News of the World: A Novel
By: Paulette Jiles / Narrated By: Grover Gardner
Length: 5 hrs and 58 mins
Apparently Grover Gardner makes this a better audiobook than a book!
And I’m sooo totally glad I’m a listener of audiobooks and have left reading print by the wayside—cuz MANY a reviewer of this book reeeeally groused about there being no quotation marks used in print.
Now is that dePLORable, or what? I would’ve found that irritating in the extreme, would’ve knocked a star or two off my rating for the author’s being needlessly “artistic”, and would’ve just been frustrated from the get-go.
Fear not, fellow Accomplice: This is an audiobook, and veteran performer Grover Gardner is the man in charge. Now I admit that in his longer nonfiction works, the man can make my eyelids droop, but this is the second fiction work (The first being The Stand) that I’ve had the pleasure of hearing. Whereas his rather nasal tones could turn a recitation of facts in nonfiction into swoon-worthy yawning, here in News of the World, those nasal twangs capture, in near pitch-perfection, our main characters and all the characters they run into as they navigate a trip to post-Civil War Texas.
Captain Kidd is in his early 70s, and tho’ he likes his self-appointed role as bringer of the news of the world to far-flung communities lacking many newspapers, he’s gotta admit that his life is rather at a standstill, rather dull, he’s rather in the doldrums. Enter a $50 gold piece and a job to return a 10-year old Johanna, a captive of the Kiowa these last four years, to her remaining family in San Antonio. The scrappy thing makes and holds eye contact in such a frank and direct way, she’s struggling and wants to go back tho’ the Kiowa will not take her back (Lest they suffer consequences for keeping whites in their communities). Basically, Kidd is taken with the job, and is even more taken by that gold piece.
And so we have this book which is basically a 2-character show with some other colorful characters and some major villains thrown in. There’s no gray in this book, however, so I was a tad disappointed that all the good characters had hearts o’ gold, and all the bad characters were unrepentantly wicked—it kinda detracted from the story, knowing how each scrape and bout of action would end up. Further, the traumatized girl seems to go from wanting to break free to trusting really, really quickly (As tho’ she heard the one female character who likens her situation to having to wake up to many lives after sudden endings).
That said, I did so enjoy the crusty war hero, Kidd, as he contemplates all that is new and has changed in his life. And tho’ I bought the original version (Another was released here in 2020) without reading the Publisher’s Summary but relying on Paulette Jiles being a noteworthy author, this time, before listening to the story, I did read the dadgum thing. And it made it sound as though there’d be trials and tribulations then a choice to be made then much more story based on consequences of that choice.
Uhm… nooooo…
The choice is made at the verrrrry end of the book, so that Summary came as sort of a spoiler about the heart and mind of our hero, Captain Kidd. Choice made? And all follows slapdash, one thing after another, until we get to a final scene many, many years after the whole of the story has taken place. It’s a tearjerker, to be sure—it’s just that I was totally looking forward to hearing about consequences of dire actions instead of said dire action to take place ho-hum, tra lala lala. So booooo for that…!
But huzzah for everything else, especially to Gardner for making this an awesome Listen, bringing out each character and handling both zippy and ponderous dialogue with panache (So that one doesn’t neeeeed those missing quotation marks!). There’s plenty of info given to guns of the era and to how they were managed (Which kinda sorta shouted: Author did PLENTY of RESEARCH!), but I didn’t fall asleep for all that as Gardner kept me wide awake for the gun fights that used said firearms. He brought warmth, action, heroes and villains to life, and I’m plenty keen to hear another work of fiction by him sometime soon (Though I must admit that I’m not especially hot to dive into any of his nonfiction in the near future, so HA!).
This wasn’t quite 6-hours long (But I see the new 2020 release is over 6-hours; dunno what all I’m missing as this even has an afterword…?), but it was such a lively little jaunt with two fine characters and good development of plot, characters, with a fine amount of action thrown in.
Must say that I really, really liked this little gem. But all honesty here? I’m glad I got it cheap via the earlier kindle/whispersync deal.
Not because it’s not worth a credit; nooooo, more cuz I’m a total cheapskate.
So there’s that.
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