

Long fascinated with the Mexican Revolution and the vicious border wars of the early 20th century, Winston Groom brings to life a much-forgotten period of history in this sprawling saga of heroism, injustice, and love. An episodic novel set in six parts, El Paso pits the legendary Pancho Villa, a much-feared outlaw and revolutionary, against a thrill-seeking railroad tycoon known as the Colonel, whose fading fortune is tied up in a colossal ranch in Chihuahua, Mexico.

But when Villa kidnaps the Colonel's grandchildren in the midst of a cattle drive and absconds into the Sierra Madre, the aging New England patriarch and his adopted son head to El Paso, hoping to find a group of cowboys brave enough to hunt the generalissimo down.

Replete with gunfights, daring escapes, and an unforgettable bullfight, El Paso, with its textured blend of history and legend, becomes an indelible portrait of the American Southwest in the waning days of the frontier.

©2016 Winston Groom (P)2016 Recorded Books

Michener for today’s the pallet of today’s readers

Like a long involved Michener Novel (think Centennial). This story intertwined enough US and Mexican facts into the stories to creat a wonderful blend of humanity, in-humanity, romance, cowboys and our first American fly-people (you’ll understand if/when you read or listen. Another of those darned books that make you watch the page count, the remaining chapters...because you don’t want it to end. But it does end and, not as lightly as I might have wished but it ends well.

Entertaining Enough

This story was definitely entertaining enough to finish the book, but the plot had too many unexpected turns and the ending was bitter sweet. Some of the things that happened had me scratching my head and asking what was the point of XYZ...

awesome book!

love a good western, this was definitely entertaining! can't wait till it becomes a movie!

An unexpected pleasure

This book snuck up on me. My son suggested I read it but I thought it would be stale and boring. Groom’s writing style is a gift to us all. This needs to be a Netflix original! Wonderful story and definitely shows the grit of El Paso! A must read!

Excellent long saga of early California and Mexico! Excellent work again by Robertson Dean !

Excellent story of old west and Mexico plus Hollywood, you won’t be able to put it down so make sure you are all charged up! 😘😉

Great read for the road

There are many twists and turns in the lives of many characters that kept us listening throughout our road trip. The miles flew by because the book is well written.

excellent characters

the story starts very slow. if you're a western fan it is definitely worth the time.

Great read

Excellent novel. Fast paced, characters well developed and good story. Not really a historical novel but quite a few real life characters to make it interesting.
Will look forward to more books by this author.

Another Groom Success

Another fantastic novel by Winston Groom, only made better by the talented and supremely fitting narrator.

Good premise, but scatterbrained in narration

I have mixed feelings about this book. Although I liked the subject, at the midway point it’s starting to get very choppy. Some chapters are divided into several sections, and the way the narration was recorded, the point of view transitions are very quick and jarring.

Many of the supporting characters are thinly developed, and towards the end of the book they start dropping like flies. I have read a few books of this vein that include real historical people, and sometimes I can’t help but wonder if they feature so prominently because the author wants the name recognition. The last book I read about the Mexican border featured Patton and Pershing so often that they nearly hijacked the story. I am glad that did not happen here, but I was worried.

While I appreciate writers who try to give more exposure to ignore the aspects of American history and our shared history with Mexico, I felt this book tried to do a little too much at once. Some story elements that were introduced and built up at significant were concluded so hastily that I felt the author was trying to get them finished as quickly as possible. For example, the race between airplane and train is finished so quickly that it barely warrants a footnote. Johnny’s wife is the first significant hostage that is taken by Poncho Villa‘s army, but for most of the book after that she plays no significant role, despite Johnny’s rescue attempt being built up as a major plot development. When his three companions are conveniently killed by the bowl, that’s when I began to suspect that the book was losing focus.

As far as the narration goes, I appreciated the distinctiveness of every character’s voice. It made it easy to tell who was speaking.