Yellow Earth
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5.0 • 1 Rating
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- $21.99
Publisher Description
In Yellow Earth, John Sayles introduces an epic cast of characters, weaving together narratives of competing agendas and worldviews with lyrical dexterity, insight, and wit.
When rich layers of shale oil are discovered beneath the town of Yellow Earth, all hell breaks loose. Locals, oil workers, service workers, politicians, law enforcement, and get-rich-quick opportunists—along with an earnest wildlife biologist—commingle and collide as the population of the town triples overnight. Harleigh Killdeer, chairman of the tribal business council of the neighboring Three Nations reservation, entertains visions of "sovereignty by the barrel" and joins forces with a fast-talking entrepreneur. From casino dealers to activists and high school kids, everyone in the region is swept up in the unsparing wave of an oil boom.
Sayles’s masterful storytelling draws an arc from the earliest exploitation of this land and its people all the way to twenty-first-century privatization schemes. Through the intertwining lives of its characters, Yellow Earth lays bare how the profit motive erodes human relationships, as well as our living planet. The fate of Yellow Earth serves as a parable for our times.
Customer Reviews
Black and yellow
4.5 stars
Author
American. Independent film maker, screenwriter, novelist, short story writer, and some time actor. A creative guy in other words. This is his fifth novel.
Plot
Fracking comes to sleepy, rural North Dakota on the banks of the Missouri and adjacent to the Three Nations reservations. The author tells the story of the new black gold rush from the points of view of multiple participants from all walks of life and backgrounds as the flood of money sweeps all before it then recedes again. Capitalism Shrugged, you might say, with apologies to Ayn Rand. (There’s a Rand devotee in the book).
Characters
Harleigh Kildeer, Chairman of the Tribal Business Council and would-be entrepreneur is the main man, but there are numerous other well drawn characters (farmers, venal civic leaders, long distance truckers, oil men, strippers, sundry shills) competing for attention, all American to the core, one way or another.
Narrative
Third person, multiples POVs. Pacing builds and recedes in parallel with events.
Prose
Rollicking, witty effort by a master story teller. Shades of the USA trilogy by John Dos Passos.
Bottom line
Tour de force. I’m not American, which means I almost certainly failed to appreciate all the subtleties. I might given it five stars if I had.