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News of the World: an exquisite, morally challenging Western

by eapearce

News of the World, the brand new novel by Paulette Jiles, is a riveting, complex story of the Old West that features two unlikely characters. In the aftermath of the Civil War, Captain Jefferson Kyle Kidd travels across North Texas reading the news to paying audiences hungry for news of the end of the war and the world in general. He enjoys his itinerant, solitary existence, and is torn when he’s offered $50 in Wichita Falls to deliver a young orphan to her relatives in San Antonio. The ten-year-old girl was kidnapped by a band of Kiowa raiders when she was just four years old. Although they killed the rest of her family, they spared the little girl and raised her as one of their own. Now, being torn away from the only “family” she remembers and having forgotten the English language entirely, Joanna presents a unique challenge to Captain Kidd. As the two embark on a 400-mile journey south to San Antonio, the two lonely survivors—both used to only themselves for company—gradually develop trust in one another. And when they reach San Antonio and realize that the “relatives” Joanna is to be delivered to are a cruel aunt and uncle who want nothing to do with her, both the Captain and the young girl have a terrible choice to make.

News of the World is a beautifully written story that asks readers tough moral questions and goes far beyond the scope of a typical Western. This is a great read even for those who do not typically read historical fiction.

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