The Night Journal - Hardcover

Crook, Elizabeth

Hardcover

ISBN 10: 0670034770 ISBN 13: 9780670034772

Publisher: Viking Adult, 2006

Synopsis

Feeling oppressed by the romantic accounts of her famous family's history, Meg, the great-granddaughter of a southwestern frontierswoman, reluctantly accompanies her sharp-tongued grandmother to a family property that is being excavated and makes a discovery that challenges the authenticity of revered stories. 40,000 first printing.

About this title

About the Author:

Elizabeth Crook is the author of two previous novels and has been published in anthologies and periodicals such as Texas Monthly and Southwestern Historical Quarterly. She has devoted most of the last decade to researching and writing this book.

From Publishers Weekly:

At age 37, Meg Mabry, a single, overworked medical engineer, still hasn't found her place in the world, a predicament due in part to her rejection of her heritage. She's the great-granddaughter of Hannah Bass, a woman whose journals about frontier life in New Mexico (dating 1891 to 1902) have become famous thanks to Meg's grandmother Claudia Bass (Bassie), a historian who built her career promoting the diaries. But Meg resents the domineering Bassie (who raised her) and refuses to read the journals, acoping strategy Crook doesn't make entirely credible. Meg finally delves into Hannah's story when she reluctantly accompanies her grandmother from Austin, Tex., to Pecos, N. Mex. There, a discovery at the burial site of Hannah's dogs calls into question the veracity of Bassie's life work. Meg, meanwhile, falls for archeologist Jim Layton and embarks on a journey into her family's past that will confront her with some difficult truths about herself. Excerpts from the journals punctuate the layered but sometimes unconvincingly plotted narrative, and the historical detail depicts the uneasy late 19th-century melding of Anglo, Native American and Mexican cultures. Crook's third novel (after Promised Lands) blends mystery, chick-lit–style romance and historical fiction for a glimpse of the current and past American West. (Feb. 6)
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About this edition

• Publisher: Viking Adult
• Publication date: 2006
• ISBN 10: 0670034770
• ISBN 13: 9780670034772
• Binding: Hardcover
• Edition number: 1
• Number of pages: 464