Peter Grant\u2019s \u201cBrings the Lightning\u201d is a western.\u00a0 It is the story of a confederate soldier who heads west after the war to make a fresh start.\u00a0 Of course, this is well mapped territory.\u00a0 Recently I reviewed the movies and novel called \u201cTrue Grit\u201d and that broadly falls into this sub-genre.\u00a0 But a time-tested plot can still be entertaining. \u00a0What is required is the ingredients of any good story.\u00a0 The action needs to be interesting, the characters engaging and the writing style appropriate to the intended readers.\u00a0 For instance, if you intend to attract the extreme literary type reader to a tale of the west, then you probably select a highly introspective confederate protagonist.\u00a0 This will be the sort of hero who, when faced with danger, falls into a reverie and expounds (either to himself or to his companions) about the philosophical and theological ramifications of the action at hand.\u00a0 An extreme example of this would be the epic poems of Homer or Virgil.\u00a0 In these stories a hero will interrupt a battle to discuss his ancestry with the enemy.\u00a0 Doubtless there is some charm in this approach.\u00a0 This is not the style taken by Grant in the present book.\u00a0 The story tracks the progress of Walter Ames as he goes from cavalry soldier, to post-war civilian in the occupied south, to westbound settler.\u00a0 And the form of the narrative resembles the character of the protagonist.\u00a0 The approach is straightforward and direct.\u00a0 Ames encounters the altered reality of his new life and determines a plan for escaping it and overcoming his circumstances.\u00a0 He shows himself resourceful and flexible (as any good protagonist should) and proceeds to pick up the interrupted thread of his life and direct it where the great drama of the American West is being written. \u00a0During this action, we will become acquainted with the paraphernalia of settler life.\u00a0 We learn about how the great army surplus of the Civil War is made available to civilians (either legitimately or through bribery) and details of the weapons and transport equipment enlisted into the settlers\u2019 quest.\u00a0 We meet all sorts of people.\u00a0 There are riverboat gamblers, army officers and NCOs, tradesmen, craftsmen, thieves, murderers and schoolmarms.\u00a0 We meet trail scouts, freed black slaves, indian braves and outlaws from North and South.\u00a0 By the end of the story Ames has navigated from the Old South to the Rocky Mountains and gone from a young soldier in retreat to a tested and respected individual on the frontier.<\/p>\n
On the cover, we see the subtitle, \u201cThe Ames Archives Book One.\u201d\u00a0 So, this is a series.\u00a0 And the stage has been set for expansion of the plot in several directions and dimensions.\u00a0 It can be anticipated that several of the characters will have added importance later on and some unfinished business will resurface.\u00a0 All these things are expected and even necessary to expand the scope of the story to encompass some of the larger themes that exist within the western genre.\u00a0 But it\u2019s important to tell the potential reader what he\u2019s letting himself in for, more volumes.\u00a0 It\u2019s an episodic story in a planned series.<\/p>\n
Now for my opinion.\u00a0 I like it and recommend it.\u00a0 The prose is clean and uncluttered.\u00a0 The characters are sketched sufficiently and enjoyably.\u00a0 The subject matter is interesting and the plot contains enough excitement to justify its inclusion in this genre.\u00a0 It\u2019s a good western.\u00a0 But just to be perfectly clear, you\u2019re not getting James Joyce or Thomas Mann.\u00a0 This is more in the mold of Charles Portis.\u00a0 It\u2019s an adventure story.\u00a0 If that is what you are looking for and you have similar tastes to mine, you may be happy with this book.\u00a0 If you\u2019re looking for Hamlet, move on.<\/p>\n","protected":false},"excerpt":{"rendered":"
Peter Grant\u2019s \u201cBrings the Lightning\u201d is a western.\u00a0 It is the story of a confederate soldier who heads west after the war to make a<\/p>\n","protected":false},"author":1,"featured_media":0,"comment_status":"open","ping_status":"open","sticky":false,"template":"","format":"standard","meta":{"_mi_skip_tracking":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_active":false,"_exactmetrics_sitenote_note":"","_exactmetrics_sitenote_category":0,"footnotes":""},"categories":[241,5,237],"tags":[68,98,97],"class_list":["post-730","post","type-post","status-publish","format-standard","hentry","category-book-reviews","category-current-events","category-reviews","tag-book-review","tag-castalia-house","tag-westerns"],"yoast_head":"\n