Gerald Kolpan

Starts out terrifically with interesting historical based characters who promise an action packed engrossing read. Julius Meyer and his cousin Alexander are Jews leaving the Old World behind for the promise of the New. Alexander is a magician in training with his older brother, and will soon surpass him to become the world's most famous magician. Julius goes to the frontier to work in his brother's store but is kidnapped by the Ponca Indian tribe. Thanks to his amazing ability to quickly learn and speak like a native any language he is exposed to, he is adopted as a son by the Chief and becomes the tribe's translator.

Aside from the two Meyers being cousins, for which there is no historical evidence, this is evidently all true. What a great setup! Kolpan also introduces good fictional characters to play significant roles in his story. Lady-Jane is a Ponca Indian who is forced into prostitution in the white world as a girl and who later becomes Alexander's assistant. She has a troubling inclination towards taking violent vengeance on those she believes have wronged her. Chased By Owls is a remorseless Ponca warrior, representing those Indians who refused to bend the knee to the white government and its untrustworthy promises.

The sympathetic parallels between the situation of Jews in a Christian Europe and Native Americans in a white North America are believably illuminated.

The usually entertaining story moves quickly. For readers accustomed to the leisurely pace of much literary fiction, it moves astonishingly quickly. This left me disappointed at times. For instance, when Julius is kidnapped by the Ponca he is treated poorly and naturally would like nothing better than to get back home. After his facility with language is discovered and the chief announces he will adopt him, the story instantly leaps many months ahead and we find Julius with a fierce and loving attachment to the Ponca, refusing to go back to his birth family. That is a major character transition, and there is not a page given to that process.

The ending becomes rather soap opera like. Alexander's EVIL brother Comparrs makes trouble. But really he's not half as evil as our author makes out. Maybe not even a quarter, unless he's got a secret slavery operation off on the side. A new love interest gets misty-eyed, pressing her wet face into a manly lapel. Well that was unfortunate.

Overall though this is a fun read, pretty well balanced between light entertainment and Things Worth Thinking About.… (mais)

Recently my daughter and I had a movie night together and watched Butch Cassidy and the Sundance Kid (aside: they don't make 'em like Messrs. Newman and Redford anymore). Love that movie, and always have. It reminded me that buried in a pile somewhere was Etta, which a dear LT friend had read and reviewed years and years ago, so I dug it out.

Hardly anything is known about Etta Place, companion to Mr. Harry Longabaugh, aka the Sundance Kid. Here, Gerald Kolpan imagines her life as a sweeping saga beginning in wealth and privilege and driven to outlaw life following pursuit by the mafia and a stint as a Harvey Girl. The book is fun, if far-fetched, and Etta is a very strong character who lives life on her own terms, conducting herself with grace and grit. I do enjoy books that mix the real with the fictional -- Etta here is mostly fiction as so little is known about her, and in addition to Cassidy and Sundance, she mixes with Eleanor Roosevelt, "Buffalo" Bill Cody, and Charles Siringo, the famous Pinkerton detective.

I enjoyed the book but... this quibble is perhaps unfair: I often resist watching movie or TV adaptations of books because the production rarely matches the story as I've created it in my head. This book suffers from the reverse. I love the movie so much that the book just doesn't fit into the same place in my brain occupied by Butch Cassidy, the Sundance Kid, and Ms. Etta Place.… (mais)