All True Not a Lie in It
A Novel
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- 8,99 €
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- 8,99 €
Description de l’éditeur
The story of pioneer Daniel Boone’s life, told in his voice—a tall tale like no other, startling, funny, poignant, romantic and brawling—set during the American Revolutionary War
Here is Daniel Boone as you’ve never seen him: debut novelist Alix Hawley presents Boone’s life, from his childhood in a Quaker colony, through two stints captured by Indians as he attempted to settle Kentucky, the death of a son at the hands of the same Indians and the rescue of a daughter. The prose rivals Hilary Mantel’s and Peter Carey’s, conveying that sense of being inside the head of a storied historical figure about which much nonsense is spoken while also feeling completely contemporary.
Boone was a fabulous hunter and explorer, and a “white Indian,” perhaps happiest when he found a place as the captive, adopted son of a chief who was trying to prevent the white settlement of Kentucky. Hawley takes us intimately into the life-and-death survival of people pushing away from security and into Indian lands, despite sense and treaties, just before and into the War of Independence.
The love story between Boone and his wife, Rebecca, is rich and tangled, but mostly it’s Boone who fascinates, pushing into places where he imagines he can create a new “clean” world, only to find death and trouble and complication. He is a fabulous character, unrivaled in North American literature, and a prime candidate for the tall tale. The storytelling is taut and expert, the descriptions rich and powerful, the prose full of feeling, but Boone is what drives this outstanding debut.
PUBLISHERS WEEKLY
This historical fiction debut is a quiet, sweeping story about the life of mythic frontiersman Daniel Boone. Told entirely from the perspective of Boone himself, the book meanders through his early childhood, sharing formative moments such as his joy for the first gun he owned and his brother Isaiah teaching him to hunt, and his family's exile from their religious community in Exeter, N.H. From there, the reader follows Boone on his peripatetic adventures as he pushes westward, searching for paradise. Though Boone does marry and start a family, he can't be tied down and has a constant itch to carry on his search for heaven on earth. Adventure is both wondrous and tragic for Boone, who sees his first herd of buffalo and traverses the beautiful, untouched land of Kentucky but also has multiple run-ins with the Shawnee and grieves the deaths of loved ones. The narrative is carried by the strong, poetic voice, which at times is as hard to pin down as the man himself. Boone's ghosts of both people and places follow and haunt him despite his attempts to shake them off through almost constant exploration into the unknown. Hawley's marvelous book shines light on a figure that has become more legend than man, sharing an intimate and raw portrayal of Boone that rings true.