Turpentine: A Novel - Softcover

Warren, Spring

Softcover

ISBN 10: 0802170366 ISBN 13: 9780802170361

Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat, 2007

Synopsis

A comic glance at the old American West and a serious story about transformation and redemption, Turpentine is a bold, inventive novel about a young man’s attempt to make sense of the past while unsteadily growing into adulthood. In 1871, Edward Turrentine Bayard III, sick and restless, leaves his Connecticut home to recover out west. But when the private sanitarium in which he is to stay proves to be nothing more than a rickety outpost on the Nebraskan plains, he becomes a buffalo skinner. After returning to the East, Ned teams up with Phaegin, who earns her money rolling cigars, and Curly, a fourteen-year-old coal miner, but the newfound trio is wrongly accused of triggering a bomb at a labor rally, and they must flee. With a Pinkerton agent following their every move, the gang of winsome ne’er-do-wells takes flight on a circuitous escape through northern outposts into Indian country, past the slums of Chicago, and into the boundless Great Plains. En route they become witness to the transformation and growing pains of a burgeoning nation. A picaresque novel of wonderful energy and unforgettable characters, Turpentine is a comic, prescient look at the growth of an individual and a country.

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Reviews

This highly episodic picaresque manages to outlast a generic, disorganized plot to emerge as an entertaining romp through the American 1870s. For the most part, Warren's debut follows the youthful adventures of Edward Turrentine Bayard III, who has left his upper-class Connecticut family and headed to frontier Nebraska for his health. In short order, he becomes a buffalo skinner, learns to ride and shoot, and is smitten by the beautiful and poetic Lill Martine. She has other ideas, and Ned, crestfallen but undaunted in his devotion, takes a job offer from a paleontologist back East. There, he meets Phaegin, an attractive, streetwise dance hall girl, and more or less adopts a juvenile delinquent named Curly. Curly's mischief soon has the trio accused of anarchy, theft and murder, and they flee across the continent for their lives. A series of improbable coincidences and misadventures follow, involving wealthy entrepreneurs, Mormons, Indians and a variety of rustic frontier types. There's no shortage of sudden death and grim gore, all of which remains comically on the surface. Characters come and go, often violently. But astonishingly, the sweetness of the story keeps it afloat. (Sept.)
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This is the first novel by Warren, a painter and furniture maker. It is a sweeping saga of the western frontier in the 1870s, filled with colorful characters, stark and sometimes vibrant images, and violent but sometimes absurd situations. At the center of the narrative is Edward Turrentine Bayard III ("Turpentine"). As a young, tubercular easterner, he is sent to a Nebraska sanitarium to heal his lungs. Instead, through a series of mishaps and coincidences, he is launched on a cross-country odyssey. On his travels he encounters a cigar maker, a young coal miner, and lesser characters, some of whom seem derived from central casting. Turpentine is certainly an endearing literary creation, combining the wide-eyed innocence and crafty survivor's instincts of a Huck Finn. He and his companions witness labor strife, blood-and-guts buffalo hunts, and a host of travails and sometimes barely credible adventures. Although her story line occasionally gets jumbled and confusing, Warren knows how to spin a tale. There is considerable excitement, humor, and occasionally pathos in this enjoyable debut. Freeman, Jay

Edition details

• Publisher: Grove Press, Black Cat
• Publication date: 2007
• Language: English
• ISBN 10: 0802170366
• ISBN 13: 9780802170361
• Binding: Paperback
• Number of pages: 432