Items related to Astraea
A tale of four generations of an oil-rich family trying to live out the century without drawing blood under the unblinking Texas sky. Hiram, the family's patriarch, is a rich sonofabitch who was loved by every woman he ever met - and some who only heard of him. Hiram is a teller of tales, a cowboy.
"synopsis" may belong to another edition of this title.
From the Inside Flap:
ck and smooth as oil." The San Francisco Review of Books
With his wild recklessness, his magic touch, and his rash ways, Hiram Jameson was a born wildcatter, staking his life and livelihood drilling for oil in unlikely places. But oil would twist Hiram and kill him, and take a price, finally, from his family -- the women who basked in his coppery brilliance, even when they were no longer blinded by the myth of his own creation. An unforgettable reading experience, alive with passion, dark with greed and desperation!
From Kirkus Reviews:
With his wild recklessness, his magic touch, and his rash ways, Hiram Jameson was a born wildcatter, staking his life and livelihood drilling for oil in unlikely places. But oil would twist Hiram and kill him, and take a price, finally, from his family -- the women who basked in his coppery brilliance, even when they were no longer blinded by the myth of his own creation. An unforgettable reading experience, alive with passion, dark with greed and desperation!
A feature writer for the San Francisco Chronicle debuts with a multigenerational Texas-set saga--partly realistic, partly fablelike--that centers on the energy and recklessness of Hiram, a wildcatter and larger-than-life figure. ``Texans are strange animals--huge as giants and angry as children.'' This sort of comment and others like it are delivered so flatly throughout that it's never quite clear how seriously Nix means for us to take them. Hiram is from a mythical family, and, surrounded by women, he carries on the tradition. In a landscape of alkali flats and oil rigs, he and the various branches of his family (and his wife's) are remembered by his granddaughter, who, she tell us, was 15 when he died. It's rumored that Hiram killed his mother, Lee, who ``sometimes when she looked at him...saw her own death.'' His first love is for Nakomas Sorrel, an Indian who brings an unborn child to his house. Meanwhile, the mother of his first wife, Anise, is simply known as Big Mother, and her husband as Big Joe. The story heats up and begins to take on some force and logic of its own when Hiram, sick, is nursed back to health by Big Mother; Anise returns from a year in New York City, where she'd gone to ``learn the things that writers needed to know.'' Hiram begins to wildcat for oil, and the rest of the narrative works out the complicated soap-opera details--Big Mother's death in 1976; Anise's cancer; Hiram's marriage to Francine, a preacher's widow; a financial struggle between Hiram and Drake (who married daughter Amelia), etc. Hiram lives long enough, at last, to appear on horseback in Ronald Reagan's inaugural parade. Dallas meets Twin Peaks. Nix overreaches, but, still, this is an ambitious entertainment for popular-fiction fans. -- Copyright ©1993, Kirkus Associates, LP. All rights reserved.
"About this title" may belong to another edition of this title.
- PublisherBallantine Books, Westminster, Maryland, U.S.A.
- Publication date1994
- ISBN 10 0712657274
- ISBN 13 9780712657273
- BindingPaperback
- Number of pages399
- Rating
Top Search Results from the AbeBooks Marketplace
Stock Image
Astraea: The Imperial Theme in the Sixteenth Century
Seller:
Rating
Book Description Soft cover. Condition: Good. No jacket. Covers rubbed, two small stickers on back from previous seller. Clean and unmarked inside. Seller Inventory # 1126643
Buy Used
US$ 18.00
Convert currency