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Summary
Summary
In the mid-1950s, America was flush with prosperity and saw an unbroken line of progress clear to the horizon, while the West was still very much wild. In this ambitious, incandescent debut, Malcolm Brooks animates that time and untamed landscape in a tale of the modern and the ancient, of love and fate, and of heritage threatened by progress.Catherine Lemay is a young archaeologist on her way to Montana with a huge task before her--a canyon "as deep as the devil's own appetites." Working ahead of a major dam project, she has one summer to prove that nothing of historical value will be lost in the flood. From the moment she arrives, nothing is familiar--the vastness of the canyon itself mocks the contained, artifact-rich digs in post-Blitz London where she cut her teeth. And then there's John H, a former mustanger and veteran of the US Army's last mounted cavalry campaign, living a fugitive life in the canyon. John H inspires Catherine to see beauty in the stark landscape, and her heart opens to more than just the vanished past.Painted Horses sends a dauntless young woman on a heroic quest, sings a love song to the horseman's vanishing way of life, and reminds us that love and ambition, tradition and the future, often make strange bedfellows. It establishes Malcolm Brooks as an extraordinary new talent.
Reviews (2)
Publisher's Weekly Review
Brooks's debut captures the grandeur of the American West. Catherine Lemay, a former pianist, goes to Montana in the 1950s as a young archeologist to survey a valley for signs of native habitation before the area is flooded by a hydroelectric project. Catherine fell in love with archeology while digging at Roman sites in Britain as a student, but now in the ruggedly masculine West, she almost immediately butts heads with her assigned guide, Jack Allen. She also falls under the spell of John H., an artist and lover of horses who leads a nomadic life in the badlands. Catherine's arduous search of the valley is contrasted for much of the novel with John H.'s harrowing life story. When the two meet, intrigue sparks respect, which eventually flares into passion. The middle of the novel bogs down with lavish description ("The tilt of the planet had outrun the legs of winter and dawn climbed early now over the wide lip of the world"), and the third act, in which Catherine's findings threaten the balance of money and power in the community, follows a predicable course. But on the whole, this is a debut that captures a spirit of a place. (Aug.) (c) Copyright PWxyz, LLC. All rights reserved.
Library Journal Review
Brooks's wonderful debut novel is set in the modernizing Montana of the 1950s. Catherine, a passionate yet sheltered young archaeologist, is sent west by a power company to investigate a canyon before it is destroyed to make a dam. John, a gruff yet sensitive cowboy, leads her to ruins that the two eventual lovers must fight the power company to preserve. Much of the story is told in flashbacks to Catherine's break with her strict upbringing to pursue archaeology or John's horseback Nazi hunting during World War II. Stirring descriptions of horses and Western landscapes echo the characters' preservationist motives. Julia Whelan portrays the many characters of the novel deeply and distinctly. VERDICT Recommended for fans of Westerns, archaeology, historical romances, or horse epics.-Mark Swails, Johnson Cty. Community Coll., Overland Park, KS (c) Copyright 2015. Library Journals LLC, a wholly owned subsidiary of Media Source, Inc. No redistribution permitted.