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{"id":2327,"date":"2020-11-08T10:45:40","date_gmt":"2020-11-08T10:45:40","guid":{"rendered":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=2327"},"modified":"2020-11-08T11:25:19","modified_gmt":"2020-11-08T11:25:19","slug":"lone-star-review-all-gods-children","status":"publish","type":"post","link":"https:\/\/lonestar.a1professionals.net\/?p=2327&lang=ar","title":{"rendered":"Lone Star Review: ALL GOD\u2019S CHILDREN"},"content":{"rendered":"

Review of new historical fiction<\/p>\n

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\u201cThis nation has no use for frail and fickle humans\u2014it desires only tales of heroes and villains.\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Duncan Lammons, a young man fleeing a swiftly escalating scandal, leaves Kentucky for Texas in 1827, having heard a presentation by a land man who made the Mexican state sound like \u201cEden before the fall.\u201d Duncan meets Noah Smithwick in New Orleans and they board the ship together, fetching up on Texas\u2019s shore at Matagorda Bay. Duncan, disgusted to find slavery in his new Eden and disappointed with the rough character of the settlements and the settlers, decides to keep moving, unattached to place and family, believing \u201cwe could still have the Texas we\u2019d left our homes to find. Even if we had to build it for ourselves.\u201d <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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In 1827, Cecelia is fifteen years old the first time she runs from her master\u2019s Virginia plantation; she doesn\u2019t get far. The second time, she is seventeen and caught just over the Pennsylvania line. Cecelia is sold, and she runs, sold again and still she runs, from Virginia to Mississippi to New Orleans. A young Texian named Sam Fisk sees Cecelia, manacled and chained, being marched across the square to the next auction block. Cecelia thinks Sam \u201cdidn\u2019t know the rules, or didn\u2019t care about the rules, or was making new rules of his own.\u201d Soon Sam and Cecelia are riding for Texas together. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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All God\u2019s Children: A Novel of the American West<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/a>,<\/span><\/span><\/em><\/strong><\/u><\/span> <\/em>Aaron Gwyn<\/span><\/span><\/strong><\/a>\u2019s third novel, is about human beings, Americans in all their terrible and transcendent individuality, bravely insisting upon pursuing happiness, expanding the meaning of that term in the philosophical, eighteenth-century Enlightenment sense. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Duncan and Cecelia are richly, distinctively drawn. Duncan leaves Kentucky for Texas, seeking an elusive freedom to live as one pleased, thinking that \u201cyou could leave America where the planters and plant-managers had everything locked down and laid out\u201d, not understanding that \u201cwhile you might\u2019ve thought you were living in America, all that time it was living in you.\u201d Cecelia learns early that \u201cother people [are] weak. Trusting them was weakness.\u201d But just like in the desert, individuals don\u2019t survive a frontier. <\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Chronological, parallel narratives, set in some of the most formative and transformative years of two young republics, eventually bring Duncan and Cecelia together, surrounded with the supporting cast they deserve. Gwyn provides complex backstories that inform his characters motivations and actions, though in the process he indulges in an unnecessarily lengthy exposition on the origins of Duncan\u2019s compatriots in his ranging company. This is the only falter in the otherwise quick, smooth, steady pacing.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Gwyn possesses a distinctive voice that is, nevertheless, a recognizably Western rhythm. He doesn\u2019t spare the reader Cecelia\u2019s lashing, neither does he spare us the hard truths of frontier expansion. His language is equal parts sophisticated imagery (\u201cThere was always a weakness. Finding it was like finding a lever: you could move something heavier than yourself\u201d), evocative simile (an infant \u201cgave off love like a stove did heat\u201d), and folksy (\u201cI wasn\u2019t born in the woods to be scared by an owl\u201d).<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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Dialogue is enriched with a smart, wholly unexpected humor that you will learn to look forward to with bright anticipation. It\u2019s a dry, subtle humor, and it will sneak up on you.<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n

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\u201cYou\u2019re a peculiar white man,\u201d [Cecelia] said. \u201cDid anyone ever tell you?\u201d<\/span><\/span><\/span><\/span><\/p>\n